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What emotions spring to mind when you think about parenting?

Hopefully there are some lovely ones – joy, anticipation, love, trust, amazement. Some others may sneak in there too – anger, sadness… maybe even occasional disgust.

Here’s an emotion that I think, at one time or another, is pretty universal for parents:

Fear.

It’s not always a bad thing. Fear of your child being run over causes you to hold on tightly to their hand when you walk by a busy road. Fear of your child choking causes you to chop up their food.

But let’s be honest – fear isn’t simply about these things, is it? We fear all sorts of things, and many of them aren’t nearly so rational. Or if not irrational, at the very least we fear things that we have very little control over. We fear things about our children’s futures that we can’t possibly micromanage enough to control the outcome – they’re simply too complex.

We fear hypothetical illnesses that we have no reason to assume are imminent. We fear that we’re not doing the right things to encourage their growth in language, social skills, sporting prowess, academic ability, or whatever it is. We fear how they’ll make friends, how they’ll behave in different situations without us there, how they’ll cope in this world that’s changing in ways we don’t like.

Here is the heart what we want you to see in this post, here’s what we want to believe more deeply: most of our parenting fears are not real. Most of our fears are stories that we tell ourselves, that we choose to believe. We need to stop listening to these stories, and instead listen to the story of the gospel.

Let me take one example to help you see this.

We fear how our children will cope in a world that’s changing in ways we don’t like. Different fears for the future will play out for different people. We see a political direction that makes us uncomfortable or a shift in the values that our culture celebrates that don’t align with ours. We see ways that it’s becoming more difficult to be a Christian who holds to a Biblical worldview. We see the threat of global warming and the slowness of the world’s response and we wonder where it will end up.

We see these changes in the world around us, we follow the trajectory of their stories, and we don’t like the plotline that we can see coming.

We imagine a story of where the world is going, we believe that story, and the result is fear.

Now listen to a different story. It may look no different, externally. The political story may continue to develop differently to how we’d like. The moral decline of society might continue; intolerance may increase; the world may increase in temperature.

But need that result in fear? Well of course, we should be concerned about these things. Humanity is called to be stewards of this world, and so we want to see that done in the best way possible – whether it’s ecologically, societally, morally or politically.

But fear? I’m not sure the story needs to go there.

Here are two wonderful verses that are true for you, and are true for your children:

Matthew 10:29-31:

“ Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.”

Romans 8:15

“For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.””

Here are two things that mean that you don’t need to fear the way this world is going – even if your worst case scenarios play out.

God cares about our children. He really does. But more than that, he is sovereignly in control of even the minutiae of what happens in this world. The story of history is not outside of his control. God assigns us deep worth, and he is in control. So whatever happens to us, whatever happens to our children, fear need not be the emotion that we experience. We can trust God. His sovereign hand is active, and he acts for his children who he deems to be of deep worth.

And for those of our children who are Christians, that truth can be taken a step further. However the future plays out, there is a wonderful, mind-boggling truth that we can cling to. Our children have the Spirit in them. Even if the world is terrifying, they don’t need to be a slave to fear. They have the Spirit of sonship. They are adopted into the family of God. They know God as father. They don’t need to have fear, whatever’s going on, because the God of the universe is their father, and he’s caring for them. They don’t need to fear, and nor do we.

The story of our fear is that our children will be crushed in this hard world. The story of the gospel is that our God is good and in control whatever happens, that he’s a caring Father. This is all made possible because of what Jesus has done.

Do you see how this makes a world of difference? Here’s what we said earlier: most of our parenting fears are not real. Most of our fears are stories that we tell ourselves, that we choose to believe. We need to stop listening to these stories, and instead listen to the story of the gospel.

The story of the gospel means that we can have a radically different perspective on the stories that bring us fear. There are truths and promises that we can cling to that rewrite our stories of fear.

So here’s the challenge. Next time you feel fear taking over your parenting, ask yourself this question: what story am I choosing to believe? Understand that, understand how the gospel tells a different story, and pray that the Spirit of Sonship would speak words of comfort to your heart.

Fear is pretty much a universal emotion in parenting. But it need not be. The story of the gospel means that we can be liberated from fear, into the freedom of the gospel. Praise the Lord!

Isn’t it funny how conversation changes when you have children?

We’re sure our conversation used to be so much more intelligent, wide-ranging, witty and (frankly) interesting.

Now, conversation often seems to revolve around something child-related. The latest tantrum. The new milestone. That funny thing they unintentionally said. The cute show of affection that took us by surprise.

