Greenhouse Parenting

<p>Good morning, Five Minute Families. It will be the beginning of garden season soon. Spring has begun. New seasons, new plants, new development. Is your family ready to enter into a new season of growth?</p><p>On Friday, I was at a women’s conference, and one of the other exhibitors was Josh MacLeod of Instruments of Joy. As he and my mother discussed theological issues, he shared the analogy of the acorn. An acorn planted does not grow immediately. It can take up to three years of all the right environmental components for the acorn to turn into a maturing tree, yet that tree will not produce more acorns until it is approximately 20 years old. Those early years are vital to get the seed to sprout, the sprout to root, and the root to establish well into the ground water. Yet, we do not want the roots to stay at the surface. The roots must grow down deep to reach into the water table, to establish strength for the storms that the exposed parts of the tree WILL experience. </p><p>Jeremiah 17:8 He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.</p><p>Psalm 1:3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.</p><p>The acorn analogy and previous verses remind us of the concept we heard of years ago called greenhouse parenting. The Sayler family - a former homeschool family with five adult children - used that expression for illustrative purposes of their parenting style. In greenhouse seedlings, they are only kept in the protective shield of the greenhouse and its ideal environment as needed. The plants are still exposed to the necessary elements to give them further strength, and when the use of the greenhouse and natural environment have been used effectively, then the plants emerging permanently from the greenhouse are able to withstand the elements.