Back in the times of the Bible, the names given to children were meaningful. Not just that the names had an original meaning which may or may not have been considered. Children were often named for the hopes their parents had for their future or unfortunately for some (poor Jabez! I Chronicles 4:9) what they put their mothers through in labor and delivery.
When we were pregnant with our daughter, I had a name I loved. When we did the ultrasound and she waved…well let’s just say, Katrina (and the Waves for music fans) was a natural fit. We loved both of our daughter’s names meant purity. We even gave her a theme song “Walking On Sunshine” by of course, Katrina and the Waves.
I don’t know why we didn’t think of giving her a theme verse as well. The other day, a guy I went to church with as a child was celebrating the birthday of one of his kids. His wife posted their child’s theme verse as part of the celebration on Facebook. I absolutely love that idea. The idea of having a verse of scripture as a part of your identity from the very start.
The other day, I was having lunch with a children’s minister in another state. As we discussed our hopes and concerns for the current generation of children, we began talking about the impact Christian parenting can have on a child. We shared stories of being congratulated for giving birth to “compliant” children (neither of us had), of having great “luck” in how our kids (now in their teens and in college) were acting and how many times we had heard the ever popular “Your kids are great now, but just wait until (the next stage).”
For some time now, I have wanted to have an older teen or college student write their view of Christian parenting to share with you. It gives a lot of insight to understand how Christian homes actually touch the thought processes of the children raised in them. 
Our family was introduced to the Harris brothers about the time the first edition of this book came out several years ago. Our then young teen daughter loved reading the book and realizing she wasn’t the only kid on the planet who made God, serving others and sharing their faith priorities in their lives.
Recently the news cycle has been so depressing, it’s enough to rob anyone of their joy. Sometimes though, it isn’t what happens in the world that robs us of our joy, but what happens in our homes. Maybe your kids have been passing the same virus back and forth for several weeks. Perhaps that much anticipated family vacation dissolved into one non-stop sibling war only to return home to unending laundry. Or it may not be one specific thing, but just the accumulation of a lot of little things over time that has you dragging through your days like you are trying to swim in a mud puddle.