It just seems to happen. When we came into parenting, we were conscious of how all that parents seem to talk about is their children. We were determined not to be one of those parents. We still do really try to make an effort. And yet conversation so often seems to get round to that same old topic. Children.

Anyway, onto the subject of this post.

It seems like much of our child-related conversation of late has revolved around the subject of nursery.

Our eldest is currently two and a half, and children in the UK tend to start nursery for 15 hours per week aged three. Lots start at age two in fact, but up to now we’ve decided that we’d wait until three (that may well change soon).

When thinking about nursery, there are so many factors to consider! Morning or afternoon? Which school should we send him to for nursery, bearing in mind he’ll probably end up going there until he’s aged 11? Should we send him to the closest school? The school with the best outdoor space? The school with the smallest class sizes? The school with the best OFSTED rating? The school that has the nicest “feel” (whatever that means!)? The list goes on.

You can see why it’s such a big topic at the moment. The reality is that up until now the main influencers in his life have been the two of us (with some occasional input from time at his grandparents). But very soon, that is about to change. Soon, he’ll have nursery teachers who will have a significant amount of time inputting in to his life. Soon he’ll be surrounded by other children who will all, in some small ways at least, expose our son to different views and behaviours and values. While we still intend to be the biggest influencers in his life (as we believe this is the role of Godly parents) he will be exposed to other voices too.

What does it mean for the gospel to shape this decision?

It’s easy to get caught up with what everyone else is considering as most important for their children as we face this decision. Academic achievement. Whole-person development. Good pathways into secondary schools. And so on, and so on.

Many of these are right to consider. God creates the whole person, he gives us gifts and abilities that we want to see flourish – that’s glorifying to him, afterall. That’s a Christian way to view education, we must factor them in.

But here are a few additional questions that we think are important to consider to help the gospel shape our decisions about our childrens’ education.

Before we get there though – education is one of those big (and heated!) topics debated by Christians. Oftentimes we don’t understand the education systems or cultural options that are mainstream in other cultures. This post will mainly relate to British Christian parents who decide to send their children to school. This isn’t a post debating the positives and negatives of homeschooling/ private schooling/ public schooling etc, although perhaps that could be fun another day. This is simply helping us ask some gospel-centred questions given the fact that we have decided to send our children to school.

So with that caveat in place, here they are:

1. Which school has other Christian children in it, creating a support network when things get tough?
2. Which school will allow my children to have friends from different socio-economic, religious and ethnic backgrounds, teaching them to communicate with and be empathetic towards a variety of people, and thus equip them for gospel conversations?
3. Which school is most open to us as parents being involved in school life, giving opportunities to bless the school community?

What other questions did/will you ask yourself when the time comes to choose a school? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments section below!

One of the benefits of having tiny children is being able to holiday in term time. We were delighted to find a cheap deal and were excited about escaping the winter chills for sunnier climes.

Our two year old was excited about going on the aeroplane to “Rote” (Lanzarote). In his mind (and according to the YouTube video we showed him) holiday equals beaches, swimming pools, ice creams and aeroplanes. He couldn’t wait to get going!

So we packed our bags and jetted off. We are so thankful to God for a really refreshing and fun time as a family.

But here’s the thing…

The holiday didn’t quite go as planned.

Towards the end of the holiday (and Scott’s birthday no less) little red spots started to appear on the baby’s body. We were in disbelief!

Now it shouldn’t have surprised us that much – our toddler had just recovered from chicken pox a fortnight prior to our trip (so we were lucky to get away at all). But we had assumed that the baby was immune from chicken pox. Clearly not! It turns out that our Sherlock skills weren’t quite up to standard, and our calculations of his exposure to CP and our belief that my breast milk had made him immune were incorrect!

So there we were, with a spotty baby who needed to see a doctor and NO DOCUMENTATION! We kid you not! We forgot to pack everything! We didn’t have our boarding passes, our hotel or transfer tickets (although a good thing about a package holiday is that the company reps know how to look after goons like us, so it was fine, praise the Lord!) and we hadn’t even packed our European health insurance cards or our travel insurance details. Hmmm… perhaps we need to brush up on our organisational skills.

Despite all of this, we saw God’s grace and provision for us in so many ways.

Initially we panicked. What do you do in this situation?

But then we saw God answer so many prayers and provide for our needs abundantly.

The hotel staff were amazing. They were sympathetic, well-informed, excellent multi-linguists and they navigated us through the process. A doctor came to our hotel room within an hour and confirmed what we thought – pox had struck and the baby would not be fit to fly on the date we originally intended.

