YOU’VE GOT TO DO YOUR OWN GROWING

"Thu d 'fhuair thu fhèin a' fàs, ge bith dè cho àrd 'S e bhur n-athair"

That’s a Gaelic proverb, translated

“You’ve got to do your own growing, no matter how tall your father is.”

Scripture offers the metaphor of a vine and its branches. God is our vinegrower and we branch out through His Son from His life, His Word, His goodness. That’s what He means when He tells us “Abide in Me.”

In our homes, our parents were like our family vine, and they taught us values and nurtured our faith. But we are each individuals who take the blessings God gives us and go out and make a difference in the world. That’s what this Irish proverb means:

“You’ve got to do your own growing, no matter how tall your father is.”

How many times in our adult lives have we found ourselves blaming our parents for our own mistakes? Certainly, the early years of nurturing affect our daily lives, but the well-worn paths we tread often spring from routine mistakes we’ve made repeatedly. These are often mistakes having had nothing to do with our upbringing, but the result of bad habits of our own making. Taking responsibility for them, and growing beyond them, is our life’s call as we step into maturity.

Accountability is often difficult when we are facing struggles. Blaming others, or our external circumstances, is a natural human instinct. And, in fact, we may not have been given the right start by our parents, however well-intentioned they may have been.

Perhaps a good start toward a more positive future for us is to think of the gratitude we feel for what our parents did do for us. They may have had their own struggles with finances, resources, or even their own upbringing. If we think in terms of gratitude, if we assess their parenting with humility, we may well be able to grow beyond the potential we thought we had.

Let’s not create our own glass ceilings.

Let’s not let anything inhibit us from becoming the best we can be. Let’s ‘do our own growing, no matter how tall our parents were.’