Author: Scott and Cathy

I wasn’t sure if I’d ever write this post, I wasn’t sure I could bring myself to, I wasn’t sure if I could bear to be this real… but we claim to believe that “the gospel of grace gloriously speaks into our messy lives” here at Gospel-Centred Parenting. So here we go, warts and all…

I (Cathy) went through a rough patch back in the New Year.

We’d had quite a good run I suppose. For six months the baby and the toddler synced naps for an hour or so every day (glory!!!). In the early days I’d sometimes nap too, but often I’d use that hour to do a job or two, and just rest with a coffee. It was a little respite in an otherwise long and exhausting day of looking after a young baby and a jealous and energetic toddler. I could cope with the days (often enjoy them in fact!) But that little break was really helpful for me to refuel and brace myself for the afternoon.

But suddenly everything changed; within the course of a few weeks…

• The toddler got chickenpox (we were in quarantine for a week).
• We went on holiday, and then the baby got chicken pox while we were away (we were in quarantine for another week).
• I got mastitis (if you’ve never heard of this – think breast duct infection while being a breastfeeding mother – ouch!)
• The toddler stopped napping but the baby didn’t stop his incessant night-feeding, resulting in sleep-deprivation and exhaustingly LOOONG days.
• The toddler was 2.5 years old – cue tiny tyrant behaviour and many embarrassing social situations.

Then to top it off –

• A mean mum yelled at me the park – we’ll get there later on…

Hence –

• I was exhausted. I was sad. I was exhausted, it was making me sad.
• I started gorging on Mars Bars  (for you non-Brits, all you need to know is that Mars Bars are basically 100% sugar… with a bit of fat thrown in the mix. Battered Mars Bars are a Glaswegian delicacy: I didn’t go that far).

In the space of a few weeks, my somewhat ordinary life had been turned upside down and I felt totally overwhelmed and like I couldn’t cope.

Let me explain to you what this felt like, because a list does not do the misery justice!

Mastitis is, for me, clear evidence of the fall! How can something as beautiful and natural like feeding your baby be such torture?! That horrendous infection was so debilitating.  I had never experienced feeling so unwell as a mother; how are you meant to look after two tiny dependent children, when you can’t even get down the stairs safely because you feel so faint?

Superhero Daddy flew in to save the day…but still, after he returned to work the exhausted lingered on for another week or so. Recovery was not helped by the fact that…

Just at the very time when I most needed the toddler to nap, he decided enough was enough and he would much rather be awake ALL DAY LONGGGGG. No respite and a grumpy, naughty “terrible two-er”.

But then I finally started to feel well again. “It’s ok”, I thought. “We’re through it”, I thought. “We’ve survived!” We’ve battled the chicken pox, the mastitis, the sleep-deprivation, the nap-loss, and now we’re feeling ready to go on an outing (we hadn’t done one of these for a while – apart from to nursery, to church and to visit family) and so, we decide to venture out to the park; at 4pm in the afternoon; the week that the toddler dropped his afternoon naps. I should have seen a disaster was waiting to happen, but alas…

There I was chatting to some friends as we congregate around the climbing frame, watching our little ones. At the time, my two-year old was going through quite an aggressive stage. Occasional hitting, pushing and “NO”-ing. Not OK behaviour, but age-appropriate I hear. To be expected I hear. They grow out of it I hear. It’s called the “terrible twos” I hear.

I don’t think the other mum had ever heard of it before. But I get ahead of myself.

I was watching the toddler and chatting to my friends (probably bemoaning the fact that I had just had mastitis) when the baby started crying. I took my eyes off the toddler and leaned down to pick up the screaming baby, I straightened back up again and BAM…

Mean mum was there, in my face, raising her voice.

“Your boy pushed my little boy” It started off, innocently enough. Oh I thought, she wants me to get the toddler to apologise. I call him over.

Oh no… I quickly realise. That’s not what she wants.

She just wants to have a go at me. Swear about my child. Humiliate me and try to provoke me to yell back at her. She’s aggressive. She’s intimating. She’s acting completely disproportionately to the situation.  She’s creating a scene – we’re surrounded by the post school-run crowd.

