History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme.”
We love this quote, which is often attributed to Mark Twain.
We think it’s a very helpful thing to remember when it comes to parenting.
No Two Children Are The Same
As parents, we often hear people talking about the fact that no two children are the same. We take reassurance from that – we can’t expect our child to behave in a certain way or do a certain thing, because history does not repeat itself. All children are different.
We see that really clearly with our two boys. They’re so different to each other!
One of our boys is full of energy, always wanting attention and very loud and extroverted. He loves being with people and is the first to make people welcome in our home as he grabs their hand and gets them involved in whatever he is doing.
Our other son is quite different. He’s much more shy. He’d happily sit quietly and watch what’s going on. He’s slow to open up to people, but very affectionate when his confidence is won.
History does not repeat itself when it comes to children, so comparison is often discouraging. Often when we expect a child to act a certain way because another child has acted that way, we’re disappointed.
Parenting Rhymes
History does not repeat itself when it comes to children… but it does rhyme.
The downside of this normally helpful wisdom of “no two children are the same” is that it can leave us feeling at a loss. My child is unique… yikes! Where do I start?
Well, while it’s true to say there are no out of the box solutions for the parenting of any one child, that’s not to say that help isn’t out there, because history rhymes. There are lots of things about parenting different children that are very similar. There are lessons to be learnt from history… or to put it another way, we can draw on the experience of others.
Others have been through similar things to you, whatever it is you’re facing. They might not be able to tell you exactly what to do in your situation, but there’ll certainly be depths of wisdom that can be plumbed in order to help you.
And this is certainly true when it comes to seeking to keep the gospel at the heart of your parenting. Part of God’s grace to us as parents is that he has put us in communities of other Christians (aka church) where we can speak to others who have been there before us (or are there right now), and learn from one another. If you do this, whilst at the same time remembering your child is unique, then you may well find this parenting thing feeling slightly easier.
History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme. So make the most of that. Learn from others.
As well as church, there are a whole wealth of other resources that help you to lean on the wisdom and experience of others when it comes to Christian parenting. Here are a couple of things that might help you:
Our resource page will point you to a number of resources that will help you to learn from others. We don’t have to personally communicate with people to glean wisdom from there. Podcasts, books and other resources enable us to learn from the experience of a much more varied group of people, from across the world and even across time.
Your child is unique. One of a kind. History will not be repeated. That should be celebrated, but it shouldn’t exclude you. There’s still so much to learn from others. So listen to the rhyme of history too, and learn from others. God’s given us this privilege – make the most of it!
Your son comes home from school crying because he feels rejected by his friends.
Your daughter feels self-conscious about her appearance.
Your 5-year old has an issue with lying.
Your teenager is anxious about her upcoming exams.
Your child seems to have no interest in faith.
What do you do?
Parenting is a very practical endeavour isn’t it? Countless times every day, we serve our children in practical ways. We wake them up. we feed them food, we do their laundry, we teach them personal hygiene, we take them to school, the list goes on.
So what do we do when faced with an emotional and spiritual issue like the ones above?
Our natural instinct is often to think of practical solutions to the problems. Talking to the school teacher, rewarding good behaviour, giving a pep talk. And none of those things are necessarily bad. Not at all.
But our first response (not our last resort) should be to pray. To pray for our children, and to pray with our children.
And not just to model dependence on God to our children. But because as we pray, we are addressing the mighty creator of the universe, and appealing to our heavenly Father to act on their behalf. In other words, we are asking the God who is powerful, and who loves us to intervene. What a brilliant privilege.
Prayer is essential in our parenting. It istrue that we can sometimes change an outcome or a behaviour through practical actions… for example, if we bribe our three year old with chocolate, he will probably be a “good boy” while we’re running our errands. And yet while bribery, threat and praise might change his behaviour, they cannot change his little heart. Only the Holy Spirit can bring about heart change.
Stop and ponder this for a moment, and you’ll see this is actually hugely liberating – none of our efforts can bring Christian faith in our children. But as well as liberating, it’s also sobering – we need God to be merciful and bring about newness of life.
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.”
So what should we do when confronted with any situation big or little in the life of our children?
Pray.
Pray as a first response not a last resort.
