Dad, when I meet you in Heaven, you must tell me about it!

Dad, I want to know so bad how you encounter with Jesus was! What did He say to you, how did He receive you, what did He do? Did you recognize Him at first glance, or did you know it was Him because He ran to you, or perhaps you recognized Him because you felt an overwhelming love, the one we told to you so much, and perhaps you thought: "He, for sure, got to be Jesus!" When I meet you in Heaven, you must tell me about it!

I want to know, dad, how Jesus wiped away your tears. Did He do it with His hands, did he have a handkerchief, or maybe He dried them off with His clothes while He hugged you? What were you thinking at that moment? "Oh, I'm getting Jesus' clothes dirty with my tears and mucus. What a shame!" Or perhaps that kind of shame He also took away on the cross! Perhaps there is not even snots in Heaven! Maybe there are snots in Heaven, but Jesus didn't care about it because for Him, even though you were almost 94 years old, you are still His baby! When I meet you in Heaven, you must tell me about it!

I want know why you were crying! I don't ask if you cried or not when you met Jesus because I'm sure of that. Was His overwhelming presence full of love which here on earth makes us cry, and you have felt it there for the first time? Was it because you felt how every drop of condemnation left your being? Maybe you don't know why and you didn't even mind asking because you just wanted to enjoy that moment. I've never seen you cried (my mom has), and much less crying as a child. What a moving scene! Imagining it makes me cry! I hope somebody recorded it! =) When I meet you in Heaven, you must tell me about it!

How does feel to feel NOTHING bad? How does it feel to feel no more condemnation or guilt of any kind? What does it feel like to have no regrets about anything whatsoever? How does it feel to have NO sadness, NO anger, NO anguish, No worry? How does it feel to not have any physical pain at all? What did you feel when all of that left your being? Was it gradual or instantaneous? And, were you being filled at the same time with that fullness of joy that exists in His presence, which here on earth we can enjoy in part, but there in Heaven we can only imagine what it will be like! When I meet you in Heaven, you must tell me about it!

Dad, do you miss? Do you miss me? Do you miss mom, my siblings, friends, loved ones? Do you miss the house? Do you miss work? Do you miss the park? Is there such a feeling over there in Heaven, or even the feeling of missing someone cannot dwell next His presence? When I meet you in Heaven, you must tell me about it!

How does it feel to be reunited with with your loved ones that here on earth you said good bye to? What did you feel when you saw my meemaw Delia, your dad, the uncles, aunts, relatives and friends who got there before you? The Bible says that we'll have new bodies, so I wonder, did you recognize them, did they recognize you, did Jesus help you with that, or were there angels commissioned for that job? When I meet you in Heaven, you must tell me about it!

When I meet you in Heaven, will you recognize me? Will you be waiting for me at the side of Jesus?

I love you dad.

The Honor to be a Parent

Something we can highlight in the chapter 5 of Genesis is that, for God, the most important and transcendent thing in the life of every man mentioned there is the children they had. Realize that their achievements, victories and feats are not mentioned, only the fact that they had children.

Dr Edwin Loius Cole taught that this modern society honor, recognize and value achievements and titles: "the great and award-winning doctor in medicine with Phd in such prestigious university", "the recognized scientist with 5 different specialities discoverer of this radioactive substance", "this sport record breaker 8 times world winner", etc., but it doesn't honor, recognize nor value a good father.

Sadly, we invest a lot of time and energy to build a great name so we can be recognized and remembered for generations, but we don't give the due importance to the great privilege we have to be fathers or mothers.

How many of us remember our great great grandfather's name? I think just a few of us. How about our great great great great great grandfather's name? I think none of us. Why do we think, then, that we will be remembered? Why that stubbornness of magnifying our name when the only ones we should be great for is our sons and daughters?

The only name we should magnify is Jesus. If we do that, He will make our name great (Genesis 12:1-3), but even in that, do not get too excited, because it won't be forever. Besides, when Jesus magnifies your name isn't for the sake to make you known and that you may be gloried, but for making Him known and that He may be glorified.

Don't work for being recognized by society, but by your kids. Do not work to be great for society, but only for your kids.

To be great for your kids isn't hard: Spend time with them, listen to them, play with them, get interested in what they are interested in, know them. The only difficult part of this is that we have to put our selfishness aside, that desire to be highlighted over others, but its reward goes much beyond of that ephemeral satisfaction of receiving praises from others, because what you'll feel is the filling with the sense of permanent satisfaction, that sense for having accomplished your most important task entrusted by your heavenly Father Himself: to be His reflection before His son or daughter, because, after all, they never were ours, they just passed by us.

Don't you know how to be a good father or mother? Your heavenly Father does. He is more interested in helping you than yourself, because He loves your children more than you ever will, He know them before you do and better than you. Let yourself to be loved by Him, let yourself to be filled with His love, His words and His embrace, because remember, more than being father or mother, you're His child. That will be the best way to learn to be a good father or mother.