I was shell-shocked.

I have never had someone speak to me or my child like that.

What my toddler did may have been wrong (incidentally I didn’t even see the scuffle, as I was getting the baby out of his pram, although I don’t doubt that mean mum was telling the truth) – but her reaction, unlike my son’s – was not age-appropriate or defensible. It’s never ok to insult a tiny child in their hearing!

Well, I did what I always do in confrontational situations. I fled… I fought back the tears, grabbed my little boy and took him to a quiet corner of the play area to talk to him about his behaviour (and out of earshot of the mean mum).

After a bit more mouthing off, the mother cycled off, with her very embarrassed looking husband behind her.

It was so ridiculous, so disproportionate and so unexpected, that it sounds almost comical!

But the damage was done.

It was at an all-time-low for me as a parent. The whole incident was completely unexpected and mind-boggling to me. Perhaps if it had happened during a period of motherhood when everything had been going swimmingly then I could have coped fine. I would have considered it rude but I would have seen it in perspective – an overprotective mother taking out her anger on me. But the incident occurred right at the time when I was already feeling deflated, overwhelmed and utterly sleep-deprived.

I wasn’t in an emotionally stable place and her accusations really played on my mind and I started to internalise them. What she said about me and my son started to become how I viewed us too. I saw his aggressive behaviour as reflecting on me and my poor parenting (incidentally he is three now and has outgrown that aggressive phase). But at the time, there was no end in sight, and it got me down. I felt like a failure, and I wanted to withdraw from social settings.

It could have easily been a downward spiral.

But here’s what happened instead – God helped me out through different means of grace. God was kind to me and ministered through a number of very ordinary things. These were:

Friends

The incident happened in front of my friends. At first I felt that made the situation worse – how mortifying! But after the incident, they spoke truth to me, gave me perspective, helped me to see that this woman was acting irrationally and her opinion was not to be trusted. I’m so glad they were there – and as I replayed the situation in my head countless times after the incident, I clung to their words of advice and perspective.

Scott

Scott was great. He listened to me recount the scenario lots of times, he comforted me when I cried, he reminded me of all the great things that we cherish about our son, and he gave me perspective. And when I was still anxious and down about it several days after the incident, he patiently went through the whole process again and prayed that God would take my anxiety away.

Church

I didn’t want to go to church, because I didn’t want my son to be around other young children. I was afraid of another aggressive incident and I wanted to isolate us rather than allow us to be in a situation where he could act badly, embarrass me and quite simply cause a great deal of stress! But you can’t really opt out of church if your hubby is in church leadership. So I had no choice – and thank goodness I didn’t. Being in Christian community where you and your children are accepted regardless of your/their bad behaviour is freeing. And being exposed to the gospel is the best possible solution to every problem and every situation. Christian community and gospel exposure were exactly the antidote to my temptation to withdraw.

Mum

My mum lives abroad but had just come back to the UK the week of the incident. Sometimes what you need is a few day outings, a change of scene and a doting grandmother who thinks your children are cute, wonderful little creatures who are simply going through a phase. Compassion, encouraging words and a good giggle is sometimes what’s needed.

Nursery

A few days before the mastitis hit, we learnt that a local primary school  had some subsidized spots for 2-year olds. They were very cheap and the child care was exceptional – so we decided to put Reuben in for 6 hours a week. This was God’s grace to us! The following weeks of challenging behaviour, nap-dropping and my being ill, demonstrated just how much we needed some external support. This support exceeded our expectations. God used these 6 hours a week to help give me rest and crucially to stretch our son socially, behaviourally and academically – his aggressive behaviour diminished very quickly. Secular nursery has been used by God as a means of grace – common grace abounds in secular education – and we are deeply grateful!

Jesus

Of course all these means of grace come from Christ – who gives grace upon grace. It is the Spirit of  Jesus who speaks truth to us through the people around us (notice how in all of the sections above, God has used people to bring healing and truth to me, where circumstances and mean mum were only bringing condemnation).