It’s easy to say, but more difficult to do.
So why don’t you (and your spouse) commit to spending a couple of minutes each night before bed praying for your children? Pray about the issues in their life at the moment. But most importantly of all, persist in prayer for them to come to faith in Christ, and for them to grow in their faith in Christ.
Keep going! Remember, God is “able to do infinitely more than all we ask or imagine.” Wow – what a thought! And what a brilliant comfort for us, whatever our children face.
If you think your friends would be encouraged by this post we’d love it if you would share it.
This is a space where Christian parents can support each other as they try to create a gospel-centered environment for their children to grow up in.
We love the sense of community that there is on our Facebook Page. However the drawback to a page is that only we as the admins can post, so we think it’s high time to create another space where everyone in the community can post and join the discussion. True community is built when there’s an opportunity for everyone to contribute and express themselves.
So this Facebook Group will be a place where you can
ask for advice
post prayer requests
post any online resources that you have found particularly helpful in Christian parenting. The sharing of edifying memes, book links, blog posts, podcasts and sermons are very much encouraged.
As Christians we are defined by the gospel. That is, we are sinners saved by God’s amazing grace. This will be reflected in this group which will be a supportive, gracious and encouraging community.
We hope that you join the new group! We’re praying that the group will be a blessing to you as you raise your children in the knowledge and love of God. We hope that you make this group your own community and mine the depths of wisdom provided by your fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.
We’re excited to see what God will do through the friendships and fellowship created through this group. We’d love you to join us!
What are the things that you’re tempted to boast about in your children? What are you most defensive about? Or most keen to point out about them?
“Your child learned to swim aged 4? Mine was 3.”
“My little girl is very advanced at reading – she’s got the reading age of a 10 year old, and she’s only 6!”
“My child would never hit another child like that.”
“My baby started sleeping through the night at just 4 months.”
“Little Bertie has an amazing imagination, it’s so vivid.”
Chances are that whatever you’re most keen to point are the things that you think give your child status. And your child probably knows it. They probably know that what you think is significant about them.
An important question to ask is this: is this what we want to teach our children? Do you want them to think that these are the things that give them status?
A consistent strand to Jesus’ teaching is this: the things that give people status and significance in this world are not what matters in the kingdom of God. In fact he goes further than that. It’s not even that they are neutral. Very often they are negative.
An example from the Bible
We see it in the many encounters between Jesus and the pharisees on the Sabbath. Jesus is presented with someone in desperate need – facing a debilitating illness with no hope of relief. No hope that is, except divine intervention. Yet the pharisees are so committed to their status as the religious elite that they’d rather see a man suffer than see him healed on the Sabbath. Even though they themselves would do things on the Sabbath to help things that matter to them – like help their child or ox that’s fallen in to a well.
See Luke 14 for example. It’s the Sabbath, and Jesus is at the dinner party of a prominent pharisee.
Whilst there, he heals a man suffering with abnormal swelling, and then confronts the pharisees with the exact scenario I just mentioned:
Then he asked them, “If one of you has a child or an ox that falls into a well on the Sabbath day, will you not immediately pull it out?”And they had nothing to say.”
They had nothing to say. Why? Well if they said it was wrong to pull them out, their status would be affected – they would seem callous and uncaring. But if they agreed that they actually would pull them out, then their super-religious credentials would be tarnished.
So rather than celebrate this incredible and miraculous compassionate act of God, they say nothing. Their status matters more to them.
Jesus then goes on to highlight this exact issue in a parable. It’s a parable about the jostle for the most prestigious seats at a wedding party. He finishes his parable with one of those pithy, profound phrases that he often uses:
For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
Humility.
That’s what all of this comes down to.
At the root of humility is a recognition that we are needy people.
We all are.
Some of us are materially needy. Others emotionally, physically, mentally or relationally.
Some of us are none of those things, and would rank high in the world’s status ranks.
But we are all spiritually needy. And we must remember that.
All of us come before God with empty hands, offering nothing. We come in need: in need of forgiveness, in need of mercy and of grace.
To be a Christian is to be humble – humble in the sense that we recognise our bankruptcy in our status before God.
