03/05/10

Here is the "Sword Gate." It is nicely named that because in the middle is a sword! (Check out the second picture to see that.)
Do you know the difference between cast iron and wrought iron? I didn't really pay attention to that before this trip. Wrought iron is where the craftsman beats and forms the metal into the desired design. Cast iron is where they pour the liquid iron into a mold. I enjoyed learning that little tidbit!
Today at school I read about George Eastman, the founder of Kodak cameras, for my "Famous American Friday." I began to talk with the kids about how he figured out a way to turn the glass plates that used to be used in photography into the film that we know of today. I asked the kids how many have ever seen film/a negative. I only had around 4 kids raise their hands!! I'll be taking in some old film and negatives so they can see what that was like. We are so used to the digital instant gratification mode now that our kids haven't experienced those things.

Speaking on instant gratification....

While I do love my digital camera and all of the things that give us instant gratification, I also know what life was like before that and can appreciate it more. Today our kids have instant gratification in every arena of their life. It causes me to wonder.... are we seeing that instant gratification taught in kids is making them turn into adults who expect everything immediately and learn no patience? If we look at society, I think that is exactly what it is telling us.

I have seen that type of attitude/behavior grow in my years of teaching. Kids today want to be entertained and, honestly, they have a lack of creativity because they have everything at their fingertips. One teacher recently told me she asked her students who had computers, TV's, and video games in their rooms and TV's in their vehicles and a lot of the kids raised their hands!! (Wesley and Mikayla do not, as I am sure you all know. I want them outside or even inside using imaginations rather than having the thinking done for them!) Is it any wonder that most days I feel like I have to put on a show to even be heard or to get across a concept I am teaching? (No wonder I am so exhausted when I get home. lol)

I think we need to get back to some of the basics of NO instant gratification with our children to teach them patience and that everything isn't going to appear when they think it should. In fact, if we don't teach them that, how will they ever learn to wait on the Lord? His timing is not our timing. He is not in the business of "instant gratification."

Those times of waiting are the times that draw us closer to the One Who made us. If our children don't see that they can never fully realize that life isn't all about them - it is about the Lord. Here are just a few of the verses I found that tell us to WAIT on the Lord....

Psalm 37:7a
Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him:

Psalm 27:14
Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord.

Psalm 33:20
Our soul waiteth for the Lord: he is our help and our shield.

Lamentations 3:26
The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.