ndamentally resilient and resourceful. Children's springs of life and
vitality are powerful. Their need to affirm themselves as persons is
undeniable, and any experience of love that they have is reinforcing.
Experiences of unlove are to them unbelievable and point, fundamentally
and finally, to the necessity and believability of love. While our
children are dependent upon us for their personal environment in which
to grow up, they bring powers and resources to their growing up which
are independent of us. They bring something to the dialogue in which
self-actualization occurs. Their part of the dialogue is just as
important and indispensable as ours. We cannot live their lives for
them. They have to live their own lives, and our part is to live in
relation to them and contribute our assistance to their powers of
becoming.

Parents and teachers are not the only ones who influence their children.
We live in a society in which different people have different roles to
play in relation to everyone else. We should not measure the progress of
a child only by how we see him or by what we think he is receiving from
us. Our impression of the child's progress may be mistaken. We may not
be able to know him as he is, nor know what others are contributing.
And, least of all, can we know the total effect of all his relationships
on what he is becoming as a person. Our anxieties about a particular
incident may exist because we fail to see it in its total context. Much
happens in the development of a person's life that we do not see, and
much of the transformation occurs secretly at levels so deep that we
cannot observe it. Although we may not see what is happening, we may be
sure that something is. In the sphere of the personal we need to trust
both God and man, and if we trust God we can trust man. We then may take
a long view of our task, and teach and work and live by faith.

This is what it should mean to be a Christian and a member of the church
of Christ. What a wonderful thing it is to belong to a fellowship that
is made up of people who may be united by the Spirit of God and through
whom we believe that God works! What a comfort it is to know that we do
not have to do and believe everything ourselves! Not only do we not have
to live and believe and love for ourselves, but others live and believe
and love for us at times when we cannot. But let us also remember that
we have to live and believe and love for them when weakness o