Let’s not play the comparison game
In this sense, none of us rank higher than another on the status ranks. This is profoundly humbling. And it puts us on a level playing field with everyone else. It means that we cannot look down on anyone, even if by the world’s status ranks we would be higher or lower than others.
It’s this profoundly humbling reality that will enable us to respond to God, and respond to others appropriately. This is where the pharisees went wrong. Their high sense of their own status led to a low opinion of others. They couldn’t and wouldn’t care for the most needy in society because they looked down on them from their lofty position. They thought they were better than them. They needed to be humbled.
How to teach our children humility
So this brings us back to what we want to teach our children.
We want to be parents who celebrate the skills and abilities that God has given our children, of course. It would be ungrateful to God to not do that.
But we want to make sure in all of that that our children never forget two things:
All we have is from God, and that means we can never boast.
In the stakes that matter most – how we stand before God – we are utterly dependent, and offer nothing.
These two realities, if God lays them on the hearts of our children, will ensure they develop humility.
Humility breeds deep confidence and assurance
And here’s the counter-intuitive effect of being humble -with that humility will come a deep confidence and assurance. They will not build their status on their achievements which can crumble in an instant. They will build their status on the reality that they couldn’t be more loved. The God they have rejected is the same God who has gone to the greatest possible lengths to humble himself so that they can be exalted. Even to death. He has not spared his own son, for them. They are loved. They are accepted. They are blessed.
When they are humbled in this way, it will overflow into a humility towards others too, as they see others not as inferior to them, but as equal. Even those who the world sees as “needy”.
So let’s be careful. Let’s be careful in the way that we speak to our children to not develop in them a sense of entitlement. Let’s avoid trotting out the usual lines that make our children think they are important because of their status that they achieved through sporting/academic/social accomplishments. We can celebrate some of those things with grateful hearts. But let’s not puff up our children so that they feel exalted over others.
Instead let’s (prayerfully, by the power of the Spirit) seek to nurture in our children a deep-rooted confidence in the status that matters most. The status that they have as dearly loved children of God who have been lavished with his grace and mercy. Let them be humbled under the wonder of that. And let them be exalted in the way that truly matters.
We’d love to hear how you do this with your children. Why don’t you comment below with some of the questions you ask your children, or comments you make to help your children find their status in how God perceives them in Christ, not in their accomplishments.
We’re blessed to live in a time where there are a wealth of resources available to us to help us in all areas of life.
From books and podcasts to videos and conferences, there is so much brilliant stuff out there that we almost don’t know where to start. And this is certainly true in the world of parenting.
We want to recognise that God has been kind to us who live in the 21st century by making available so much wise counsel – often at the touch of a button.
The Lord commends the acquiring of knowledge. Take for example Proverbs 9 verse 9:
Give instruction to a wise man and he will be still wiser, teach a righteous man and he will increase his learning.”
Knowledge on its own can puff us up, but knowledge applied to life by the power of the Spirit leads to wisdom and right-living.
But with such a wealth of material out there, we often don’t know where to start.
Is there something missing from the page? A resource that you love that is gospel-centred and you think might benefit other parents? Then please mention it in the comments below, and we may well add it to the list!
That word will conjure up different things for each of us. Smells, memories, feelings, longings.
We want our children to see our home as their home. And as life goes on, we hope that they will still look forward to spending time with us, and that there’ll be a place in their heart for our home.
But the question we want to consider today is this: Can we do anything to help our children love home? And more importantly – should we? The answer, by the way is yes. But perhaps not in the way you might expect.
What Is Home?
As an adult reading this, where do you consider ‘home’ to be?
Some of us find that question easier to answer than others.
Some have moved around a lot in life, living in different parts of the UK or the world. For some, it’s hard to pin down that one place that you can truly call home.
But even if you’ve always lived here in the place you live now, you might still find it hard to say what is home.
Is it your parents home? The place where you spent your childhood and maybe have many happy memories.
Is it the place where you live now, your house that you’ve put time and effort in to making your own.
Behind all of this is a deeper question.
What is home?
What makes something feel like home? What makes one place rather than another significant to us?
I’d suspect there are lots of ways you could answer that.
It’s the place where we feel safe.
It’s the place where the things that surround us bring joy and remind us of something that matters to us.
