The Greatest Gifts We Can Give Our Kids

The Greatest Gifts We Can Give our Kids

 Here's my short but complete list of the greatest gifts we can give our kids:

• ·      Clear out your view of love based on your experiences
• ·      Accept that authority and discipline without love is a gong (I Cor. 13)
• ·      Write down and pray through all the verses of God’s love for us
• ·      Model love and forgiveness with your spouse
• ·      Ask forgiveness of your kids when you screw up
• ·      Live in Front of them that we are flawed but forgiven
• ·      Tell them that Perfection is only in Jesus
• ·      Pray, pray and pray some more for them—every day let them see you pray
• ·      Tell them they are sinners, or they won’t know why they need Him
• ·      Laugh at yourself; model not taking yourself too seriously
• ·      Don’t tolerate half-truths or half-apologies (God doesn’t either)
• ·      Tell them you love them at the moments they are least deserving of it
• ·      Tell them you forgive them when you discipline them and they ask forgiveness
• ·      Remind them that they can’t do anything they set their minds to; they can do what God has created them to do; its ok not to be good at everything
• ·      Let them speak correction into your life when its true; we aren’t the standard of right and wrong (the law), God’s Word is
• ·      Laugh with them as much as possible
•      Read aloud to them  and with them and let them see you reading regularly
• ·      Listen to their complaints as long as they say it respectfully
• ·      Let them fail at things and talk them through it
• ·      Be honest with them about their strengths and weaknesses
• ·      Prepare them for the tasks they have to do on their own (boy and girls): housecleaning, cooking, yard work—don’t let your perfectionism get in the way of their need for training
• ·      Prepare yourself to let them go, if you love them they will always come back
• ·      Accept that you will be second place to a spouse and support that!

Out of the mouth of babes...

So yesterday was Caroline's day to be baptized. We were very excited. We had her in her beautiful white dress and new shoes. However, right before we get up on the platform to have her baptized we sing a hymn, accompanied by our very large very loud organ. It was so loud she started crying really hard. I was hoping when the music stopped she would stop crying, but no such luck. 

My little happy cheerful girl who rarely cries, bawled her eyes out non-stop the entire ceremony, which the pastor tried to get through as quickly as possible. At first of course I had the feeling of being horrified that my child was "messing up" the ceremony. And then as I was standing there the verse from Romans 9 popped into my head. "So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy." It occurred to me that Caroline's freaked out crying was a much truer picture of how we come to God. 

We think we should come in our Sunday best all cleaned up, happy and confident. That's bull. That's not how we come to God. We come scared, confused and overwhelmed. We come bawling our eyes out. We come because we are carried by His grace onto the platform of promise to receive the sign of His Spirit. We are just like Caroline and not a bit different.  And when, Lord willing she is able to understand about God's love and His provision for us, and she confesses the belief He has granted, I will tell her what she taught me on March 18th, 2012. "Out of the mouth of babes...."