Scott sprung into action and got it all organised with the insurance company, doctor, airline and hotel. Within 24 hours all the plans were in place for Cathy and the baby to stay until he recovered from his illness.

Phew, all was sorted, and only a small excess to pay.

(It’s worth just pausing here to let you know that the baby had a very mild dose of chicken pox, he didn’t seem to suffer much discomfort and was in good spirits – a huge blessing!)

We were grateful, we were relieved, Cathy was even a little bit excited (4 whole days of Mummy and baby in the sun – a REAL holiday with someone else footing the bill!)

But then something happened. There was a change in the atmosphere. The happy, relaxed, enjoyable holiday experience began to morph into a more subdued and sombre affair. Scott’s departure date loomed large before us as we contacted friends and family at home to arrange childcare for the toddler, so Scott could return to work. We rearranged church meetings, work rotas and discussed meal plans. We were thinking about life back at home sooner than we had hoped for, and we were feeling sad about being apart for the longest time since our first year of marriage.

But there were many evidences of God’s grace and of his Spirit working within us to remind us of gospel-truths. Here are some that Cathy’s reflections, written during her time away:

God’s grace

Let’s be clear. I am not deserving of a sun-soaked, all expenses paid, quiet – (you’ll know what I mean if you’ve ever spent any length of time with a toddler!) mummy-son date with our baby. And yet, that’s what God has given me. I’m tempted to feel guilty. I’ve definitely got the sweeter deal while poor Scott is juggling childcare, work and is back in the chilly UK. But what does this reveal about my heart? Well, that I still function as a legalist. I functionally believe that I get what I deserve. I get according to my performance. But this anti-gospel!

We all deserve God’s just anger at our rebellion against him, and yet we get grace, grace, grace. We get past grace – forgiveness of our sins, Christ’s righteousness given to us and adoption into God’s family, we get future grace – eternal life, the resurrection of our bodies, forever in the new creation – and we get present grace – God’s holy presence dwelling in us, working in and through our situations to make us more like Christ. God is gracious even though we’re undeserving. So in light of this truth I should enjoy the gift of this mini-break with my baby with gratitude and joy. It’s evidence of his grace to me and I want to treasure every moment of this unique time with my little boy. I’m not in this situation because I deserve it, but because he’s gracious. What a God!

God’s sufficiency

A few weeks ago we wrote a post about discontentment as a parent. And about how the gospel is the antidote to the “grass is always greener” syndrome. Well this is the perfect scenario to practice what I preach. In many ways I’m living in the scenario of what I often feel envious about when I look at my Facebook feed. Sun, freedom, comfort, and yet now I have these things I could easily be envious for life at home! Familiarity, structure, family. But God is sufficient. He is what I truly need to feel contented. My circumstances will change, but God does not.

I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.”

Philippians 4:12

God’s design for Christian community

As wonderful as it is to wake up and wonder what I’m going to do with the day, to have no responsibilities like laundry and cooking, and to enjoy the sun, sea and sand, the truth is we’re not designed to to live in a perpetual holiday seeking our own individualistic comfort. I think I would be very lonely indeed if I didn’t have the baby with me. He’s only 6 months old but his smiles, snores and snuggles make my day. Today I strapped him on and we went for a 4 km walk over rugged paths to see 4 beautiful golden beaches along the stunning Papagayo coastline. It was absolutely wonderful!

But this desire for community and for shared experiences, and yes, for sacrificial service to others rather than simply living for our own comfort, points to gospel truth. We desire community because we’re relational beings made in the image of a triune God. Within the very godhead is a loving family of Father, Son and Spirit. So of course I miss my family – I’m wired that way. And I miss my church family too – because followers of Jesus Christ are given a new family, the church. But as I feel this ache to be reunited with those I love, it should cause me to crave that day when I’m reunited to firstly, my saviour God and also to all his people in the New Creation. Wow! What a staggering thought.

Now we get to the end (well done if you’ve made it this far through my meandering thoughts!) and you’re probably thinking. “Yikes Cathy, you’ve overthought it there! Just enjoy it.” And you’re probably right, but then again, I’ve had WAY more time to think than usual.

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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.

Few would deny that adoption and fostering are wonderful things to do. And yet many are put off from considering it themselves due to some commonly held misconceptions. In light of this, we thought we’d use this week’s post to debunk some of the common myths surrounding adoption and fostering.

I recently went to the Home For Good Summit; a conference for Christians about adoption and fostering. It was really informative and eye-opening.