It’s the place where we feel we can be ourselves, and feel like we belong.
Home is where we’re loved.
Home is a hugely significant theme in the Bible, even if doesn’t necessarily always use that word.
We think that most people reading this post desire after that sense of home. It’s a human desire. We want that sense of safety and warmth and belonging.
The Bible’s explanation for why we want is because humanity was created that way.
The Bible’s Story Of Home
At the beginning of the Bible, God makes a perfect world, and he puts people into it. He creates a home for them which he calls Eden, and it’s a home that fulfils all of those desires we have for home.
It’s safe.
It’s a place where the original people, Adam and Eve, belong. And they know they belong there, because they live there with God who walks and talks with them and makes it very clear to them that they are loved and that they matter to him.
It’s a physical world, and the stuff around them brings joy – over and over again God declares the stuff good. He creates plants and declares them good. Animals – good. Sun, moon and stars – good. And the Bible makes it clear that the stuff is there to be enjoyed, and to remind them of something that matters to them, just like the stuff in our home does.
The stuff of the physical world speaks to them about the God who made them – everything around them act as signposts to the glory of God, as Psalm 19 says:
“The heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim the works of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech”.
Eden is home. And humanity was created to live in the security, belonging and joy of that physical world that could be called home in it’s truest sense.
And the goal of God’s creation, the thing that humanity is called to do in creation, is rest with God. God makes a world in which we can rest, secure and loved, with him. That’s what we’re made for. Home.
And because of that, that’s why home is something that matters to us. That’s why we all have this innate sense of home and why we long for it.
And of course, for many of us longing is exactly the right word to use when it comes to thinking about home. Home is more of a sense of something we don’t have than we do. We get glimpses of experiencing home, but often it seems just out of our grasp, or seems to be something from a distant memory rather than a present reality.
And even for those of us who do enjoy a sense of home… we still feel frustrations and a desire for something more.
When Home Went Wrong
The reason that the Bible gives for that frustration is the fall.
The Bible describes humanity as turning it’s back on God, and God’s response to that was to make Adam and Eve leave Eden.
Eden could no longer be home.
But that’s not the end of the story. God doesn’t leave humanity without hope. Through Abraham and the patriarchs God makes promises. A significant thread to those promises is a promise of home.
God promises Abraham that his descendents will enjoy a land that he will them, in which they will be blessed and find rest. He promises home.
But as history unfolds, it becomes increasingly clear that Canaan, the land God showed to Abraham, was never going to be the Eden-like home that we all want.
Eventually Jesus comes onto the scene. He, and the other New Testament writers, don’t abandon this search for home. In fact, they show that what was promised to Abraham was always meant to be greater than Canaan (Rom 4:13).
To truly restore home, what is needed is a new creation. A new heavens and a new earth where all of the brokenness of the world will be undone.
In his resurrected body, Jesus begins that new creation.
And as Jesus begins to rescue a people for himself, he starts to build his new creation further (2 Cor 5:17).
The new creation is here in you today if you are a Christian. Home is here, in the now.
But only in part. We live in the now but not yet. As we’ve seen, the new creation (home) is in one sense here now. But it’s also not yet here.
We live in the not yet of home too.
It’s not fully here yet in that our physical bodies are still marred by the effects of living in a broken world – the beginning of 2 Corinthians 5 makes that clear.
But it’s not just our bodies that feel the effect of sin.
The whole world groans under the effect of sin too. It is still broken, and it is still not the place where God walks among his people.
This world, as it is, isn’t home. Not if you’re a Christian. We are in part a new creation now. But we are not yet home.
We live in the now but not yet.
The Bible describes us as exiles. We’re living in a foreign land, away from home.
Hebrews 13:14 says it like this:
“For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come”.
And so in one sense, we’re just like Abraham and the people of Israel. We rest on the promises of God for a land to come, just like they did. But we have even greater confidence that God will fulfil that promise, because he’s already done all that’s needed to secure it for us.
Now back to the topic at hand.
Should We Help Our Children To Love Home?
Well of course a good parent will try to create a safe, comfortable space for their child(ren) – we want to do that.
But we want to suggest to you that there’s another home to get your children to love. And that home isn’t here.
