We had one of those weekends that will be remembered for years to come. It was one of those where emotions were high and electric. I had tears ready to spill over at any second. I was hot, and I was burning up. And it wasn't related to the weather either.
It was more or less a parent-failed moment, but I'll tuck it under a teaching moment to make myself feel better.☺ Without going into the details and bringing attention to anyone in my family besides myself, it was one of those moments where I asked, what did I do wrong? What did I miss? Where did I mess up? How could I have parented better?
After several minutes of evaluating my parenting skills and the situations at hand, I prayed and asked Abba Father for wisdom and direction; He gave me an image. He revealed a protractor and the degrees of separation between each line. He showed me how one degree makes a big difference even though it's a tiny measurement, almost unnoticeable. He revealed how it might not be a big deal initially when we make bad choices, but the one degree adds up over time.
For example, I found the following online:
If you're going somewhere and you're off course by just one degree, after one foot, you'll miss your target by 0.2 inches. Trivial, right? But what about as you get farther out?
After 100 yards, you'll be off by 5.2 feet. Not huge, but noticeable.
After a mile, you'll be off by 92.2 feet. One degree is starting to make a difference.
After traveling from San Francisco to L.A., you'll be off by 6 miles.
If you were trying to get from San Francisco to Washington, D.C., you'd end up on the other side of Baltimore, 42.6 miles away.
Traveling around the globe from Washington, DC, you'd miss by 435 miles and end up in Boston.
As parents, we have to be vigilant in how we raise our children as adults. One degree away from His truths can lead to grievous outcomes. With the way culture is hitting our children from every angle, we cannot parent on autopilot but we need to be proactive in every area of their lives.
"Train up a child in the way he should go;
even when he is old he will not depart from it." ~Proverbs 22:6
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