There seems to be a lot of misconceptions about adoption and fostering – I had many incorrect preconceived ideas myself – so here’s my effort to debunk some of the common myths and to pass on what I learnt.

Myth #1 It’s impossible to adopt a newborn baby in the UK

Not true.

It is possible to receive a newborn baby straight from hospital with a “Concurrency Placement”.

With concurrency planning adoption, you are approved as a foster carer and adoptive parent simultaneously. You are matched with a newborn baby who comes to live with you for the first six months of their lives (in this time period you are their foster parent/s, and you get paid accordingly). The child comes to live with you because there is a very strong chance that they will not be able to return to their birth family. During these six months you will need to meet with the birth mother/parents weekly at a neutral environment with a social worker.

After six months a judgement will be made in court as to whether the child can safely return to their birth family, or whether you can legally adopt them. This is seen as a win-win for the child. Either they have always lived with you and therefore escape any unsettling moves. Or else their birth family have proven that they can provide and loving and safe home for their child – which is a wonderful scenario too!

This form of adoption isn’t for the faint-hearted as there is a chance that you will have to give up the baby that you’ve grown to love. However, if you are convinced of the worth of early permanency for the sake of the child then it’s a very worthwhile thing to do, and can have wonderful outcomes! The social worker who I spoke to works for an adoption agency which specialises in concurrency adoption. She said that around 9 out of 10 babies get to stay with their adoptive parents.

Barnados do concurrency placements nationwide as do some local authorities. You can call up as many local authorities and agencies as you like and ask them if they do concurrency adoption, and then go through the application and assessment process with one that does.

Find out more info here:

Concurrent Planning

http://www.adoptionconcurrency.org/

Myth #2 I can’t foster if I have young children

Not true.

You can foster if you have young children, you can even foster if you have a baby. However, the needs of all children, your own and those you are fostering must be met. Your assessing social worker will need to be confident that this will be the case.

If you are approved then your social worker will be very careful about which children they match with your family. Your assessing social worker may even interview your own child(ren) to try and understand their personalities and needs to try to guarantee the best possible outcome from a placement.

The two people who were running my seminar at the Home For Good conference were (I’m guessing) in their late 20s/early 30s. Both had 2 young biological children and were also long-term foster parents.

If you are concerned about the impact of long-term fostering on your own children then you could consider respite fostering (perhaps looking after the same child one weekend a month for example) or mother and baby fostering. With mother and baby placements, the mother is often a teenager who needs some support in learning how to look after her baby and how to prepare for independent living in the future. Both respite and mother and baby fostering are options which we would like to explore, as we think they might be a good fit for us as a family.

Myth #3 I can’t adopt/foster if I’ve got a disability or mental health issues

Fostering and adopting can be very demanding and so your physical and mental health will be discussed during the application process.

That being said, they won’t necessarily preclude you and may be of benefit. If you have a physical disability then you may be able to be more compassionate and understanding towards a child with a disability. Likewise, if you had a mental health issue in the past then you may be able to relate better to a child who struggles with it currently. The assessment process with determine whether you’re deemed suitable for fostering/adopting. If you are approved then you will be matched with suitable children in light of your disability or mental health issues.

Myth #4 Foster parents get paid, adoptive parents don’t

Foster parents get paid an allowance and fee to cover the costs of looking after a child. The amount this is depends on a number of different factors. A fostered child is under the care of a local authority while an adopted child is a legal member of their adopted family, therefore the adoptive parents do not receive a fee for looking after the child.

However, there is money available to adoptive parents when they adopt a child with a disability, or a sibling set. This is because the government recognises that sibling sets or disabled children need more care and time from their adoptive parents, and therefore they won’t necessarily be able to support their children as much through paid employment. This financial assistance is known as “Adoption Allowance”. You may also be entitled to Disability Living Allowance for Children, Carer’s Allowance and money through the “Adoption Support Fund”. Adoptive parents are also entitled to Adoption Leave and Pay from their employer and Child Benefit and Tax Credits.

If you are considering adoption, make sure you ask what financial assistance would be available to you if you were matched with a disabled child or sibling set. Do not be shy about this – it is much cheaper for the local authority to have you adopt the children under their care, than for you to foster them. The Adoption Allowance is there to enable children with more challenging needs to still have a good chance of adoption – so don’t be coy about asking!