So let this be my message to you.

Are you feeling alone? Condemned? Overwhelmed? Angry with your kids? Unable to cope? Down and anxious?

Then come to Christ – who is with you in the midst of it all. And expose yourself to his grace, by surrounding yourself by his people. Because we were never meant to do this parenting thing, or this life thing, or this being a Christian thing alone. 

So there we have it: “the gospel of grace gloriously speaks into our messy lives” yes it does… if we let it.

So there we go…. I actually wrote it… and I think I’ll probably publish it…

I can tell this story now. Now the baby sleeps through (some nights) and I feel refreshed. Now the two-year old is a three-year old and we’ve left that aggressive stage behind us. Now that I’m purging the mars bars from my diet. But you know what? I share this with you so that you know, whether you’re reading this while knee-deep in the messes and stresses of parenthood or whether you’re in a relatively easy/enjoyable stage – Jesus is enough. He’s always enough. He loves you when you feel strong. He loves you when you’re a mess – a leaky-boobed, leaky-eyed, barely-thinking-straight mess. He’s not phased. In fact, he’s compassionate. And he’s not going anywhere.

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Something exciting is on the cards for Gospel-Centred Parenting.

We’ve thought for a long time that we’d like to do something more for the Gospel-Centred Parenting community than just write blog posts (though we hope you find them helpful!).

Ideas have buzzed around our heads – you might remember us talking about this back in our First Birthday Post.

Well for several months now, behind the scenes, we’ve been beavering away to try to make just one of these things a reality… and we’re getting close.

Our new product will be launching in the next month or so, and we couldn’t be more excited about it. Check out the picture below of Cathy and our designer meeting on the floor of our living room to work on it (Scott’s behind the camera!).

If you’d like to be kept in the loop, then check out our new page by clicking here (***link no longer active***), or sign up below to receive updates on how things are progressing.

We can’t wait to reveal more (but we’ll have to, because it’s not quite ready yet!).

***This form has been removed since the cat is now out of the bag… check out the Jesse Tree Ornaments here if you want to see what it was we were building up to***

Little man,

It’s been three years since you made us parents.

Three years since you made the switch from the inside of mummy’s tummy to the outside of it… where they lay you.

You were pretty blue and slimey and you had a loud cry. But then you settled.

Mummy and Daddy were a bit terrified too… but then we settled.

You were ok. Mummy was ok. It was all going to be ok.

And Daddy wanted to cry because he was so relieved.

And once the medical staff had done their stuff, and the visitors had come and gone, it was just the three of us.

It had been quite an exhausting day – the day you journeyed to your life on the outside – and you were breathing heavily and fast asleep; wearing your little hat and swaddled in blankets like a miniature mummy. Your face was perfect. Like a little cherub. And we couldn’t help but kiss your cheeks – soft like a peach.

Mummy was desperate to be fast asleep too – but Daddy was too excited. He said, “Before we go to sleep let’s pray.” And he thanked God for your precious life and for bringing you safely into the world.

That was three years ago.

How was that three years ago?

Sometimes we wish that you would stop growing. But with each stage of your development we get to see more of the awesome person that God has created you to be.

Little man, you have a thirst for life that we’ve never seen before. You are enthusiastic and throw yourself (sometimes literally!) into everything you do.

You love people, like really love people. You come alive when other people are around, and you have an amazing confidence to make new people feel welcome and wanted – often kissing and cuddling guests who come to our home. And you’re thoughtful in a way we didn’t think possible from a three year old – today you exclaimed as Nanny came through the door, “It’s Nanny!!! – Do you want a coffee Nanny?” We didn’t teach you that… that thoughtfulness came from you. We wish we had that same hospitable instinct; we’ve got lots to learn from you little chap.

At the moment you love super heroes, imaginary play and toilet humour. And because we are pretty keen on you son…we’re into them too.

We are infinitely grateful to God for his grace – giving us countless blessings through the pleasure of knowing you and sharing our lives with you. Being your parents has taught us so much about God’s Father-heart towards us his children, and about his willingness to give grace to undeserving people who ask him for his help.

