Teaching Identity & Purpose from the Start

Was there anyone else out there that was super excited to see the new Mary Poppins movie? Well, if you were like me, you were counting down the days to get to go see this movie. It was supposed to be a “mommy outing”—just some time for me to go out and get some alone time. But…I thought it would be fun to take my oldest son, Judah. There was a fun part in the movie when Mary Poppins was preparing the children for bath time and as the children entered the tub, they “went down the drain” and ended up in a cartoon illustrated ocean with lots of colorful fish and coral. I turned to look at my son to catch his reaction and he was WIDE-EYED with his mouth hanging open in total AWE.

Just about every morning after my oldest wakes up, we say our good mornings and give hugs and kisses and he will ask, “Where’s Daddy?” And every morning I respond that Daddy is at work. Over the last week, each morning as we have gone through this repetitive dialogue, I felt the nudging of the Holy Spirit each time he would ask where his father was. I asked God what it was that He was wanting me to see in this. I felt like God was saying that in parenting, we face so many challenges, tests, and trials that leave us saying, “God, where are you??? Where’s Daddy?” We spend so much time praying for our children and ourselves as parents and doing our very best to instruct them in the ways of the Lord…

I had quite the funny experience with my three-year-old yesterday and I thought surely there is a blog for this moment. This morning when I woke up, I asked Holy Spirit what the title of the article should be, and I immediately heard, “what goes in must come out!” I burst into laughter thinking “very funny Jesus,” as the experience that I am about to share with you has to do with potty training. With 18-month-old twins and a baby on the way, I have been quite determined to make sure our oldest, Judah—who just turned 3—is fully potty trained before our little princess gets here…

On August 1st, 2017 my husband and I miscarried and experienced the most unexplainable and painful hurt of losing a child. Going to the doctor for our confirmation appointment and never getting to see and hear a heartbeat was incomprehensible, especially after two healthy pregnancies.

After each meal as I take the twins down from their high chairs I find lots of food that missed their mouths and is hidden down in their seats or thrown on the floor. To clean up, I brush out all the food onto the floor and grab the broom to sweep it up. It NEVERS FAILS; the twins rush in to eat the food out of the dirt pile… For a while there, each time I’d get frustrated and say to them “DON’T EAT FROM THE DIRT PILE…

In a perfect world, my day would start with me rising before my husband to prepare for him a hot breakfast to have before work, us sitting down for a morning devotion, kissing him goodbye and then enjoying quiet time with the Father before the children wake up. NEWSFLASH!!! My mornings are more like this…

In our children’s ministry, it’s not uncommon to find ourselves praying for a sports injury or a brother or sister who’s home sick with a tummy ache. We teach our kids that God heals and they believe it because they’ve seen or experienced healing in their own lives and families.

Every good parent or caregiver wants to raise their children to be honest, mature, and caring. This post will help you to teach your children the power of building trust and empower them to be the most trustworthy, powerful, and responsible choice makers that they can be.

Have you ever watched your kids in amazement at their desire to find joy in any situation? It doesn’t matter if it’s a visit to the doctor’s office, a trip to the furniture store, waiting in an extremely long line, or sitting through a lesson on adjectives—our kids can find a way to find joy in the moment.

What do you do when you see someone you love, or even your child, go through something that seems to affect their very vision of themselves, and life? What do you say? What if it continues and there seems to be no end in sight?