Myth #5 Social workers are intrusive, anti-Christian and interfering

This is a horrible but widespread stereotype of social workers – I’m guessing that this typecast alone puts a lot of people off even making the initial phone call. However, the reality is that the social workers would be thrilled to hear from you! Social workers do their job because they care about children and want them to have the best possible life chances. They certainly aren’t doing it for the money, prestige or for an easy life! Their utmost concern is for the safety and wellbeing of vulnerable children and so they have to be thorough and diligent in their assessment of you as carers (not simply for the children’s benefit but also for yours). But there’s an enormous shortage of foster families – 9,600 children are currently in need of foster homes, so please don’t preclude yourself based on a false impression of social workers or the assessment process (which is quicker than you think).

As far as the anti-Christian bias goes, this simply isn’t the case. Social workers are very positive when prospective adoptive and foster parents mention their connection with Home For Good. Home for Good is an overtly Christian charity, encouraging Christians to adopt because of God’s adoption of us, and because of the biblical mandate to care for orphans. Home For Good has also been at the forefront of petitioning the government for the care of Syrian unaccompanied minors . In the area of adoption and fostering Christians have been well represented at 10 Downing Street in recent years – so don’t falsely assume that the system discriminates against Christians. Check out our review of the book Home For Good here.

One final thing about social workers – they have a wealth of knowledge, access to helpful resources and are highly motivated for placements to work out. If you foster you will have to work closely with them. But if you adopt, don’t be too quick to get rid of them. Their support, experience and knowledge could still be invaluable once the child is legally yours.

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

James 1:27

So there you have it. Adoption and fostering could be more of an option for you than you previously thought.

Here are the different types of fostering placements:

• Emergency
• Respite
• Short-term
• Longer-term
• Children with disabilities
• Mother and Baby

And the following list of eligibilty criteria shows that lots of different sorts of people can do it:

• People over the age of 21
• Who have a spare bedroom
• Residents of the UK
• Single or Married
• Of any religion
• Of any sexual orientation
• A tenant or home-owner
• Employed or unemployed

You don’t need to be a super-parent to do this, super-parents don’t exist. But are you willing to rely on the only super-parent in existence (God) to give you the strength to care for a vulnerable child?

There’s a huge shortage of foster and adoptive parents. Even if the timing isn’t right for you but you’ve found this post informative then please share it to help us debunk the myths. The more children who can find a home with loving families, the better!

We’re super excited to announce that we’ve been shortlisted for an award!

The Premier Digital Awards seek to “celebrate and encourage excellence in Christian engagement online”. We’re incredibly humbled to have been shortlisted for the “Up-and-Coming” Award. Check out the shortlist here.

We write this blog because we’re convinced that the gospel speaks into every area of our lives including parenting. It’s wonderful news for parents and for children, and we really want to see parents liberated, inspired, edified, emboldened and comforted by the good news of Jesus. But it’s also lovely to see our blog recognised by Premier Digital – we hope that this helps more people to engage with what we’re writing and, by God’s grace, enjoy the gospel for themselves afresh.

We hope you continue to enjoy our musings. Please keep engaging with the blog and sharing the content – it’s a huge encouragement to us when you do.

With love,

Scott and Cathy

We’re excited for our first ever GIVEAWAY on Gospel-Centred Parenting! This week we’re giving you the opportunity to win a Madlug backpack. If you win, you choose the colour and we’ll ship it to you, wherever you live in the world!

To enter, simply ‘LIKE’ our Facebook Page, and then ‘SHARE’ this post on Facebook.

Don’t worry if you’ve already liked our page, just share the post and you’ll still be entered (make sure you click ‘share’ on the original post on the Facebook page to be in with a chance of winning).

So why this backpack?

Madlug (short for ‘Make A Difference LUGgage’) is a business with a difference. For every bag purchased, “Madlug will give a bag to a child in foster care because no child should carry their life in a bin bag.”

The company was birthed after it’s owner, Dave Linton, attended a course about fostering. He watched a video in which a girl in a wheelchair said this:

Health Trusts don’t provide suitcases. Sometimes foster carers loan us a suitcase but more often our belongings are moved in black plastic bin bags and we lose our dignity”.

Dave decided to start a business which would produce high quality bags. When a customer purchases a bag, Madlug donates one to a child in foster care, recognising their worth and dignity, and giving them the respect that they deserve.

We think it’s a fantastic idea, and we wanted to raise awareness of it.

Please enter our competition to help spread the word, and bear Madlug in mind next time you need to buy a back pack, laptop bag, luggage bag or gym bag – they have a great range!

The winner will be announced on Tuesday 4th October, and can choose the colour of their choice.

