God, Kids and the Little Things

God, Kids and the Little Things - Parenting Like HannahIt happened to me again this weekend. In fact, it has happened many times over the years in churches all over the country. As I struggle to take load after huge load of awkward bundles into a church building, I walk past the same people over and over and over.

Maybe one in a thousand offers to help immediately. One out of a hundred offers to help after I pass by three or four times. Most will help if specifically asked, but even then many will help with obvious reluctance. The irony is I would imagine most of those same people just gave a good deal of money to God. They probably nodded in agreement during the lessons. They may have even volunteered to do some odious task for the Church.

Yet when God gave them a tiny opportunity to serve someone, they didn’t even see it. They didn’t mean to be rude or inconsiderate, they were just totally oblivious. It probably doesn’t even sound like a big deal to you. In fact, you are probably wondering what this even has to do with parenting your kids.

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Great Christian Parenting Magazine

Great Christian parenting Magazine - Parenting Like HannahThere are several parenting magazines in the marketplace. Some are actually fairly helpful. The problem is none of the secular parenting magazines really address parenting issues that are of special importantance to Christian parents. Fortunately, there is a great magazine that totally focuses on helping us.

Thriving Family is a magazine focusing on Christian parenting and marriages. It has lots of short, practical articles that only take a few minutes to read. In addition to the feature articles each issue, the magazine contains regular features on family stages (dealing with the issues of children in various age groups), family media, family faith and family living.

The magazine is bi-monthly (6 issues a year) and the latest issue covered topics like anger management for kids, overcoming selfishness in marriage, toddler modesty, retooling timeouts, solution for messy rooms, logical faith (for teens) and much more.

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Moms and the Gift of Friendship

Moms and the Gift of Friendship - Parenting Like HannahMoms are almost always surrounded by people. In fact, if you have little ones, you probably don’t even get to go to the bathroom alone. Yet talk to many moms- especially moms with young children – and most will admit they suffer from loneliness.

Our world is full of acquaintances we have convinced ourselves are friends. They are there to chat with while waiting for your kids or online exchanging stories of the fun things their kids are doing. Yet what most of us moms are longing for are those friends who know all of our quirks, but love us anyway. Who love us enough to hold us accountable when we aren’t being who God wants us to be. Who will walk with us down this motherhood path.

I was interested when offered a chance to review The Gift of Friendship: Stories That Celebrate the Beauty of Shared Moments by Dawn Camp. The book contains very short stories written by a variety of moms about friendship. Some I knew were somewhat “famous” in Christian circles and others I don’t know at all. Yet each of their stories rang true.

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Christian Moms and a Passion for Christ

Christian Moms and a Passion For Christ - Parenting Like HannahPerhaps you don’t really struggle with the idea of doing the parenting suggestions you find here, but still don’t feel motivated to put them into practice. Or perhaps you regularly do some of the things suggested, but more from a secular perspective. Or maybe you even try to talk about God with your kids, but your heart isn’t in it. The issue may not be Christian parenting as much as it is that you may have lost your personal passion for following Christ.

It happens to all of us I think from time to time. Whether your life has been so crazy you don’t have time to think, your kids have been so sick you haven’t attended a worship service in a month or you are so tired you fall asleep every time you try to pray – the passion for Christ is just gone.

Oh you still believe in him, worship him and want to follow him, but you just can’t muster the energy to share your faith on a daily basis with your kids. You see that’s what Christian parenting really boils down to…a constant 24/7 faith sharing exercise (or discipling if you prefer)- by direct teaching, coaching, setting examples, giving opportunities to practice godly concepts and more. Any professional teacher will tell you, when you have lost your passion for teaching your subject, you aren’t effective or happy.

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What Great Violinists Can Teach You About Parenting

What Great Violinists Can Teach You About Parenting - Parenting Like HannahThe violin was my primary instrument for several years. One of my teachers told me the secret to being a great violinist. “Everyone thinks the great violinists never make a mistake. They actually make plenty of mistakes. The difference between a good violinist and a great violinist is this: The great ones are paying attention and assessing each note as it is made. They make the necessary adjustments so quickly no one even notices the original mistake.”

Parenting, especially Christian parenting is as tough as learning to play an incredibly difficult instrument like the violin. It’s easy to get discouraged when you see a “perfect” parent who seems to know how to parent flawlessly. The secret is the “perfect” parent is no more perfect than any other parent.

The secret to being a “perfect” parent is the willingness to assess your parenting choices, skills and results constantly as you go through the day. Then those same parents take that assessment and make any necessary adjustments almost immediately. They don’t parent blindly, not assessing their results until their child ends up in serious trouble. They don’t notice a problem and then wait days, weeks, months or years to make corrections. They are aware, in the moment, constantly assessing and adjusting their parenting.

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