I think we all know the story of Sleeping Beauty. Princess Aurora was cursed as a baby by a vindictive sorceress that she would prick her finger on a spindle at the age of 16 and die. Then the fairies changed the curse that she wouldn’t die, but fall asleep until her prince would wake her with true love’s kiss. If they could counter the curse, why couldn’t they find a way to get rid of it? I derail and will leave that topic for a different time.
Continuing on, out of fear for their daughter, they burned all the spindles in the kingdom and then sent their daughter away to the woods in order to try and protect her.
But all this was futile because on her 16th birthday, she came back to the palace, found a random spindle that missed the purge, pricked her finger and fell into a deep sleep until her prince could come.
Now, as a parent myself, I can completely understand wanting to protect your child as much as possible. You want to shield them from any harm possible. But that’s impossible. You can’t shield them from everything. You can’t prevent bad things from happening as much as you try. But what you can do is talk to your kids. Take time to train them up. One of my favorite parenting Bible verses is,
Train a child up in the way they should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.
Proverbs 22:6
This is not saying that they won’t go their own way or make their own mistakes. It’s saying they will never forget what your taught them.
So with this, had the King and Queen sat down with Aurora and told her what Maleficent did, and prepared her for what could happen, could the outcome have been different? Quite possibly. And even more importantly, Aurora wouldn’t have been deprived from growing up with her parents. Because of their fear, her parents had sent her to be raised by fairies rather than them.
That part breaks my heart. Out of fear that their daughter would be pricked by a spindle, not only do they never warn her of the dangers of the curse and the spindle, but they didn’t even get the privilege of watching their daughter grow up.
We need to take time to talk to our children. We need to raise them. So often in this culture it seems the kids are trying to raise the parents. Or the parents are sheltering their kids out of fear of the dangers around them rather than teaching them how to handle it.
Let’s not just say, “Because I said so.” Honestly, did that ever work when your parents said it to you? Or were you like me and wanted to know why, not just obey.
Sit down and talk things through with your kids in a way that they will understand and then pray. A LOT. They may still take the wrong path, they may still think they know best, they may act like they don’t listen to you, but in the end, they will never forget all that you taught them.
angelaschmeling 