Just to remind you:

To enter ‘LIKE’ our Facebook Page, and then ‘SHARE’ the original post from our Facebook page.

 “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” – Jesus Christ, Matthew 7:12

What are you aiming for in life?

Please actually think about it. What are your goals? Your aspirations? Your dreams? What are you working towards?

I (Scott) write this as I sit on a train on my way back from a lovely trip to London to see the new Harry Potter play (incredible, in case you were wondering!….and there won’t be any spoilers so don’t look away now). This is a trip that has been planned for a long time – the theatre tickets were a gift from my dear friend, bought before Cathy and I were even expecting the baby. Cathy very kindly had the boys while I was away.  The journeys have given me a rare opportunity to sit – on my own, without distraction – and think. It has made me realise how infrequently I do this.

So why don’t you take the opportunity to do it now. Answer that question above: what are you aiming for in life? Be honest with yourself. If you’re a Christian, you’ll know many of the right answers: to become more Christlike; to serve his people as well as you can with the gifts he’s given you; to work towards the growth of the kingdom; to love your family and point them to Jesus…

You’ll know the right answers, and you’ll no doubt be doing these things. But I want to challenge you today. Are godly ambitions what drive you and what you purposefully strive towards? Or are they simply things you hope will happen along the way?

If you’re wondering what this has to do with parenting then don’t worry – we’ll get there!

I used part of my journey to London to listen to some podcasts, including a really interesting TED talk. The talk, in large part, was aiming to challenge the listener to examine their ambitions for life.

The culture that we’re immersed in doesn’t simply neutrally exist around us. The culture around us promotes a worldview. We’re constantly bombarded with truth claims and messages about what matters in life – what it means to be successful; what we need to do, or own, or achieve to be happy; what gives a person significance. Many of these claims are contrary to the Christian worldview, and yet it is so easy to unquestioningly imbibe the messages that our culture feeds us.

Convincing Lies

For me, if you’ll permit a moment of honesty, the truth claim (or lie!) that I’m most easily deceived by is the lie that life and security is found in financial success.

As with all convincing lies, there has to be an element of truth. It is certainly true that having money can enable one to do lots of things that one wouldn’t be able to otherwise. It’s true that poverty robs people of life and is not good. But does it bring security? No – so many things can cause the foundation of financial success to crumble very quickly. And does it bring life? No – not the true ‘life to the full’ that Jesus offers.

What lies deceive you? Is it the pursuit of comfort and leisure? Or academic success? Beauty? Popularity? These things, and more, are all held up by our culture as ultimate things – things that we need for true life and happiness. So what lies deceive you?

As we see the lies that we’ve come to believe, we begin to see how we’ve shaped our lives around working towards achieving what these lies promise. They shape how we spend our time, what we think about, what we talk about. They shape our dreams.

It’s so important then that we take time to ponder this, to repent, to reevaluate our priorities and use of time and to reset the course of our lives again. To get back on to the path that we so easily fall from.

Aspirational Family Life

Let’s get more specific here and think about parenting – this is a Christian parenting blog, after all. What are your goals and aspirations for your family life, and for your children? Again, please try to take a moment to really think about this. Don’t just deceive yourselves with the right answers.

A helpful way to evaluate this might be to think about the following questions.

• What do the things you encourage your children to spend time doing say about your priorities for them?
• Think about some of the conversations that you’ve had with your children over the past week – what do they communicate to your child about what you see as important?
• If you asked your child what they think makes you proud of them, how would they answer? Or if they wouldn’t be old enough to answer that, answer it yourself – what things are you most proud of in your children?
• When you let yourself dream about how you want your children to turn out, what does that picture look like?

Just like us, our children are being constantly influenced by the truth claims of the world around them. But the biggest influence in the formation of their worldview, frighteningly, is you. And me. Their parents.

If we are buying in to the lies of our culture, then we will be passing those lies on to our children.

This post isn’t intended to induce guilt as a motivator for change. Guilt is a poor motivator.

As we’re confronted with our failures as parents, we must remember that there is grace for us. But more than that we (and our children, if they’re believers) have the Spirit in us to enable us to change.

It is grace that enables us to face hard truths about ourselves. It is in the context of full, free acceptance in Jesus that we are liberated to pursue change, to be honest about ourselves and to realign our gaze. We know that Jesus loves us as we are, but loves us enough to long for us to not stay as we are.

It is grace that enables us to dream big even when that exposes us in the present – it allows us to envisage a heart for ourselves and our children that is captivated by Christ and that finds true life in him, in stark and yet beautiful contrast to the world around us.