And now Son, we want to pray this for you; entrusting you into the hands of your heavenly Father – who is a much better parent than we are.

Loving Father,

Thank you sooooo much (This is how little chap starts his prayers) for blessing us with our son.

We thank you for all the joy, giggles, snuggles and fun times we have with him. Thank you for his personality – that he’s lively and happy and loves people.

Thank you for how you have been at work in him by answering our prayers. Thank you for how he is growing in his interest and love of you. Thank you for how he is feeling sadness over his sin. Thank you that Jesus’ sacrifice in his place means that he if offered full and free forgiveness – and may he grow more and more in his love and understanding of this gospel truth everyday.

And Father we ask, that our boy will grow up to do more for you than we ever could.

In Jesus Name,

Amen

We love you to the moon and back little chap,

With love,

Daddy and Mummy xxx

Social media is, in and of itself, neutral. It’s a human invention enabling us to connect with other human beings. It can be used for immense good. It can be used for immense evil. And pretty much everything in between.

As a species we are still trying to get our heads round the impact that social media is having on our relationships, our leisure time and on our mental well being. The impact of social media will no doubt be the topic of many a PhD paper in the years to come – it’s probably already begun.

We are still playing catch up, but inevitably it will be our children who are most up-to-date with the apps, trends and technology of the day. They are the ones acutely exposed to online dangers such as cyber bullying, graphic pornography, online predators, and websites promoting anorexia, self-harm and suicide. Even more tame uses of social media like scrolling through Instagram can have a detrimental impact on mental health, studies have found.

It’s a complex topic, and it’s an area where we as parents need to be vigilant, informed and keep the lines of communication open with our children.

So we’ve made a decision.

Our children are only tiny. We have a baby and a pre-schooler. They don’t use social media yet and they have no control over what is posted on social media. A lot of the complex issues discussed above don’t actually have any bearing on their lives yet.

But…

We’ve made a decision on their behalf…

We’re removing all the photos of our boys faces and their names from our Gospel-Centred Parenting website and from our social media accounts. (On the date of publication of this post, we’ve started the process and will hopefully get it finished in the next couple of weeks)

It’s a costly decision in a way, because we think they are super cute! We think they are (probably) the cutest children alive (we may be somewhat biased!) and we like other people to think so too.

Not only do we like other people’s approval of our children but there’s also external pressure.

Lots of parent-bloggers include pictures and the names of their children on social media – and you know what? They are usually the most successful bloggers. People like looking at cute kids, especially parents, it sort of goes with the “audience” you are trying to reach. It helps people feel more personally connected to us as bloggers, and will help our “audience” feel more loyal to us (or so those-who-know say).

But we’ve been reflecting on why we started our blog in the first place, and we realized that it was to help us reflect on our parenting in light of the gospel, so that we would do the best possible job of raising our boys. That was our objective then, and we still want that to be our objective now.

So – we want to strive to honour our children in the way that we blog. We love to keep it real, so we will share anecdotes about our kids – but always in a way which honours them as people deserving respect and privacy.

Are we saying that everyone who posts pictures of their children on their blogs and social media are making a terrible choice? Absolutely not! If you love showing off your children to your friends and family then that’s totally cool (and in fact we will do the same on our personal social media accounts). But in the end, when it comes to our blog, we don’t want our sons growing up and resenting us for oversharing their childhood in such a way that a simple google search will give their school peers plenty of ammunition for banter or bullying. We’re sure others do it in a way that avoids that, but for us, we don’t even want to entertain the possibility.

Because, in the end, our kids are too awesome and valuable for that.

Their long-term good is more important than our short-term self-gratification of a few likes, followers and nice comments.

This will be a provocative post in a way – we imagine that people will either love it or hate it depending on what their own stance is.

What we don’t want is for people to feel condemned!

