What an opportunity this can be! Lately we've been hearing this a lot from Zander. He's just at that age, every noise in his bedroom at night scares him if he's not sound asleep. For while it was monsters, and then it was just loud noises. The past few nights he's had a croupy cough, so he's got "scary coughs". It may sound simple, but I've been asking him "Zander, what do we say when we're scared?" And he starts singing the Veggie Tales song "God is bigger than the boogeyman." And then I confirm for him, that's right Zander, all you have to do is say "Go away scary thing, God is taking care of me." He always gives me a big hug then and says he feels better. Even better is when Abigail is part of the discussion, because Zander looks up to his big sister, and when she confirms what Mommy says, he feels even better.
"Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord." Ephesians 6:4
When children are so young, sometimes teaching them about God can be tricky. We live in a world of fantasy- Zander's favorite movie is about talking cars, so to talk about God- someone he can't see, can be a little difficult. But we do what we can. By being an example for children we speak volumes to them. The other night I was snuggling my son in the bathroom waiting for the shower vapors to clear his lungs up and of course, I was praying for him like you wouldn't believe. We rocked and snuggled and I prayed, and at one point, he kind of whimpered a little bit and gripped me tighter. And I just kissed him on the head and told him it would be okay, Mommy and Daddy were praying for him, and he relaxed almost immediately. We snuggled most of the rest of the night, but he knew that it wasn't just Mommy and Daddy looking out for him and helping him to breather better.
My children are such a blessing to me, and every chance I get I'm thanking God for them, and along with that is an earnest prayer to help me raise them the right way. I want them to want that relationship with Jesus- not just do it because that's what they are supposed to do. I think that if they see Mommy and Daddy doing that, it will make an impression. Much more so than telling them they have to pray or they have to go to Sunday School. By simply telling them that we go to church because we want to speaks volumes, rather than , we have to go because we have things to do. I think it's important to remember that, because it's so easy to get caught up in all the things that need to be done for Sunday morning, that we forget we want to be there. May the Holy Spirit be a constant reminder that we want to be a part of God.
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