Children's Day

Find ways to show and tell your children how special and how loved they are as blessings in your life.

In May we had Mother's Day to show honor to our mothers. In June we had Father's Day to give them respect and honor. But what about our children? If we are moms and dads that must mean that we have children. What about them? Don't they deserve some respect too?

When we were first married, my wife and I decided to wait a year before trying to have children. Well, we waited and waited and waited. No children. There were many tearful moments when we thought my wife had conceived, only to be disappointed. We prayed and tried different methods to no avail. Four years went by. No children. We were beginning to think we would be a childless couple for the remainder of our married life.

Our prayers to God were eventually answered and my wife conceived. Nine months later we were blessed with a bouncing baby girl whom we named Janice. Fifteen months later we had a second daughter—Susan. We were well blessed with not one, but two precious children. Because we wanted children for four years, we tried to treat our children as special blessings from God (Psalm 127:3) which they are.

We decided to have Children's Day in July to show them how special they were to us. We believed that treating them special would make it easier to return the respect and love to us. So, we set aside the second or third Sunday in July as Children's Day.

We would do special things with them on that day—miniature golf, a trip to the beach, or a major league baseball game or a nice restaurant for lunch or dinner. We would try to give them a gift also to let them know they were loved and appreciated by us. We have kept this up since its inception for nearly 40 years.

While you may not choose to set aside your own "Children's Day", I hope this will encourage you to think of ways to show and tell your children how special and how loved they are as blessings in your life.

For GN Magazine, I'm Gary Antion.