So if you’ve got this far in the blog post and have still not taken the time to examine your goals and ambitions in life, please do it now.

And then take the time to dream.

I write this at the end of a stressful day.

It’s early days of having two children. Our toddler is 2 years and 3 months old, our baby is 5 weeks old. Up till now I’ve had loads of support – Scott had two weeks paternity leave, our church family and my mum cooked us meals, my parents were around to do a multitude of tasks: to take us on outings, to occupy the toddler, to burp the baby, to bring in the laundry etc. It’s been wonderful – a breeze in fact, you could have even signed me up for the next kiddo! Until today that is…

Today I had a textbook toddler tantruming moment. Standard, you may think, but this happened while I was trying to breastfeed a distraught new-born baby in front of a crowd of people! Let me set the scene.

I was in our local shopping centre. I was pottering around the shops with the boys in the tandem pushchair. I could see that Boaz was starting to stir so I made a beeline for the play room (an empty shop with toys in – a brilliant idea – thank you Management of Middleton Grange!) I got the 2 year old out to play with the toys, and proceeded to feed the baby. “This is going well” I naively thought to myself.

And then the inevitable happened…

The toddler decided that he wanted to kiss the baby.

“What’s wrong with that?” you ask yourself. Well nothing I suppose. It’s really sweet that the toddler wants to kiss his brother. He’s very affectionate little boy who loves to cuddle, kiss, hold hands and tickle. But the issue is this – he’ also strong, big, enthusiastic and not at all aware of his own strength. He could quite literally kill his brother with kindness. In fact today I left the living room very briefly and came back to the heart-stopping scene of him spooning the baby (at first glance I thought he had laid on top of him!) It’s gorgeous behaviour in a way – I love that our toddler is excited about the new member of our family, but it’s terrifying too because he simply will not heed the instruction to “be gentle.”

Back to the story at hand…

So, the toddler decided that he wanted to kiss his brother while I’m breastfeeding. At first he kisses his head gently, “Good boy” I say, “What a lovely big brother you are.” But then the kisses get more fierce – he’s pressing down on the baby’s head, he’s trying to pull the baby out of my arms to give him a cuddle, “Gently! You must be gentle” I repeatedly say. And the whole thing escalates and the toddler and I are basically playing tug of war with the baby! With a raised voice I’m saying, “Stop that now – you’re hurting your brother!” The poor babe has had his feed interrupted, his body pulled about, and he’s pretty disgruntled – in fact he’s screaming at full volume to let the whole shopping centre know about it.

So now the toddler is whining loudly, the baby is screaming and I’m trying to  us this moment as a moment of correction! The drama subsides and the scene settles again as I get the baby latched on and encourage the toddler to build a tower – but we’re all feeling a bit fractious.

The toddler momentarily builds a tower and then decides it’s time for another kiss! Well you can imagine how the scene goes – in fact it escalates so much this time that the toddler decides to go for the ultimate form of shopping centre rebellion – he decides that he’s going to leg it out of the play room and away from mummy as fast as he can! So here I am, baby half latched on chasing the run-away toddler while making threats in a very public place! (“Come here or we will be going straight home! Do you want to go home? I mean it, we won’t go to the park. We won’t go and see your friends.”)

With the aid of a sweet elderly lady I get a screaming toddler and baby strapped into the pram. The crowd of people in the play room give me sympathetic smiles as I make my dramatic exit – trying to look unphased but undoubtedly with cheeks burning.  

On reflection, it’s quite a sweet and funny thing to have happened – one of those memories that I’ll look back on fondly when the boys have flown the nest. However, the stress and embarrassment of those five minutes ruined my whole day. As much as I tried to take my deep breaths, remember the gospel, and talk to myself about the reality of the situation (“it was only 5 minutes, it’s over now!”) the truth is, the day didn’t really seem as rosy after that. I was keen for the little ones to go to bed, to watch some tv, and have a glass of vino!

So, why did it ruin my day? Well, after reflecting on it, I think it ruined my day because of my PRIDE. Which also makes a fairly nifty acronym to summarise what was going on in my heart.

Pride

Pride – The whole situation dented my pride. I had been feeling pretty confident in my ability to look after the boys – thrilled in fact that it was going so well in comparison to how challenging I found looking after Reuben as a first time mum. It’s ok to rejoice in happy times and to be relieved when things are going well – but I definitely shouldn’t base my sense of self-worth on my performance, because it’s very easily shaken.

