Month: November 2016

Autumn Autumn Autumn.

What shall we do with you?

Autumn is the chance to get out those thick, cosy jumpers and scarves. It’s the beautiful spectrum of colours on the trees. It is bright red berries, ripening fruit and squirreling squirrels. Autumn is the smell of candles in pumpkins, apple bobbing and the sting of warmed hands by the bonfire.

But Autumn is also the foretaste of what’s to come, and what’s to come is not good. It’s is the first whiff of decay before the long dead season of winter. It’s ever darker nights and ever colder homes. Autumn is the whisper of a memory of low moods and decreased productivity.

This is a post in our “Gospel In The Everyday” series – a series aimed at helping us, through the everyday things we encounter, to see echoes of the gospel. (Read our introduction to the series here)

That’s just what autumn does. It reminds us of the gospel.

As nights draw in and moods dip; as leaves fall, winds surge and rains soak, we’re forever being brought up short by beautiful, hope-filled things.

Life can be like this sometimes, even in the realm of parenting. Have you ever had the experience of feeling you’re in a downward spiral? The behaviour of your child seems to go from bad to worse. Your patience seems to be ebbing away, or you’re simply feeling let down by yourself – unable to be the parent you want to be, despite your best efforts? It’s the autumn of parenting.

Or perhaps you’re feeling trapped as a parent at the moment, like this is a phase of life that weighs on you and seems like it’s just the beginning of a long, hard season to come.

When you’re like this, let autumn remind you of the gospel.

It’s undeniable that there are aspects of autumn that are hard and unpleasant. And yet in the midst of this God has designed autumn in such a way as to give us glimpses of beauty and hope.

And however hard your current season of parenting is, God will send such signs. Whenever you see your child extend kindness to someone it reminds you of God’s grace. When you see your child find joy in something simple like only a child can, it reminds you of God’s grace. When your child dependently grasps your hand, or cleverly does something you weren’t expecting, or patiently waits when normally they wouldn’t, it reminds you of God’s grace.

Why does the world work like this?

God created a perfect humanity that beautifully reflected his image. But then the fall happened. Humanity was broken and was banished from the garden.

And yet God didn’t simply give humanity up as a bad job. He was well within his right to do so. Instead, in his grace, God has allowed humanity to retain something of the image of God. We still see glimpses of God’s image in humanity, amongst it’s brokenness. As Schaeffer said, we are “glorious ruins”.

God didn’t give up on humanity because he had the plan that one day he would restore us. One day he would redeem us and deal with our brokenness and restore the perfect image. That was won at the cross and will be completed in the New Creation.

So if your parenting feels like it’s going through a tough phase and feels like it’s only getting tougher, then let autumn remind you of the gospel.

In autumn we see glimpses of beauty in the midst of increasing decay and darkness.

Let that remind you of humanity and your child, who demonstrates beautiful glimpses of the image of God despite their fallenness.

And let that glimpse remind you of the God of grace who has borne with patience a rebellious humanity so that he, at great cost to himself, could restore us. Remember the new creation that’s coming, that will be the true Spring to follow a dark Autumn and Winter. Remember that, and be filled again with hope when life seems to be squeezing hope from you.

This post isn’t going to help you think through your kids’ usage of social media. No no no, this post is all about you and your usage of social media.

Who hasn’t done it? You sit down (or walk while pushing the pram, or sit on the floor and play with the trains, or feed the baby) while having a quick browse of your Facebook feed. But before you know it – that quick glance sucks you down a rabbit hole of internet surfing. You re-emerge five, fifteen, fourty-five minutes later with a child-related crisis on your hands.

Now we’re not here to condemn the use of social media (we write a blog for fun!) but we’ve felt challenged recently about how our use of social media can 1) prevent us from living in the moment as we parent our children (perhaps a topic for a whole other post) and more positively, 2) be used to equip us to better parent our children in a gospel-centred way. Perhaps we as parents could use the amazing resource of the internet to glean wisdom and encouragement from other believers.

So here’s our suggestion to you – why don’t you “Like” some Facebook pages of people who write about gospel-centred parenting?

When you “Like” someone’s page, their posts automatically come up on your newsfeed. This means that rather than simply having a newsfeed full of your friend’s antics and memes (fun but not necessarily beneficial for you and your family in the long-run), you can also get some edifying and topical posts coming up on your homepage.

Hence, if you do get sucked down the Facebook rabbit-hole, you will at least be reading some stuff which will point you to Jesus and help you think about raising your kids well. This in turn might help you to turn off your phone and get movin’ and groovin’ with the precious blessings (a.k.a children) God has given you.

So here’s our top ten Facebook pages to “Like” (in alphabetical order):

Care For The Family 

Christian Mom Thoughts

Embracing A Simpler Life

Gospel-Centred Parenting (how could we resist?)

Imperfect Homemaker

Intentional By Grace

Paul David Tripp 

The Purposeful Mom

We are THAT family

We hope you find these helpful.

But don’t stop here – if you have any other Christ-centred parenting Facebook pages you’ve come across that you’d recommend, then why not share them in the comments so that others can enjoy them too?

Happy surfing…

P.S. We are so thankful for all your support and for the comments, shares, likes and personal messages from you – it really encourages us!

Since we’re chatting about Facebook this week, here’s something to consider… if you’ve found our blog helpful to you in your parenting and walk with Jesus then perhaps you could share our page on your Facebook feed, or invite some of your parent-friends to “Like” our page? Sharing is Caring!

Our vision is for Gospel-Centred Parenting to become a community of Christian parents who can share wisdom, pray for each other and do Christian parenting with joy and passion in the light of the good news of Jesus. 

Thanks for sharing this journey with us – we really enjoy travelling along the road of parenting with you all.