As we mentioned above, we are removing these images from the website (hence we previously had them up for the world to see!) because we’ve had a change of heart and we’ve felt convicted to change our approach. And yet we will continue to post pictures that don’t show their faces on here, and we’ll continue to share more personal photos on our private accounts.

There’s no-one-size-fits-all to how you represent your children on social media, but here are a few questions you could ask yourself when you next go to share something with the cyber-world.

• How will my child feel about this image being on the internet in the future?
• Why am I posting this image/anecdote? Is it for their benefit or my own?
• Is there any personal information here which could put my child in danger?
• Where do I get my source of approval, love, acceptance and joy from? Answer: The Gospel of Jesus!

So there you have it… our personal opinion about safeguarding our children on social media.

What is your approach? We’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic in the comments section below.

Some people use their children as weapons.

They use them as a way to hurt others, or as a way defend themselves. You’ve probably met a parent like that. Maybe you’ve been tempted that way yourself?

Here’s the thing. There’s a sense in which the Bible says that our children are to be used a bit like weapons.

Intrigued? Then read on.

Take a look at these verses:

Children are a heritage from the Lord,
    offspring a reward from him.
 Like arrows in the hands of a warrior
    are children born in one’s youth.
Blessed is the man
    whose quiver is full of them.

We’ve been struck at the imagery of children being “like arrows”. It’s an interesting choice of simile.

An arrow isn’t designed to stay in the quiver. It’s good to have a quiver full, but only so that they can be sent out.

Arrows are meant to fly away from the quiver as the bow sends them out.

It’s interesting that the verses don’t say “Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a reward from him. Like trophies on your shelf” or “Like money inside your wallet”.

Why would this be this case?

Because children are not meant to remain dependent and cloistered up in our possession. They are not designed to be cooped up forever – they are designed to fly from the nest. The ideal is that they become independent, responsible and purposeful (an arrow is sent out of the quiver for a purpose, and noticeably sent out by another – “the warrior”).

Or to reflect on another metaphor…we all know that the nurturing of the mother-bird and safety of her nest are essential for the chicks to grow and develop. But we also know that it would be unnatural for the mother bird to try and sit on her growing chicks and prevent their efforts to fly from the nest. It would be unnatural – it would be unhealthy for the chick and for the mother-bird. It could result in the chick’s death. No, the healthy and natural way of things is for the chick to find their wings and with the mother’s encouragement to have the courage to step out of the nest and fly into the sky of opportunity.

So, if the end goal is independent, responsible and purposeful adults who will fly our nests – how do we begin to see our children in that way now?

If the goal is that we send our children out with a purpose, like a warrior sends out his arrows, then how do we prepare ourselves and them starting now?

Perhaps a change of mindset is needed for you – perhaps you’re tempted to treat your children as your trophies. Perhaps they are there to show off your achievement as a parent.

Perhaps you’re tempted to treat your children like a coin in your wallet – you see that they are precious and that makes you want to cling onto them.

Well the beginning of this Scripture can help us with that:

“Children are a heritage from the Lord,
    offspring a reward from him.”

Ultimately our children are from God. He created them and he gave us the immense privilege of caring for them, but they don’t belong to us, they’re not our property to treat as we see fit.

Our children are from him. Our purpose in raising them is to get them ready to live independently for the Lord. When they have left our care we want them to be living with purpose for God – loving his church, reaching the lost, serving the poor. That’s what we are designed for – that’s what they are designed for.

In the end, while children can bring us great personal joy and pleasure, they are not given to us simply for that purpose – they are to be given back to God for his service. Arrows in his quiver to be sent out for his kingdom.

Perhaps this sounds hard and counter-intuitive. Well we can take great comfort that God is more of a loving parent than we ever could be. We can know that the God who calls us to send our children out, is the God who sent his Son out. He’s the God who did not spare his Son, but gave him up for us. He is the God who so loved the world he gave his only begotten Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

And as we send our children out to independence and adulthood we know that the indwelling Spirit of God goes with our children protecting and providing for them all the way.

So don’t be afraid to weaponize your children… just make sure you do it in the right way.

What’s the secret to great parenting?

It may surprise you.