Reputation – I didn’t know any of the people in the play room. They were all strangers. And yet their looks (whether judgmental or sympathetic) were just mortifying! I wanted them to think well of me and disliked the fact that I didn’t look like a “sorted” mum with two angelic children. Let’s face it – it’s much more pleasant to have strangers say to you, “what beautiful children” and “you look wonderful, I can’t believe you’re out of the house!” But why on earth should my reputation matter with strangers? Back to the pride thing again – it feels good to put confidence in our own ability, it panders to our sinful desire for self-reliance.

Identity – In that moment I was placing my identity in being a good mum. That’s why I wanted my reputation to be that of a “sorted mum” in the eyes of the people around me. That’s why it hurt to have my pride dented. But surely there’s a better identity for me than that of a good mum?

Discipline – confession time! One area of parenting that I find really hard and feel fairly insecure about is the area of discipline. I understand the principles behind it -I love my toddler and therefore don’t want him to be an utter rogue, it’s good for him to have boundaries, he needs to learn to respect authority etc. And yet I find it so hard to discipline him consistently. Partly because I love my own comfort (it’s easier to overlook things for a quiet life) but largely because it’s not really in my temperament. I hate confrontation and conflict. I’m more of a flight than fight kind of person. So discipline is a real challenge for me. But I do try.

One thing that I know is really important is showing children the consequences of their actions. So usually I only threaten things that I can follow through on. Not this time however. I threatened that we wouldn’t go to the park and see our friends (the toddler was really excited about this), and I thought that this would be enough to stop him running away from me. I offered him a simple choice – come back to mummy and we’ll go to the park. Continue to run away and we’ll go straight home. I wasn’t banking on him continuing to run away! But he did, and that meant we had to go straight home. I immediately regretted my words – I now was looking at spending three hours in the house with a naughty toddler before bedtime. I couldn’t cope with the thought of it, and so, kicking myself, I went back on my word and took him to the park despite his disobedience. I felt the guilt of “discipline failure” as well as feeling upset that my son wanted to disobey me.

Embarrassment – the whole thing was so embarrassing! The combination of it being so public and so stressful made it very embarrassing. 

5 Words

But here’s the good news.

Those five minutes didn’t need to ruin my day. Why? Because there are five words that can redeem the whole situation.

“There is now no condemnation”

Romans 8:1

There is now no condemnation for me because I am in Christ Jesus.

Because of Jesus I don’t need to listen to condemning voices from within or from outside of myself, because the reality is I am not condemned in God’s sight. Far from being condemned, I am forgiven for my sins and failings. Far from being condemned, I am clothed with the very righteousness of Christ – making me pure and blameless in God’s eyes. Far from being condemned, I have the Spirit of Sonship within me to remind me of my new status and to change me so that my life increasingly reflects that reality. I no longer need to base my self-worth on my performance as a mum. My performance is irrelevant – it’s Jesus’ performance that counts.

Because I am clothed with Christ’s righteousness my reputation is that I am pure, spotless and sinless in God’s sight (how extraordinary!) My reputation before him means that my reputation in all other spheres of life pale into insignificance. He looks on me with love and devotion. A royal princess in his household. A daughter under his care. Part of his beloved bride, the church. That’s my identity. Once I see my reputation before him as being all the above (and much more beside!), then I realise that my identity is something much greater and more satisfying than being a “good mum”. So while the 5 minute incident was a bit embarrassing, I can get over it and still rejoice as I enjoy this unshakeable, permanent new identity that I have in Christ Jesus. Jesus’ work of salvation for sinners is indelible.

All this applies to the discipline issue too. I am not the perfect parent (gasps of shock from all of you I know) but none of us are. None of us can match up to God in his perfect parenting. He along judges issues impartially, he alone is without sin and therefore he alone is the only perfect disciplining parent. But the good news is that he doesn’t treat us as our sins deserve. He doesn’t condemn us, but gives us grace and mercy – he does this even when we love our own comfort over the well being of the kids he’s entrusted to us, and he does it when we are harsh and unfeeling. There’s no condemnation for us imperfect parents – hallelujah!

And wonderfully, the Good News isn’t just that we get forgiveness and righteousness. But that we get these things, and we get the power to change. Romans 8 talks lots about those who are in Christ Jesus having the Holy Spirit. The Spirit works in us to renew our mind and give us new desires (v5) and he helps us put sin to death in our lives (v.13). This is truly good news – I can change to become a better parent with a less-messy heart because God is at work within me.

So there we have it. 5 minutes that ruined my day. But they didn’t need to. There is now no condemnation.

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