Talk to Your Kids

Talk to Your Kids
by Doug Fields

“And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands I am giving you today. Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are away on a journey, when you are lying down and when you are getting up again.” Deuteronomy 6:6-7 (NLT)

The truth is, your kids need communication skills. When children don't learn how to communicate, they find it difficult to functions in jobs and relationships.

If you ever wonder how important it is to teach your kids how to communicate, pay attention next time you go to a fast-food restaurant where teenagers work. How many times have you done that and wondered who taught them how to communicate?
Unfortunately, it’s they’re parents.

The truth is, your kids need communication skills. When children don’t learn how to communicate, they find it difficult to functions in jobs and relationships.
And, Mom and Dad, you’re the best communications teacher they have. Kids learn communication skills by talking with adults.

God designed the family as a place where parents would follow God and teach their children how to do likewise. The Bible says, “And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands I am giving you today. Repeat them again and again to your children.” (Deuteronomy 6:6 NLT)
You’ve got to talk to your kids to pass on your faith to them. The Bible says to talk to them no matter where you’re at – whether you’re on a journey, laying down, or getting up again. But the key is conversation.

Unfortunately, many kids have learned that the only times when adults want to talk with them is when they’ve messed up.
How do you turn the tide on that? Resist the urge to comment on everything you hear. Kids don’t mean most of what they say. They’re just testing you. So allow them to talk without making them feel you’re going to jump down their necks

Parenting with the Lord's Prayer: Don't Worry

Parenting with the Lord's Prayer: Don't Worry
by Tom Holladay

“Give us today our daily bread.” (Matthew 6:11 NIV)

Praying for our "daily bread" includes everything we worry about on a daily basis – our health, our finances, our schedule, our future, all the things we have to deal with.

In today’s society, our children have a lot to worry about. So it’s our duty to teach them how God can replace their worry with his provision.
Now our normal reaction to worry is to find a way to control the situation. That’s just our nature. We figure if we can control everything, then we’ll never have to worry. But when we try that approach, the opposite happens. We find out that we can’t control everything, so we end up worrying.

The real way to deal with worry is to pray, “Give us today our daily bread.” Praying for our “daily bread” includes everything we worry about on a daily basis – our health, our finances, our schedule, our future, all the things we have to deal with. God says, “If you want less stress in your life, then you have to relax in me and let me give you your daily bread.”

It’s important that we teach our children that it’s daily bread, not weekly or monthly. We want God to give us everything we need for the next five years, just put it in a bank account so we can see it’s there and not worry. But God doesn’t do it that way. He gives us just what we need one day at a time because he wants us to live in a daily relationship of trust in him.

So we need to teach our children three basic truths about God’s provision:
God can meet every need you’ll ever have because he’s God.
God wants to meet our needs, not our greeds, because he’s a loving father.

God will meet our needs as we trust in him moment-by-moment, day-by-day.

And remember parents, you need to practice what you preach!

Hollow Sacrifice (Eileen Button)

Like many Catholic children, I gave up sweets for the forty-plus days of Lent. I remember creeping downstairs on Easter morning, hoping to be greeted by a marvelous, solid-chocolate Palmer's bunny. After surviving the torturous season of sacrifice, I could barely wait to nibble the cottontail's long, delicious ears.

I would sometimes be disappointed to find a hollow chocolate cross in my basket in place of the preferred bunny. Propped in green plastic grass and surrounded by pastel jelly beans stood a milk chocolate version of my Savior's object of torture. In place of Christ's broken body, the cross bore a pink and yellow flower made of sugar. I couldn't eat it. It felt blasphemous to do so. While it was almost impossible to endure the long, sweet-less days of Lent, the triviality of my "sacrifice" always shocked me when I was confronted by that chocolate cross on Easter morning. Even a child wrestles with the reality of Christ's ultimate sacrifice.

The annual season of Lent is puzzling to many. Denying ourselves our favorite treats or habits - even for a short time - seems unnecessarily archaic in our I-want-it-now culture. Lent is a plodding, definitive crescendo that leads up to the cacophonous noise of Good Friday and the gorgeous aria of Easter Sunday. It's a season marked by deliberateness and intentionality.

But we often get in the way of our own best intentions. When fasting from food or technology (or whatever else captures our hearts and threatens to take the place that only God can fill) we might be tempted to feel a sense of pride or arrogance about our sacrifice. The very thing we relinquish sometimes clamors inside us as a "need" to be met. Instead of focusing on Jesus Christ, our attention can dangerously be drawn to the very thing we've voluntarily surrendered.

Even so, the practice of Lent can be a valuable discipline. It's difficult to comprehend what our continual sense of entitlement does to our bodies and souls. Our culture worships at the feet of pleasure, deeply bowing to all its delicious offerings. As we "shovel it in," we can become desensitized to our needs - the real hungers - in our lives. Observing Lent can help us wrestle with the reasons behind our perpetual consumption. When we decide to relinquish that thing that fails to truly satisfy, we come face-to-face with some tough questions. Can we believe Jesus when he says, "People do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God"? How can we make room for the Savior in our buried and burdened lives? Can we grasp the reality of Good Friday and live within its irony?

