Kids are Like Mushrooms

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I've often thought how kids are like mushrooms...

So much of what is in their minds and souls and spirits is hidden: a network of mycelial threads, coursing through dark, rich soil.

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So much of what they are learning, what they are thinking, and how they are processing lies deep below the surface.

It can be frustrating as a parent, teacher, or mentor (or all three!) when you work and pray and toil and sow true, good, and beautiful things in their hearts, but do not see much return.

How do you know if you are making an impact on their lives?

And then, BOOM, a mushroom appears, literally overnight, and you are mesmerized by this amazing, colorful, fascinating thing just looming large above the soil, for all to see.

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But be careful--these fruits are sure to tarry not, as they are gone soon, and often as quickly as they appeared!

Until the next time that is--often after a soaking rain--and a storm has passed, and you are worn out and frazzled and are not sure you can go on...

and then, just like that...

it appears once again.

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It took me years to understand that it never really left!  Those mycelial threads ARE the mushroom, you see!  They just put out fruiting bodies once upon a while, to reproduce and throw out their spores.  Mushrooms are always there.  But I praise God for letting me see a peek behind the veil upon occasion, to appreciate a wondrous glimpse of the work He is doing inside my children's hearts!

Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?  Isaiah 43:19a