To love our children well, we want them to recognise that this world can never be all they want it to be. Not least because they do not see the Lord face to face, but for all sorts of other reasons too. We want our children to have an appropriate sense of grief at the brokenness of this temporal home, and we want them to have a deep ache for their home to come. We want them to know that they live in the now but not yet.
So we want to learn to speak of it often, with joy. As they come against brokenness in their own lives or in the world around them, we want to remind them of why things are as they are, and point them to the time when the brokenness will be fixed.
We want to invite you to do the same, with your children.
“Having children is the most destructive thing you can do to the planet.”
“Want to fight climate change? Have fewer children.”
“The biggest threat to earth? We have too many kids.”
This was our findings from a simple google search about the impact of children on the environment. This sort of sentiment is widespread in the media, and there are good reasons for it. Read on in these articles and you’ll discover that in the UK alone, 8 million disposable nappies are thrown out each year. Apparently a family having one less child could reduce their CO2-emissions by 58.6 tonnes per year! It sounds convincing doesn’t it?
But it doesn’t necessarily sound like a biblical view of humanity.
Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
Genesis 1:26-28
When God created the world, humanity was supposed to care for and cultivate the planet. As the population grew, the environment and the animal kingdom was to flourish, not the opposite. In God’s creation mandate to humanity it was their job to procreate and, in so doing, to look after the environment. Population growth and the welfare of the environment were to go hand-in-hand.
But sadly, because of the Fall, the world is not like that.
Did you watch the recent BBC documentary series Blue Planet 2? The footage of the vast array of marine life that God has made was awe-inspiring.
Perhaps you also remember the shots of the walruses slipping off sheets of melting ice, or the baby whale dying because it’s mother’s milk was poisoned by pollution, or the sperm whale nearly choking on plastic. It was tragic. Tragic to see the effect that sinful humanity can have on the environment and on the animal kingdom.
But the answer isn’t to just stop having children.
Sometimes people suggest that if humanity was just to become extinct then the planet would flourish. But really what kind of solution is that? It’s a ludicrous suggestion which is of no practical benefit.
No, rather than empty and negative statements like that, what we need, is to be parent’s who seek to care for and cultivate our planet. And in turn to have children who will care for and cultivate our planet. Russell Moore sums it up brilliantly in his article “Should we stop having children to save the Earth?”
The rearing of children is, at the most primal level, the same impulse that should drive humanity to check a reckless, selfish form of “dominion.” Our connection to future generations, cultivated in a love for children, is one that is to spark an other-directed, future-directed domino, one that preserves and protects eco-systems for generations to come. Procreation is pro-creation.”
So are parents environmental villains? Well, the short answer is not necessarily.
There are things that we can do to care for the environment and to teach our children to do likewise.
So let’s get practical.
[[But before we do, we want to just emphasise that nothing in the following list can make us more or less loved, accepted and righteous in God’s sight. The wonderful truth of the gospel is that none of our eco-friendly efforts in life (or lack thereof) justifies us before God, or makes us more pleasing to him. Only Jesus can do that!]]
As we see God’s priority for our planet, and think about his plan to recreate a perfect new heaven and earth at the end of time, we will be committed to loving and stewarding the world that God has given us. If the planet is important to God, it should be important for us. So here are a few practical ideas…
Why don’t you become a member of RSPB (or another organisation if you don’t live in the UK) to help protect nature reserves for future generations? Taking your children to see wildlife flourish in it’s natural habitat will give them a love and appreciation for God’s creation, and will help them see that their choices (both positive and negative) have an impact. If you do this and ever come to visit their amazing reserve at Saltholme… drop us a line and we may well be able to see you there!
Use cloth nappies and/or wipes
Consider switching to cloth nappies and/or wipes. While the initial outlay is expensive, they can save you £££s and more importantly reduce waste. It may not be realistic to go the whole hog – it’s better to do something in a manageable and sustainable way.
We attempted using cloth nappies with our eldest when we were brand new parents, with a temperamental washing machine and no tumble dryer! It set us up for disaster and disappointment. Now we’ve just got back into the swing of them again (with baby number two) but we use disposables at night, on holiday and for trips to grandparents. Still, even if we’re only reducing our waste by half, that’s still half.
