Enoch. There’s a name you don’t hear very often. Today I’m going to talk about Enoch’s life after he had kids. But before I do, I’m going to share my story.
MY STORY
I used to be a broken little girl. I lived in a family that was plagued with drugs and alcohol and my dad abused our family in every way he could abuse our family. My mom was a typical codependent and we the kids, were the bystanders. We were like little computer chips that soaked up everything that we saw.
This graduated into my adult life. It didn’t happen overnight, but it was a slow fade. I really did want to do things in life and had dreams. But when you make a little exception, and then another little exception, it’s a gradual fade into a life that you don’t even realize is happening to you.
In my 20’s, I had two beautiful little girls. I just knew that if I did it the right way, that they would never see the same person that I saw in my dad. So, I actually had mirrors set up through my house and it was like a periscope. I could see all the way down the hall and I could see when my kids were coming. I didn’t want them to see that I was wearing a different hat. I was actually wearing a party hat in one room and a mommy hat in the other. I never wanted them to have that fear and anxiety that I had as a little girl.
I was in my kitchen, and I had my party hat on. My mommy hat has been left in the other room. I would smoke my cigarette, or my joint and I would put it in this candy dish. I’d put the lid on it, so that the smoke wouldn’t rise in the room and I had a fan blowing it out the window.
But I didn’t realize that our daughter, who was about 16 months at the time, had come toddling into the room. Her little fingers touched the counter and she pulled her little chin up, and she saw all my paraphernalia. She didn’t know what that was, but I knew what that was. And as she looked at that, and then she looked at me and she looked at that again, her eyes were filled with horror. Not because of what she saw, but because of what she saw in my eyes.
I was horrified that my child would see the other side of me that I never, ever wanted her grow up to be. That look of horror on my child’s face reminded me of the same feelings that I had gone through.
It’s very interesting that we become like our parents. You wouldn’t think that when you are a child and you see your parents do those things, that you would ever become anything like that. What we do in moderation, our kids will do in excess, good or bad. They develop traits because it’s modeled in front of them.
UNDERSTANDING ENOCH
Genesis 5:21 “When Enoch had lived 65 years, he fathered Methuselah. Enoch walked with God after he fathered Methuselah 300 years and had other sons and daughters.”
Something happens when you have kids. It’s not just about you anymore, it’s about somebody else. You are actually in charge of raising a child. We have a very beautiful responsibility that we get to raise our children to be God seekers. Or they don’t become God seekers. We have eternal souls, and our kids either end up in Heaven, or they end up in Hell. And that’s the truth, that’s a hard thing to grab ahold of.
Kids change our perspective. If you want your child to grow up to be a God seeker, they actually have to see that modeled in front of them. If you want to see them have an easier life, because it’s not plagued with all the things that you can’t stand about your own life, then model how to come out of that. Your children will watch.
At Finding the Family, we help teach parents how to be a role model to their children so their children can grow up to be God seekers and not live a life plagued with drugs and alcohol.