Author: admin

6 Steps For Confronting Doubt as a Christian Parent

I long to have a faith of steel. I want eloquent, passionate prayers to spring forth from my adoring soul. I want to feel deeply connected to God when I pray, resting in the peace of His presence. I want to read Psalms and feel the majestic awe that David did.

But that is never how my faith has been. Persistently sandwiched between me and God is a layer of doubt.

I firmly believe and know in my heart I will never actually turn from God. The problem is, simply believing in God without fully living out faith is almost meaningless. Even the devil believes in God (James 2:19). Aside from my own spiritual well-being, I’ve become acutely aware of how my fluctuating faith impacts my ability to raise my kids to know the Lord.

If you regularly struggle with faith doubts, yet at the same time deeply desire to be a committed Christian parent, this post is for you. Here are 6 ways to keep your heart focused on being the Christian parent you want to be in spite of your innately doubtful nature. Continue reading

Are You Giving Your Children a Christian Worldview?

In April, I wrote about “My Personal Story With Infertility.” In that post I mentioned that we still have a frozen embryo with the infertility clinic, and are planning to transfer it to me this year to give it a chance at life. Last week I had a preliminary appointment with the doctor and I entered that office for the first time in six years.

I walked into the reception area filled with couples and took my seat. I got out my phone and occupied myself online for a good hour. I eventually looked up and noticed, for the first time that day, the anxiousness on the faces that surrounded me.

There is hardly a person in an infertility clinic who isn’t in the midst of an emotional and physical battle. Some people are fearfully awaiting a first appointment. Others are there for surgery. Some are there to find out whether all the physical, emotional and financial stress resulted in pregnancy. It is truly a place of high hopes and desperate fears.

Yet I had casually walked in, signed my name on the waiting list, found a seat and fought boredom for an hour without feeling anything. I could have been at the car wash.

Six years ago I entered that doctor’s office regularly with all the anxiety and trepidation that I just described. Virtually nothing had changed about the office – there were the same chairs, the same plants, the same framed baby “success” photos.

It was only my viewpoint that changed.Continue reading

How To Serve the Homeless With Your Family Part II: 7 Great Opportunities

This is the second post in a two-part series on serving the homeless. If you missed the first part, “Why Are the Homeless Homeless?” be sure to read it first.

I hate to say it, but it is pretty easy to look at a homeless person and do absolutely nothing. We feel uncomfortable, we feel sad, we feel intimidated and we don’t know what to do.

But what if you had ideas of how to serve the homeless? What if you could raise your kids to be the hands and feet of Jesus for the homeless rather than walk or drive by? Would you take the challenge?

Today I am giving you that challenge. Here are 7 great opportunities to serve the homeless with your family.Continue reading

How To Serve the Homeless With Your Family Part I: Why Are the Homeless Homeless?

In honor of Father’s Day, I’m devoting my next two posts to a topic near and dear to my husband’s heart: serving the homeless. Bryan leads a ministry that serves hot meals weekly to the homeless here in Southern California. Before he got involved with this, neither of us really knew anything about the needs of the homeless. Over the last two years, however, Bryan has gotten to know many of the homeless people in the area personally through the opportunity to serve them meals and pray with them each week. In this post, I hope to shed light on who the homeless are (based on Bryan’s experiences); in the next post I’ll provide specific ways that you can serve the homeless in your own area with your family.

To many, the homeless are a faceless crowd of untouchables. Particularly if you are looking for opportunities to serve others with your children, the homeless can be intimidating.

There is fear . . . are they violent? On drugs? Mentally unstable?

There is self-consciousness . . . What would I say to people I don’t know in the homeless situation they’re in? What if they react negatively? What if they don’t react at all?

There is helplessness . . . What do I have to offer? Where would I even start to help someone?

And if we’re honest, there is often judgment . . . Aren’t they just on drugs anyway? Won’t they use money for drugs/alcohol? If I give them something, doesn’t that just encourage them to depend on others and not get off the street? Would they even be grateful? Continue reading

5 Ways You May Be Teaching Your Kids to Worry Without Realizing It

“Can all your worries add a single moment to your life? And why worry about your clothing? Look at the lilies of the field and how they grow. They don’t work or make their clothing, yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are.” (Matthew 6:27-29)

Growing up, worry was practically a family member in our house. It was always there, and if it wasn’t, we pretty much went looking for it. There was nearly constant worry over money, health, political outcomes, the weather, school, church, friends, other people’s problems, the eventual end of the world, you name it.

Today, worry is still my constant companion and natural battle plan for life. It’s completely ingrained in me that the first response to a problem – possible or actual – is to worry. If I have a sore throat and Google my symptoms, I am that person who concludes from WebMD that I have a rare disease which will lead to the immediate need for thyroid removal (with the obvious next step of finding a message board for thyroid removal support).

What’s the problem with worry? It’s not productive. It simply gives us a false sense of control so we can feel like we are doing something when there isn’t actually something we can do. Aside from being a waste of time and energy in a practical sense, worry is a spiritual problem in that it is the antithesis of prayerful trust in God.

“Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:6-7)

While I am certain that worry is a partially genetic trait, it is undoubtedly an environmentally learned behavior as well; worry is highly contagious. We can easily spread it to our children without realizing it, leaving them with the spiritual consequences for life.

As much as I continue to pray, I must confess that I don’t see myself conquering the problem before it has a chance to impact my kids. My focus is now on containing my “disease” so it doesn’t spread, rather than curing the disease itself (for better or worse).

If you’re a worrier, here are 5 ways you may be teaching your kids to worry without realizing it.Continue reading

Nature, Nurture or the Holy Spirit: What Makes the Christian?