Hope this may helped you!

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For more good teachings for parents take a look to this link: Enseñanzas para Padres (Teaching for Parents). The teachings are in English and Spanish ;-)

"Are you crying just for that?!" - An advice for parents

How many of us, parents, have ever told our kids: "You cry just for that!"? Big mistake! Do you know what we're actually telling them? We're telling them: "The reason you're crying for is nonsense", and worse: "what is important to you isn't to me".

If you've been telling that to your kids, this is what you have to do:
- Tell them you are sorry for doing that. Tell them: "Son/daughter, forgive me because so many times I looked down on what is important to you".
- Promise them that you'll try to change. Tell them: "I promise you to consider as much important the things you tell me as they are to you".
- Ask for help to your heavenly Father to change that as soon as possible.

As parents of little children, we are in danger that if we don't change, they will grow with the idea that their problems aren't important, that they shouldn't bother us with their nonsense, that they aren't as much important as us, and consequently, they'll unconsciously seek to feel important in other places and ways, and many times it'll be with people that will demand from them something in return.

How does our good and loving heavenly Father treat us? Have you ever read in His Word something that says or suggest that what is important to us isn't important for Him? Have you ever felt looked down by Him? Have you ever felt when you cried out to Him for help that He says to you: "Are you crying just for that! Seriously?"?

On the contrary, He cries when we cry, He gets happy when we get happy, He is familiar with our pain, and in His Word says that He has even numbered the hair of our head (Matthew 10:30), and if He pays attention to that, something that isn't important, how much more attention will He pay to something that it is actually important to us, to what makes us cry, to what keep us awake at night! So, when we go to Him burdened by something, He will NEVER tell us: ""Are you crying for that! Seriously?", but He'll hug us, comfort us and guide us by the hand to the answer that He'd already prepared.

If there is somebody authorized to despised any of our issues, that'd be God, because for Him there is nothing impossible. But our Father, far from doing that, understands us perfectly.

So then, if you've been despising your children's problems, run to your heavenly Father, because He won't condemn you for doing that, but hug you, comfort you and guide you by the hand to the solution that He'd already prepared.

Hope it helps!

Gadol's Nugget: His children's free will

One of the characteristics of Gadol, the main character of my book, was his over concern about his children. He was convinced that they'd want to serve God thanks to the perfect testimony he thought he had before them (actually, before everybody!), that's why it was a surprise for him that they, being adults already, told them that they didn't want to serve God.

Being concerned about what would be of them away from God, he decided to take responsibility of their spiritual lives. They, in order to not make a division in their family, were agree to his idea, but obviously, since no one can approach God by force, manipulated or by being deceived, Gadol's idea didn't work.

Where was Gadol mistaken? He didn't respect his children's free will. He didn't let God to work in them, but on the contrary, by meddling in their decisions, Gadol interrupted what God was doing in them.

Advice:
If you have children, YOU CAN NOT OBLIGATE THEM TO SERVE GOD. You just can, by your example, make them want to do it.
Until certain age, you can "obligate" them to go to church, but you have to have discernment to know when you have to stop obligating them (just in case, that age is normally 12, 13 o 14 year old more or less -  if he/she is 35 years old and you're still obligating him/her, you need counseling! 😀).
The best way will always be your own testimony. The fact that they see you happy, carefree, that when you run to God they see you come out different, that you changed many bad things in you, are things that your children will see in spite of their age, and that will make them want to serve the same God you serve.

When my boys went through a hard time at school

When my Juan Esteban started the first grade, there were a few boys that bothered him. It's hard when your son tells you that he doesn't want to go to school anymore, and then you find out that other kids were bothering him because he was skinny. The same happened to my Juan Pablo, but in his case kids bothered him because he was a little chubby. Other than talking to his parents and teachers, what else to do?

My wife and I prayed for our Heavenly Father's guidance so we may know what to do, and we felt that we should talk to them about their identity, and also that they should know that, unless in that age, kids don't do that with malice.

About their identity.
We told them that they aren't what other people say, but what their Father says, that He was the One that created them so He is the only One with the right of saying what they are, what they can do and what they have. We told them that they're sons of the Most High, that He loves them, that He will never leave them, and that they can claim to Him and He will answer them.

Kids don't do that with malice.
When they when through this, they were 6 years old. Our Heavenly Father made us understand that those kids didn't do it with malice, but they just copied it from somewhere else: family, TV, other kids, etc. So, we asked our boys: "Do you guys want your friends to feel bad because of you joke around with them, or you just do it for fun?" They answer: "We joke around with them just for fun, we don't want them to feel bad". Then we said to them that it is exactly the same when they joke around with you. And then, we added: "If it's a joke, then just laugh! Do not take those joke so serious! Laugh at yourself!"

Thank God that we know they took those words because we saw the results!

If you are going through something similar with your kids, do not react in your own strength, but rather seek your Heavenly Father's counsel!, because He'll give you the guide you need to overcome that situation.

I hope this helped you!