If you’re new to reusables, then we would recommend Wonderoos for nappies and Cheeky Wipes* for wet wipes.
Organise a stuff swap
How much stuff do you have lying around your house that you don’t need or use anymore? Clothes that haven’t been worn for years, boxes of things hidden in cupboards just in case, books that look pretty but won’t be re-read? Well why don’t you have a de-clutter and invite a load of friends around for some nibbles and an opportunity to swap till you drop?! We did one recently (why don’t you use it as an outreach event too?) and were thrilled at the opportunity to get rid of our junk and pick up some great new things (mainly clothes, books and jigsaw puzzles for our boys). It’s eco-friendly, money-saving and charity-helping. We bagged up all our un-swapped goods at the end of the night and donated them to charity shops. Everybody wins!
Switch to eco-friendly household detergents
We’ve recently stopped using laundry powder and we’ve switched to soap nuts*. They are really very cheap in comparison, they cause no water pollution and are chemical free which is great for babies and adults alike. They aren’t scented so we sometimes put a few drops of essential oils in the drum, to give them a smell. We’ve also switched anti-bacterial spray and stain remover to white vinegar*. This stuff is amazing! It gets stains and smells out of clothes as well as softens them (pour some into the conditioner drawer) and well as working as an alternate for antibacterial spray and limescale remover. We’re sure it does even more, but we haven’t googled it yet! We buy it in bulk* saving money and reducing plastic.
Buy free-range meat
Vegetarianism and Veganism are really taking off at the moment. The United Nations are urging people to adopt a meat-free and dairy-free diet for environmental reasons. If you have a conviction that a vegetarian or vegan diet is right for you and your family for environmental or animal rights reasons then that’s great! We see in Scripture that there is freedom for Christian’s to abstain or eat meat according to their conscience. In our family we love meat and see it as a good gift from God, to be enjoyed with thanksgiving. However we’ve made a switch to free-range meat where possible and try to get two or even three meals out of our whole chicken (inevitably this will become impossible when the boys get bigger, as they’re only three and one years old right now.)
Well that’s all folks. We’d love to hear your thoughts on how you seek to steward the planet that God has given us. We’d love some more ideas of things we can incorporate into our lives. Do leave a comment on Facebook or here on the blog if you’re going to try any of this, or if you’ve got any suggestions of what we could try.
We loved hand-picking the band from our extraordinarily talented group of friends, and enjoyed them singing our favourite songs – Christian and secular (Cathy entered to the beautiful melody of Ben Fold’s “Luckiest” and we exited/ dance-walked-slightly-awkwardly back down the aisle to Stevie Wonder’s “Signed, Sealed, Delivered”.)
We put lots of thought into picking the passage – we wanted the extravagant love of our missional God to be proclaimed – so we picked the Prodigal Son.
We created a slideshow of photos of us growing up together (we grew up in the same church, we met when Cathy was 9 and Scott was 13, and a decade later we got together. It was weird at first after being best friends for so long, but soon felt totally right).
We loved making the ceremony really personal – and were thrilled to invite three close friends, who loved us as individuals, and loved us together, to pray for our marriage.
One of the things that was prayed for us, was that one day we would be blessed with children.
It was a great prayer.
Although at the time we wondered it it was a little premature. A little presumptuous perhaps? After all, this is only our wedding day. The very first day of our married journey together.
Having been blessed by God with children three years into marriage, however, we realise that it was a great prayer.
Why? Because children are not a right, we aren’t promised them and we don’t deserve them.
When you look down at those red lines on the pregnancy test, or you inhale the smell of your sleeping baby as they lie on your chest (oxytocin overload, yes?), or as you watch them take their first wobbly steps… not to mention all the innumerable milestones, moments of connection and belly laughs to follow that… you just know that children are a gracious blessing from the hand of a loving heavenly father. He enjoyed creating and parenting his own children, and he wanted us to experience the same thing. Mind-blowing.
So we know that children are a blessing. We know that it’s a big deal to be entrusted with shepherding a child’s heart. We know that having a full nest is a nest full of fun, full of activity and full of staggering potential.
But here’s the thing:
Children are a blessing but they won’t always be physically present.
