My husband links to this, and I am going to follow his good example for any Christian parents of (present or future) college students. We’ve known this for a long time, but it is now becoming more and more obvious. As long as we enroll our children in schools the secularists run, we can’t be surprised when our children learn their lessons. Of course this is true of Christian kids in elementary, junior-high, or high-school who attend the government schools. But it’s also true in the secularist colleges as well.
Archive for the 'Mothering' Category
I have a little flock of daughters. With four of them five years old and under, it should come as no surprise to you that we deal with a wholloping share of emotions at our house. Titus is so simple – just right up the middle and easy. He either disobeys, or he doesn’t. Sometimes, when he feels really complicated and deep, he fusses. There are no subtexts with this kid. He wants milk – that is why he is fussing and saying, “I want milk!” Not so complex – even a beginner parent can figure out a technique to deal with this. But girls are different, and sometimes that difference can leave a person completely bewildered. When it comes to little girls and their emotions, “A” does not necessarily cause “B.” But, when “B” is what needs to be disciplined, it can feel frustrating to have no clues as to what member of the alphabet actually caused it. Are you with me here?
One of our sweet little girls has a hilarious tendency which we refer to as her “drunk driving.” If she is tired, she becomes reckless and disobedient. Her eyes get a little glassy, she gets super rowdy, and you might find her unloading the freezer, or coloring her sheets with a marker, or some such clearly outlawed activity. Once, when she was in the midst of one of these times, I caught her on the kitchen counter getting into something. Surprise was my first response – “What are you doing?!” Continue reading ‘A Spirited Rider’
We attended a lovely wedding tonight, and once again we witnessed parents sending their kids off and letting them go. Children are a gift from the Lord,and parents who have been good stewards of their children have equipped them to leave.
I remember years ago when my son was off at grad school, someone asked me, “Aren’t you so sad to have your son gone?” And of course I missed him. But I told her that there was one thing worse than a son who leaves, and that is a son who doesn’t. The whole purpose of bringing up children is to send them off, not to keep them home.
When our children are wise, they are a great joy to their parents, especially when they start households of their own.
As wonderful as a mother’s natural love for her children may be, it is not enough. She is going to need supernatural love. Moms can rapidly run to the end of their supply of natural love and find themselves not feeling very loving at all. This is why we need God’s love, the 1 Corinthians 13 kind of love, if we want to give our children what they really need to have fat souls.
Consider the great love passage in 1 Corinthians, and let’s see what it has to say to mothers.
1. Love is longsuffering. Moms will have plenty of provocations in this world, so they need to be able to suffer for a long time. Some of this longsuffering involves putting up with people who degrade motherhood and despise children. Moms need to think long term, give themselves a good job description, and adopt God’s view of the high calling of motherhood.
2. Love is kind. “She openeth her mouth with wisdom and on her tongue is the law of kindness” (Proverbs 31:26). Much kindness (and unkindness) comes via words. Pervasive kindness means listening, forgiving, anticipating, speaking, and doing. It includes physical comforts for your kids: giving them clean beds, warm food, soap and water. It is a LAW of Continue reading ‘Supernatural Love’
One of the tricky moves parents have to master is how to say no to invitations for their children. Actually, saying no is not the problem. The problem is how to do it without hurting feelings, giving offense, or feeling guilty about it.
Let’s say someone is having a birthday party, and your four-year-old (or six or eight or ten-year-old) is invited. Let’s also say that you know that the home has different standards than yours when it comes to humor, movies, or even the way they speak to one another. Or you may have good reason to think that the kids are not going to be well supervised. Whatever the reason, you don’t have a good vibe about it, and you know that your four-year-old is not wise enough to navigate his way through the possibilities. All he knows is that there will be cake and lots of it. Or, he may not want to go because the boy whose birthday they are celebrating is a mean kid. Continue reading ‘Sending Regrets’
Ben Merkle has written a very helpful piece called “Guilty Parents” over on the Credenda website.
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