We were taken out by another couple from Johnny's company with a few other couples. We went to this cute little restaurant right next to our amazing, gigantic, beautiful hotel, the Omni Mount Washington Hotel.
Our dinner started off with some wine. I am not a big fan of wine, but I asked for some white just because it felt appropriate at a place like this. We got to order some amazing meals from a menu that had things like Ox Tail Soup and Pickled Beef Tongue on the menu. Yup, it was THAT fancy! I ended up getting a pork chop served on warm apple sauce, a side of butternut squash, and some delicious sweet potato frittata. It was absolutely amazing!
It felt really weird sitting at a table with people twice my age, drinking wine, and eating this fancy food. I felt like I was pretending to be a rich grown up! Haha!
We had some wonderful conversations while eating our fancy food. There was this man named Ron, and he told us some stories about raising his two children. He shared with us some very good advice that I will be sure to follow.
First, he shared his christian faith with the whole table of people which I thought was bold of him. Then he went on to give us all some advice. He shared with us two tips that are sure to help us raise our children in the right way, because minutes before I had shared that some days I feel like I'm the best mom in the world, and other days I really don't know what I'm doing.
His first tip was this: pray with your children. He shared that he started praying with his son every day before school when he was in high school. This changed things drastically for his kid, because he started to do better on his tests and just better overall in school, and ended up graduating an A student!
His second tip was this: read the Word to your children. He shared that when his daughter was in high school, she always had some sort of drama going on in her life. She would come home and tell her dad all about it, and he would try and give her good advice. But if you know a teenage girl, they don't want advice, they just want someone to listen to them vent! So one day she came home from school and started talking about the latest stuff going on at school, and this guy Ron immediately said, "Honey, lets sit down and read the Bible and see what God says about this situation.". So they sat down, searched topics that related to her situation in the concordance, and read the Bible. He said this situation was so different than the other ones, because she was actually open to hearing what God wanted her to do.
Ron went on to share that its so important to follow these steps, because you always have to leave your children with something bigger than yourself...God. He said that if you fall down alone, there will be no one to pick you back up. But if you fall down with God, you are never alone and He will always pick you back up. That is the most important thing that you can teach your children. You may not know what you are doing some days, but as long as you put those two steps into practice, you will always have God to fall back on, who is bigger than yourself.
This was such an important conversation for me to listen to, because it encouraged me to put these two steps as my first priority. You always wonder what you can do to be a better parent, what you are doing right, what you are doing wrong, and you just always feel like you should be doing more. But this reminded me that I need to teach Sara about Jesus, and pray with her and for her, and read her the truth of the Bible, and the rest is just details. As long as I am taking those steps, the rest is in God's hands. That is the most important thing I will ever be able to teach her.
So anyways, I just had such a fabulous night eating fancy food and having amazing conversations with some really really great people, and I wanted to write about it so I wouldn't forget. I am so thankful to be on this vacation, I am so thankful for my husband and daughter, and I am so thankful for my wonderful God. I am so blessed. This vacation in New Hampshire has been so amazing, and I just can't wait to look at all my pictures and make a shutterfly book with them, and tell my family all about it. This is the kind of trip we were planning on taking later in our lives, but we are so happy that we got to experience it now.
God is so good isn't He?! Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteAwesome!!!
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