Lent challenges us to consider the honest answers to these and other soul-searching questions. It invites us to voluntarily jump off the hamster wheel of consumption and experience the pinch of abstaining from continual, thoughtless indulgence. It has the potential to give our frenetic material selves a much-needed break.

Like many believers, I hold fast to the annual discipline of Lent and continue to give up something that I consume. I treasure the season of abstinence, seeking, and revelation. Every year, I learn something new.

Perhaps I was - and still am - offended by a hollow chocolate cross because it signifies what is too often true about our spiritual lives: What we see on the outside might look pretty, but we can be tragically empty. Occasionally, the reality of Jesus Christ's sacrifice and the power of his love break through our hardened hearts. The realization, like a splash of freezing water on our tired faces, causes us to gasp. The hollow parts of our souls can be filled.

THE LENTEN SEASON

For some Christians, Lent has always been a part of their spiritual life, but for others it is unfamiliar. Lent is a season leading up to Easter, a time when Christians have historically prepared their hearts for Easter with reflection, repentance and prayer.

Lent begins with Ash Wednesday and proceeds for forty days, excluding Sundays and culminating with Good Friday and Holy Saturday.

Since Sundays are weekly celebrations of the resurrection of Jesus, the six Sundays in Lent are not counted as part of the forty-day season, which focuses on introspection, self examination and repentance. 

Many Christians choose to celebrate a fast throughout the season of Lent, but the focus is not on depriving themselves of something as much as it is on devoting themselves to God and his purposes in the world.

How will we devote more time to God in this Lenten Season?

Wednesday, February 02, 2011 Choose Faith and Ask for Help by Rick Warren “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.” Philippians 4:6 (NLT)

When faced with the reality of a situation that is overwhelming, the best thing you can do is focus on God. The disciples, in Matthew 8, knew that Jesus could do something about the storm that threatened their lives as they were tossed on the sea.Their answer to the overwhelming storm was to ask Jesus for help. “The disciples went to him and they woke him up, shouting, ‘Lord save us, we are going to drown” (Matthew 8:25 NLT). Why is it that we wait until it gets really bad before we think we have to pray? One of the keys to dealing with anxiety is to cry for help earlier because God wants to help. Instead of trying to live life on your own and let the worry over- whelm you, turn to God. He wants you to live life connected to him, talking to him, and getting connected with others because when you try to do it on our own and never ask for help, worries just multiply. Maybe it’s hard for you to admit your needs. Maybe you think no one cares. Maybe you’re convinced you know the answer and no one else does. I think a lot of people don’t ask for help because they don’t want to be a bother to anyone. It does not bother God when you ask for help. He stands ready to help you in every moment of life. “Tell God what you need and thank him for all he has done” (Philippians 4:6 NLT). Talking to God in prayer is the single most effective cure for worry, and it needs to be the attitude of your life. Our verse today gives us the formula for how this works. “Pray about everything.” First, you talk. As you talk to God about  everything, you will find the anxiety level lessening in your life. “Tell God what you need.” That’s the second thing. A lot of times  people go to God in prayer and tell God about everything and everyone else,                            but don’t share their needs with him. Tell him what you are worried about! “Thank him for all he has done.” There is something about gratitude that lessens anxiety and opens the door to peace and incredible faith in your life.                       No matter what you’re going through in life right now, there is something                                   you can look back on and say, “God, I’m grateful for that.” So hang                                         on to that.

Chelsea's Injury

What a day today (January 19, 2011) has been. Inspite of it all, one thing for sure, GOD is an awesome GOD. He deserves all the praise, all the GLORY.

Chelsea's wrist is broken in 2 places. She is worried of course, she is in pain, but all I kept saying is THANK YOU GOD! The ball could have it her in her eyes or worse, hit her in her head (head injuries).

Then while in the recovery room, her report came in my inbox, she opened the mail and she smiled. She said "mommy I'm so happy".
She called her friends and told them of her report and she kept saying to me "mommy I'm so happy".

Chelsea is a Honour Roll Student, she works and studies hard, yet she takes nothing for granted.
With a cast and sling on her hand, she reassures me, that she will be fine at school," mom I have friends who will assist" she said.

I love dearly my one and only daughter and I am extremely proud of her.
TO GOD BE THE GLORY!!!

I LOVE THE DAILY POSTINGS BY HIGHER AWARENESS

 

BEING GENUINE by HIGHER AWARENESS

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you
something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
                                         -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

When we don’t know who we are -- or if we are afraid to be who we
are -- we betray ourselves. We pretend to be who we think we are.
Our self image is made up of our experiences, desires and other
people’s ideas and expectations of us.

Maintaining this false self is a betrayal of ourselves. In all
deep spiritual journeys, there is the experience of betrayal.
Betrayal always tells us to adjust our life to be more authentic.
What we identify with is all important.

There are large betrayals (e.g., your partner leaving you) and
small betrayals (e.g., disappointments). They are all experiences
of being wounded for the purpose of breaking down the defenses of
the personality. When we allow the wounding and accept the
betrayals as divine gifts, we greatly benefit.

"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind
don't matter and those who matter don't mind."
                                        -- Dr. Seuss (via Elena)

“What you must dare is to be yourself.”
                                           -- Dag Hammarskjold