One day you (and we) will have an empty nest.
The bedrooms will be tidy. The bank balance will increase. And the house will be quiet.
The nest will be empty.
But actually, it won’t. It won’t be completely empty, because hopefully your spouse will still be there.
Marriage matters because it will go on. It will outlive your years of having children at home. Marriage matters because done rightly (with plenty of Holy-Spirit assistance!) it is permanent.
Do you remember saying these words on your wedding day?
“to have and to hold from this day forward; for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part”
You vowed to a life-long, committed and loving relationship, until one of you dies or Jesus returns.
It puts things in perspective doesn’t it?
Life with children gets busy, messy, noisy, distracting, overwhelming and worrying! But we mustn’t let our children – for all their wonderfulness and all their needs, become the sole focus and sole object of our marriages.
Because when the nest is empty what will keep that marriage healthy, strong and together?
So here are some practical things to think about for investing in your marriage now – right in the midst of this busy season of parenting.
Enjoy each other. Reflect on your story together, including life pre-children. Remember who you were as individuals (before you were known as “Mum” and “Dad”). Your children will find you more interesting, as will your spouse, who was attracted to that person – with all their interests and opinions. And ultimately it’s an important part of who God created you to be.
Do ministry that isn’t only about your children. Have other couples or individuals round for food and ask intentional questions about how they are getting on in their faith. This is a great way to serve together as a couple and to remember who life is all about anyway (Jesus!).
Ultimately we need to let God be God and let him set the priorities for our lives.
He says that loving and serving him is our top priority. But part of how we do that is by loving his people (the church), loving our families and loving the lost.
So children will be important focus of our marriages, but they should never become the ultimate thing that we live for. Looking at the condition of our marriages may be a good indicator at whether we’re keeping God’s priorities in our lives or not.
Now there’s a real possibility here that this post could cause some feelings of condemnation. Perhaps your marriage isn’t in great shape. Perhaps your children have already flown the nest and you keenly feel the challenge of trying to reinvigorate your marriage. Perhaps your marriage has broken down.
Well what we always want to do here on Gospel-Centred Parenting is remember the extraordinary freedom, joy and hope that comes from the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
If you believe that Jesus died so that you can be forgiven, and rose from the dead to give you the hope of eternal life then this is what God says to you, right now, whatever situation you find yourself in:
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering.
Romans 8:1-2
What good news indeed!
So whatever situation you are in, revel, steep and bask in that glorious good news. And if you’re in a position to do so, do it with your spouse and together, empowered by the Spirit, work at deepening and enjoying this life-long relationship that the Lord has given you.
2017 was a big year for us at Gospel-Centred parenting. Our vision is to see families enjoying the gospel and applying it to all areas of life, and so it was a thrill to see God using the blog to that end across the year.
We don’t always know why, but some of the content we produce seems to especially connect with people. There were several posts across the year that really seemed to strike a note. You may have missed one or two of them, so we thought we’d collate our 5 most popular posts of 2017.
So here they are, in reverse order. Click on the title to dive into the post…
This is a post from early in 2017. It was the fourth of five posts exploring things that we, as parents, mistakenly believe about ourselves or our children, that show how we’re forgetting the gospel and living under unnecessary burdens. In this post we consider discontentment – if you’re tempted to think the grass is greener on the other side (whatever that side is) then this post is for you.
If you’ve read this blog for a while, you may know that it was started after we suffered the grief of miscarriages. We wanted to create a space where we could think about how the gospel applies to all areas of parenting, including grieving over the death of unborn children. One of the ways God has ordained to support couples going through miscarriage is the Christian community. Our experience of this support network at the time of our miscarriages was mixed (although we are very grateful for all who tried to support us). In light of this, we thought it might be helpful to write a post to help people think through how to best support a grieving parent going through a miscarriage. We hope you never need to heed the advice in this post, but with one in four pregnancies ending in miscarriage, chances are you may need to.
One of the biggest changes in 2017 for Gospel-Centred Parenting was the launch of our Jesse Tree Ornaments. We we very apprehensive to launch a product, but were bowled over by the support it received from you, the lovely Gospel-Centred Parenting community. This support is evidenced by the fact that the post announcing the launch of the Jesse Tree Ornaments was the third most popular in the year. (Cheeky plug: we’re selling them all year round, so if you want to start your advent preparations really early, you can order yours now!)
