Curling

According to one Internet report, almost a dozen people worldwide were won over to the sport of curling during this year’s Winter Olympics. It seems that the vast majority of these converts to the Winter Games’ oldest sport credited their new found interest to having gotten in a comfortable position on the couch and, realizing that the remote control was in the kitchen, couldn't be bothered to get up and change the channel manually.

A couple of times during those Olympic weeks I happened to notice curling was being televised into our home as well, and it got me thinking about something.

Have you ever noticed that the sport of curling is a lot like raising children? 

Now wait, give me a chance to explain. First, let’s look at the curling stone and let me point out that real curling stones are made in Scotland using a special type of tough, resilient granite. The curling stone parallels our children. No one needs to tell you that your children are also very special. And although “handle with care” is still a good label, it is also true that they are tough and resilient enough to bang against life’s little surprises and come away unblemished and smooth.

My research also revealed that in each end of a game of curling, each team plays eight stones.  Personally, I find our four little curling stones just about all I can handle, so I don’t believe I will elaborate further on this point!

I have also discovered that prior to a game of curling, the ice surface is sprinkled with water, which freezes and produces a pebble like surface. Without this pebble surface the concave shape of the curling stone would work as a suction cup, but with the pebbling the rotating stone curls nicely down the sheet of ice. For our children the pebbles are the little things in life that we are tempted to protect our children from but which, when experienced, build our kids up and strengthen their faith. Just as an inexperienced curler may be tempted to remove the pebbles from the ice surface, so, loving parents may attempt to clear these character building incidents from the way of their children. But as the kids experience and survive these pebble sized obstacles, they will become better equipped to handle that rocks and boulders that will undoubtedly face them later in life.

Let me introduce you to the sweepers—that’s us, the parents. You may have mistakenly thought that you were the skipper curling the stone down the rink but upon further consideration, I’m sure you’ll agree that that is God’s position. He is the one releasing the child to our care and then watchfully calling out instructions to us along the way. Our job is to sweep when instructed to occasionally reduce some of the friction in our children’s lives as we do our best to keep them on target for God.

Sweepers can gain an advantage by using “sliders”. A slider is something worn on the shoe of the sweepers. It extends their range. It increases accuracy. It makes them more effective. This is a power source that no Christian parent can afford to be without. Call daily on your own slider, the Holy Spirit, for increased accuracy and effectiveness in parenting. 

The goal of the game when all is said and done is to have your team’s stones closest to the centre of the house. What better goal for us as parents? Forget material gain, financial prosperity, and higher education and concentrate on having your children end up close to God.