Over the years, I have become passionate about Christian parents taking the time to have a healthy marriage. I have spent untold hours listening to children cry because of the brokenness their parents’ shattered marriage has caused in their own lives. I don’t want anyone else to have the pain a broken marriage creates.
As a result, I am always looking for new resources to encourage Christian parents to work on their marriages. Recently, I was offered the chance to review Love At First Fight by Carey and Dena Dyer.
Billed as “52 Story-based meditations for married couples”, it’s a great little book for helping couples take a non-threatening look at their marriage. It sounds strange, but I think it’s cute and kind of fun the authors take a look at the disagreements they had and use them to create a catalyst for other couples to discuss their own marriages.
Recently in Colonial Williamsburg, I was reminded that life for our children is very different from the life led by children in the Revolutionary War period in the United States. I found a great little book with George Washington’s instructions on manners – actually some of the Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation he had copied as part of his schoolwork (The rules were already 150 years old at that point.). It’s interesting to read, but something becomes clear very quickly. Children were expected to behave like little ladies and gentleman.
Have you ever read your kids a picture book or a beginning chapter book? You probably naturally did some things to make it more interesting for your child. Yet when most adults read portions of the Bible to kids, they often begin to sound like they were raised in Shakespearean England. The reading is serious and somber and not very interesting to a young child (or understandable).
If you are like me, you watched quite a bit of Olympics coverage recently. There is something fascinating about watching people do their best. I especially enjoy watching the coaches and parents. They put as much effort in their own ways into helping the athletes succeed. This summer while watching the games, I wondered what the church would look like if Christian parents thought of themselves as coaching their kids to the most important goal and reward possible – getting to Heaven.
Looking for a family service project that will also teach your kids about God? The next time you hear about a flood consider a family service project helping people recover from the devastation left by flood waters.