Today is my 36^th birthday. In 36 years of birthdays, I don’t think there has been a less interesting one. When I was younger, birthdays were an exciting time to contemplate the future, think about who I wanted to be and what I wanted to become. That excitement has dwindled over time as I’ve unraveled more and more answers to those questions. At 36, I find myself thinking there isn’t much left to figure out about myself; I am who I am now.

Technically speaking, that is scientifically true. You’ve probably heard the terms “nature and nurture” that are used to describe the respective importance of genetics and childhood environment on personality development. Depending on the study, most psychological research has suggested that our personalities are almost entirely determined based on these factors by age 4-6 (e.g., see this article).

Age 4-6? That was 30 years ago! It’s startling to think that I’ve basically been working with the same set of cards over all those years. Of course I’ve matured, pursued education and gained practical life perspective, but through it all, science says I’ve been roughly the same person.

I’ve especially felt the tension of that reality since becoming a parent four years ago. My positive traits kicked into high gear for the benefit of my kids. My negative traits became glaring at the expense of my kids. Never has there been a time in my life when I more wanted to be a “better me,” yet most of the time it seems I just tread water toward that goal. Seeing both my positive and negative traits appear in my kids already at age three has made me realize just how hard-wired we humans are. I look at the situation and think, “no wonder it’s so hard to change!”Continue reading

Teachable Moment: Dealing With Impatience

Two weeks ago, I received a notice from the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) that it was time to come in and renew my driver’s license. I don’t know what the DMV is like in other parts of the country, but in Southern California it is widely known to be a disaster – one that you don’t set foot in without an appointment. I promptly made my appointment online and headed for the DMV one morning last week.

As expected, the walk-in line was out the door. Never mind those people, I thought to myself. I brushed by them with my best “I have an appointment” demeanor, clutching my confirmation in hand, only to see a marginally shorter line ahead labeled “Appointments Wait Here.” My sigh was loud enough to be heard in a 15-20 person radius.

The line moved fairly quickly, but when there was only one person left ahead of me, it stopped moving. For some reason, this person’s transaction was taking almost 20 minutes. I stared at the back of his tattooed head, evaluating his low hanging shorts and the big gold jewelry draped around his neck.

Why can’t this guy get his life together? Why can’t he get his paperwork right? Why does this have to impact ME right now?

I broke. I marched up to the counter next to him and asked the worker if there was someone else who could help me because this appointment was taking a “ridiculous amount of time.” He shook his head and sent me back to wait. Two minutes later, the person ahead of me was done. I felt a knot in my stomach as he turned around, not knowing what to expect after I had been so rude.Continue reading

How We Worship Daily as a Family

About a year ago, my husband Bryan said he felt we should start some kind of family worship time with the kids. He handed me a small book he had ordered based on a recommendation he read from Mark Driscoll (pastor of a megachurch in Seattle). It was called “Family Worship” (by Donald S. Whitney) and, despite the 2006 copyright, looked as if it were designed and printed in about 1982. I immediately started laughing. A lot.

The thought of a family worshipping together at home was far outside of my experience and comfort zone. Honestly, the notion conjured up an image of Bryan handcrafting a wooden pew in our backyard, all of the females in our house wearing floor length skirts with little aprons over them, perfectly placed hymnals in our laps and Bible readings with a lot of “thou shalts.”

After reading this valuable little book, however, I could see how important family worship time could be and how it didn’t need to look anything like my image. We started doing our own daily worship based on ideas from the book, tailoring them to a family with very young kids. For several months now we have spent the last 10 minutes before the kids’ bedtime in worship.

For those who can’t begin to imagine what that would entail – like I couldn’t a few months ago – I wanted to share what our worship time looks like.

Does God Want You To Be Happy?

The other day, I was washing some dishes and the kids were making me a bit crazy. I asked them to go to the playroom and said I would be there in a minute. Kenna, always annoyed to get the brush off, replied, “But I want to read this book NOW!”

I have no tolerance for demanding behavior. I gave her “the look” and said, “You need to go to the playroom and be patient, or I won’t be reading that book at all.”

With a sigh that sounded more like a 13-year-old than a 3-year-old, Kenna turned to go to the playroom. After a brief pause, however, she looked back at me and said, “OK. I’ll be patient. But, mommy, patience won’t make me happy.” She stood there looking confused, waiting for my solution to this problem.

Her statement and confusion said so much! Consider the three assumptions behind it:

Happiness is important.
There was a conflict between happiness and what I asked her to do.
Because happiness is important, and my request was for something that would not produce happiness, she identified my request as a problem and felt the need to inform me that something was wrong.

Most of us are wired like Kenna to believe that happiness is an important goal and that what doesn’t make us happy is implicitly bad. Treating happiness as a priority in life, however, can lead to decisions that are contrary to Christian living.

5 Family Prayer Ruts and How to Get Out of Them

A couple of months ago, my mom injured her back. I started praying with the kids each day that grandma’s back would heal. In a few days, she was much better. I hadn’t yet mentioned it to the kids, however, so they continued to pray for her.

Nathan (praying): “Please help grandma’s back to feel better.”

Me (after the prayer): Nathan, grandma’s back is better now! God answered our prayers. We don’t need to keep praying for her.

Fast forward a couple of days.

Nathan (praying): “Please help grandma’s back to feel better.”

Me (after the prayer): Nathan, remember, grandma’s back is better now! We don’t need to keep praying about it.

This happened several more times. I couldn’t figure out why Nathan didn’t understand we were “done” praying about grandma’s back. With more reflection, however, I realized there was no closure to our prayer request. We asked, asked, asked, then received, and we were done.

Where was the thank you?Continue reading