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…
5 Parenting Mistakes to Avoid | #4 Discontentment
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.
How to support a friend through a miscarriage
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.
Announcing our beautiful gospel-centred product!
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!)
A Mean Mum, Mastitis and Mars Bars
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.
Guest Post | Talking To Your Kids About Sex
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.