Obedience Is Your Credential

God so amazes me. When Dianna invited me last year to be the EEW parenting columnist I knew this was something God had for me. I had been a long-time reader of EEW and desired to contribute to its voice, but I never felt like there was a place for me. Every column had a columnist, and I was never inspired to contribute in the magazine’s other areas. When I understood that Dianna wasn’t just inviting me to write a column but to be the columnist I was excited and a little afraid. How will I connect with the readers? Will I be able to come up with enough topics? Will they read my column when my oldest son is only 8, hardly the age to make me a parenting “expert”?

These doubts kept me where I should be, at Jesus’ feet, asking, begging Him to cause me to succeed. He is the inexhaustible God of wisdom and from Him I have received an abundance of topics and biblical and practical direction to share with you. He has given me so much that in January I had enough column topics to cover publishing dates through September, and God has since extended my storehouse through December. This week I had planned to talk about how we can help our children respond to the culture war against Christians who believe in the biblical definition of marriage being between one man and one woman. I thought this was particularly fitting in light of the recent backlash from Chick-fil-A owner Dan Cathy’s expression of his belief in traditional marriage. But a word God gave me last week is what I have to share with you this time.

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God Sends Help: Receive It

She came to me suddenly, unexpectedly with her bubbly way and smiling face. She had sat there in a center row, face focused front, but when I sat next to her she flashed me her 32s and my then 7 month old Nate clamored to be with her. We didn’t know her but she knew of me. She introduced herself and told me that she heard our women’s pastor mention me, knew that I was on maternity leave from ministry and had wondered who I was. Christen said she was single with no children and free to babysit my children anytime. I nodded and smiled. Even though I had just lost the help of another single woman with no kids who volunteered for six months to serve me and my family, mainly helping me with my newborn, it would take more than an introduction and a smile before I could trust this woman with my kids.

But after weeks of her offering and my desperation I invited this 24-year-old to have dinner with my family every Tuesday before our midweek services so we could get to know her. Immediately my boys liked her; my husband and I did, too, so I had her help me with the boys on Tuesdays and Sundays, the days my husband was fully engaged in ministry himself and I could supervise her interaction.

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Helping Our Kids be their Very Best!

Summer days make you want to be lazy, just hang out in the sun and have some fun. Who knows this better than kids? My youngest two have been having a ball, but my oldest is struggling a bit. See, he’s still in school, making up work that he had some difficulty completing during our scheduled home school year. He has been trying to negotiate with me, asking can he skip certain assignments that he believes he’s mastered. And as much as I want to give him a break, give the entire family a break from his whining and moaning, I say no, have to say no, because his desire to quit is more than just the summer itch; this is a pattern I saw in him long before the weather changed.

This giving up happens when he’s losing any electronic game, when a word search gets too hard or when he is told to redo some work that was not up to par. When something doesn’t come easy to him, he wants to give up so he doesn’t have to eventually suffer the ultimate defeat. This is how he is trying to define success. But I know, and you do too, that such a childhood pattern is the making of an adulthood pattern that will leave him stopping and starting everything from academic programs and jobs to relationships and, perhaps, even his faith. This is why our children need to know that they have to endure and don’t have the option of quitting when things don’t go their way. Quitting may seem the easy out now, but doing so will cause lifelong battles that they could avoid.

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