We recently went to some parenting seminars by Julian and Debbie Hardyman.

We sat in our seats waiting in anticipation for what they were going to say… What approach would they take? What new kernels of wisdom could we glean from these seasoned parents?

Their intro took us by surprise!

They said something which was pretty liberating, surprising and well…obvious!

They said that there’s no silver bullet for parenting, no secret formula which needs to be found for success, they said that they weren’t going to say anything new.

This is what they said.

Are you ready for it?

They said…

Parenting is really pretty simple but very hard to actually do!

Simple but hard.

The Bible says provide for your kids, love them, discipline them and tell them about Jesus.

It’s not rocket science.

It’s not a secret at all.

But it’s hard.

It’s hard to do consistently. It’s hard to die a thousand deaths to yourself in order to serve your children. It’s hard to sacrifice your own comfort for the sake of your little ones. It takes energy. It takes effort. It takes time.

We found this a really liberating truth to hear.

In a media-saturated culture, envy and comparison in our parenting styles can be so pervasive. It’s easy (in the midst of all the parenting fads that come and go) to be fearful. It’s easy to panic that we must discover the perfect approach to parenting and that if we don’t, we’ll mess up our children. How wonderful that this isn’t the case!

We already know what to do – the Bible tells us.

Provide for our kids, love them, discipline them and point them to Jesus.

That will look different in each family and that’s also wonderfully liberating.

What works in your family, with your personalities and lifestyle will look very different to how we do it our family. But you can be sure of this, in every family, parenting sinful kids will require following simple principles which are actually very hard to do.

We as human parents follow in the footsteps of our heavenly Father God. You would imagine that it would be a simple thing for the all powerful creator of the universe to parent the children that he made. He knows how to provide, to love and to discipline – perfectly. For God, parenting is simple.

But you know what? Parenting is hard for him too. You see his children (a.k.a us)  are pretty troublesome and stubborn.

As a good parent, God provides for us. He loves us, and he gives us boundaries to live our lives by and consequences when we stray outside of those boundaries. But we resist his kind parenting of us at every point. This is called sin.

Like a good Father, God decided not to abandon his children but to do everything within his power to change their hearts and to eradicate sin. It was an easy decision – he loves us, he was committed to winning us back.

But it was hard. It was costly. It required sacrifice, effort and commitment. In fact it was harder than we can imagine.

God decided to send his only begotten son Jesus to take the consequence of sin upon himself. Jesus died in the place of sinful human beings, as their substitute. He did this so that sinful human beings could be forgiven and brought back into relationship with their Heavenly Father. Now God’s children are reunited with their Father, through faith in Jesus.

So there we have it. The secret to great parenting? There isn’t one. Do the things that the Bible calls us to in whatever way works best in your situation.

Knowing what we need to do is simple. Actually doing it can be very hard.

But we model ourselves on the best parent – our Father in heaven. As creator of all, knowing how to parent us was simple. But actually doing it was very hard. The cost was bigger than we could ever imagine. So let’s parent our children empowered by his Spirit, reliant on him in the difficult times.

Parenting: simple but hard.

We’ve been really humbled by the reception that our blog has received since we launched it a little over a year ago, as we reflected on a little in the post on our first birthday.

One thing that has suprised us about the audience for the blog is how many people who are new to Christianity, or at least are very young Christians, have interacted with the blog. If you are one of them – thank you, we love having you around!

We’re convinced that the gospel is good news for every single person in whatever situation they face. We consider it a privilege to try to demonstrate something of how the gospel can shape and transform one area of life – parenting. We pray that you, the reader, whatever your background, will grow in your knowledge of the gospel and thus your love for Jesus as you engage with our blog.

To help our readers who have had less exposure to the good news of Jesus to better grasp the core of what that news is, we’ve added a new page to our website.

So this week, rather than putting out a new post of content, we thought we would point you to our new page. Let’s all take this opportunity to have a few moments together to bask in and be warmed by the sweet sunshine of the gospel.

Click here to head to our new page, ‘The Gospel’.