The hand that rocks the cradle...

Rules the world.  -- Napoleon Bonaparte

The name of the Young Mothers Group at my church is called Garlands of Grace.  There is a verse, but I'm not sure of the reference.  Anyway, we had a speaker come and talk to us last week (Nov. 2nd).  Her name is Audrey Saint, and she talked to us about Grounding our families in the Word.  It was excellent.  I've been mulling over some of what she said.

The thing that most stood out to me, that she said several times, was "be jealous for your kids."  I had never thought of it quite like that.  I mean, I knew I didn't want someone else to educate my kids. And I knew that I was primarily responsible for their spiritual development. And I knew a lot of things.  But to be jealous for my kids... that was a new idea for me.  I like it.

I am jealous for my husband. I get that.  I want his time, attention, and affection.  Why shouldn't I also be jealous for my kids?  Why shouldn't I be the one to teach them in the ways of the Lord?  Why shouldn't I be the one to teach them their academics?  I need to be jealous for their time and their hearts.

 She took us to Acts 17:26-27a.  Which says "And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him."  We talked about our boundaries and periods.  Our job is to help our children to seek God.  She talked about taking advantage of teachable moments.  I've been trying to do that with more purpose.  To really answer the questions. 

We talked about verses that describe what we want our children to be like.  Psalm 3 talks about a tree planted by a stream.  It grows strong and bears fruit in season. I want that for my kids.  We talked about really being purposeful!  She took us to Deuteronomy 6:6-8, of course.  You know, where it talks about teaching your children God's laws when you sit, stand, walk, lie down.  I knew that.  I love those verses. But one of the things she said was that you can't ground your kids if you aren't first grounded yourself!   Oh, yeah.

I love that we talked about honing your craft.  Audrey said if you had a job you would always be working to better yourself in your field.  Taking courses, or going to seminars, or reading the latest trade magazines.  That sort of thing.  This is no different.  Read books (good ones), and be purposeful.  Don't leave it to chance!

We discussed Bible reading, too.  As in DO IT. At. home.  And Dad too. In front of your kids. And WITH your kids.  From a real Bible.  Those little story books are all well and good, but they need to know that you think it is important enough to share with them from your Bible.    There is more. That, maybe, is the most important part.  But I think that will be a different post, for a different day.     

But to wrap up this enormously long post, What am I going to do with all this info?  Because it's one thing to HEAR good, sound, Biblical advice.  It's another thing altogether to follow it.

I am going to try to be more intentional about answering my kids questions Biblically, and making sure they understand that it's biblical. I am going to surround myself to the best of my ability with like-minded Christians.  I am going to try to make sure that my kids are hearing the Word of God regularly.  From my Bible or Sid's.