Cathy went through a difficult patch in 2017, and she reflected on that in this post. It’s often through the grit of real life that we appreciate the gospel most fully, and we were thrilled to see how this post connected with lots of people who had shared similar experiences. If you’re going through a hard time at the moment and feel like it’s just one thing after another, then you might find this post helpful.
The most popular post of 2017 came once again in January, with this wonderful guest post on talking to your kids about sex. Joanne Parks shared her insights on this tricky topic, and well over a thousand of us engaged with what she had to say. It’s a great post and, we think, a must read. So if you’ve not read it yet, head over to the post to glean some wisdom from the lovely Joanne Parks.
There we have it – the top 5 posts of 2017. We’re grateful to God for the way he’s kindly used Gospel-Centred Parenting over the past year, and are looking forward to seeing what 2018 brings. If you want to enjoy that journey with us, why not subscribe to our email newsletter to receive a weekly digest of what’s new on the blog. Click here to find out more.
You don’t need to have spent long on our blog to have read some of the hilarious/ embarrassing/ cringe-worthy anecdotes of life with our two little boys. We try to keep it real here. Parenting isn’t a competition. Our kids aren’t are personal trophies. And crucially – JESUS is the answer! The answer to our brokenness, their brokenness and to all the stresses and strains of life.
And yet, perhaps we are too critical or negative at times. Not necessarily on the blog. But we have realised that perhaps we have a personal tendency to dwell on the negative in life.
In addition, and linked to thinking negatively, I (Cathy) am a worrier… and all the things that go along with it. I over-think. I get stressed and anxious about things. I am critical of myself.
Well enough is enough!
Jesus doesn’t want us to live life like that.
He died and rose again so that we can be free from guilt, sin and fear, and he fills us with his Spirit to live courageous, joyful and hope-filled lives. That doesn’t mean that hard times don’t come, or that we don’t still struggle with our sin – but it does mean that there should be a trajectory of growth in the Christian life. Such growth that when the hard times come they have the effect of beautifying us and sanctifying us and drawing us close to Christ – not the other way round.
It was designed by a Zoe Powell, a Christian mum of three young children.
It’s a journal which is designed to give you “mental space in the midst of motherhood” and £4 from each sale goes to PANDAS foundation which supports mums with pre and post natal depression. (Give me a chance to buy from a Christian mum with a small business, who gives from her profits to charity and well I’m starting to struggle to find reasons NOT to buy it!)
But, I don’t need to find reasons not to buy it, because this product is really really great.
What is the Mama Book?
The Mama Book is a journal (it’s undated so you can start at any point of the year), and you can use it as a weekly planner. But what makes it different from any other journal is that it is designed to give you a safe place to process motherhood. For me, as an external processor, this tool is exactly what I need!
In the introduction to the journal Zoe writes this:
“Hey Lovely Mama!
The Mama Book was born out of my desire to have a space to process, plan and reflect on life as a mother. I needed a physical space dedicated to this important job as my mind was getting crowded, and some time to process the complexities of motherhood. This is your safe place to dream, process, document, scribble and write through your season as a Mama.”
Zoe has come up with some great questions to get you writing. My personal favourites are:
WHAT MATTERS MOST – My top 5 passions and areas that I really want to invest in. Does my day-to-day match up with this?
MY LITTLE ONES – What things do I want to remember about them as they are right now?
BUCKET LIST – Things to do together before they are grown.
I haven’t had the discipline or inclination to journal for years – even though I knew it would have been good for me. But I can personally vouch for the effectiveness of this journal for getting me into the habit. The questions are so thought-provoking and reflective that I consider each time I sit down to write in my journal to be a real treat. It gives me a little bit of time to be refreshed, take stock, and collect my thoughts. I sometimes use my journalling time as a launchpad for prayer.
I can say that with Zoe’s book, and Jesus’ help, I can already see that I am developing more of an attitude of gratitude and joy and that I am thinking negatively less! Thank you Lord!
And because I love it so much, I decided to buy a copy for a friend and write a blog post about it too!
