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Parenting

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

From the Archives: Playing in the Zone

One evening recently I was visiting and enjoying sweet fellowship on the lawn of a church building in our area. It was almost dusk and cars were passing regularly on the highway several  feet away.  I had my grandson, Ezra, who is two years old with me that night, and he was having a good time running on the sidewalk, climbing the stairs and playing in the bushes. I noticed a frantic sister go and catch him when he neared the sidewalk that paralleled the highway. “Come back! Don’t go near the road,” she said as she ran to make sure he didn’t go in the street. I appreciated her care for Ezra.

That sister probably thought I was a negligent grandmother, letting Ezra play in that yard adjacent to the street. I appreciated her concern. The truth was that while, of course, I wanted Ezra to stay far from the highway, I really didn’t think he would go past that sidewalk. Earlier that day, I had experienced a very hard time convincing Ezra that it was okay for him to ride his scooter on our asphalt driveway…because he thought our driveway was a “woad”. Ezra doesn’t go near the street because his parents have trained him to keep a certain distance between himself and the road. 

We parents and grandparents do this. We give our children boundaries that keep them from danger. They know not only to keep out of the road, but to keep a prohibited space between themselves and the street. They know not to touch the fire, but also to stay back from it. Not to jump off the cliff, but also to stay back from its edge. We do not sit our young children down in front of a mixture of M&Ms and deadly drugs and let them pick out the M&Ms to eat. 

But do we do this spiritually? We fail to guard the perimeter of sin—the area that may still be out of the world, but is so close to its dangers that our children let their guards down. It’s the perimeter…the area all around the danger. It’s the places where the world backs right up to the church. It’s that area where the “ pleasure of sin” (Hebrews 11:25 ), allures the senses of our children but its stench can’t quite reach their noses. While we do not want our children to stop attending worship, do we give them our permission to miss it for a very hard test or a very “important” ballgame? (The root word “game” is operative. It’s a game.) We do not want our teens to commit fornication, but we let them “play” in the zone of temptation. We let them watch movies that glorify it. We let them go to dances that promote lust. We let them read books that normalize it and we let them dress immodestly to attract the attention of those of the opposite sex. We let them play very close to that street. We don’t want them to grow up to be gambling addicts, but, of course, we would never deny them the opportunity to participate in the raffle to raise money for their school. (One day the whole state lottery will be about “money for education”.) Do we not see the spiritual danger of allowing our kids to be casual around the perimeter of the world? …Of getting too close to the fire, too near to the street, or of letting them choose the M&Ms before they can distinguish the difference?

Every one of us has the roaring lion (I Peter 5:8) seeking and we may even have the devil sifting (Luke 22:31). His best efforts are expended on the young. His best chance to get your kids is around the edge of your spirituality. Oh that we, as parents, would be as diligent about those dangers as we are about the ones that can only harm our children in this lifetime. The devil’s street traffic can make your kids die eternally. Let’s make spiritual safety zones that make it safer for them. It’s just easier to keep them far from that street while they are young than to watch them venture out when we no longer get to set the perameters for them. 

Let’s guard the spiritual perimeters.

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Mama’s Kiss #74: Hospital Volunteers

As you know, if you’ve been reading, for quite some time, I’ve occasionally been running little installments called “Mama’s K.I.S.S.” I know that lots of readers could give many more and far more creative ideas than I can offer, but these installments are just a few tried and true and mostly old-fashioned ideas for putting service hearts in our kids.  This is number 71 of a list of one hundred ways we train our kids to serve. K.I.S.S. is an acronym for “Kids In Service Suggestions”.

There are few places that bring smiles to young servants in a more eternally fulfilling way than the hallways of hospitals. Truly!

There are a few hospitals here and there that still allow teens to deliver the mail to the residents in volunteer programs. Mostly, though, in our post-modern and post covid world, though, the “candy-stripers” have been replaced by corporate systems that are touted as efficient and safe.

But smart parents are always on the look out for ways to incorporate the sick and hurting into the monthly service regimes of their teen (and even younger) children. Enlist the help of your youth group or church service group to do some or all of the following:

1. Fill little dollar store plastic bins with snack crackers and cookies and water bottles and deliver them to the waiting areas in hospitals with notes of encouragement from your local congregation. Be sure you include directions to your building and contact information with the open offer of meeting with families for prayer.

2. Have your children adopt a floor or wing of the hospital for weekly visiting, room by room. Choose as  safely as possible, but this limited risk is so worth it for your kids.   There are areas of non-infection in most larger hospitals. Consider the NICU or the cancer patients.

3. Have your children make little “laundry lines”  with clothes-pins to attach to the walls of patients who will be staying for a few days, so that they can display their cards. Be sure to have the children go in and attach the first card on the little yarn “clothes-lines”  they have made. Of course, the way your children find out who is staying for a few days is by visiting their floor or wing and conversing. (Today’s privacy rules will not allow the hospital to divulge that information, but many patients are so happy to have visitors and talk about their diagnoses.)

4. Have your children take a couple of friends with them (or your family) and choose a hymn to sing in three of their rooms, monthly, to those who would like to listen or sing along. You can even take the words to the hymn and let the patients read along, but be sure to identify the church and give contact information on the lyrics sheet that you leave.

5. During the Christmas holidays, take a small gift ( a lotion, a candy cane, a little pop-up greeting card, or a little strand of lights for the bedside table–just any little happy gift) to the patients in which your children are “investing”.

The receivers will evolve and the faces will look different monthly, but the givers will respond consistently and their faces will turn ever more  heavenward!

Those who look to him are radiant,
and their faces shall never be ashamed. Psalm 34:5

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Parents Towing the Line

Sometimes, I’m amazed as I look around and see children dominating parents; I mean, really being the bosses in the God-given schools of submission tutelage. Children are, biblically, the students in the subject of submission and holy conformity and parents are the primary teachers in that education. It’s easy for parents and grandparents to slowly melt into the world’s mode of child-dictated homes using phrases that sound good; phrases like “I want my child to learn to make good choices on his own, so I just let him lead the way and learn the consequences,” or “saying no a lot to my kids can make them have negative self esteem.” (I actually read that last one in Psychology Today.)

God punished Eli in 1 Samuel 3:13 for his failure to restrain his sons. Perhaps similar failures of parents in recent decades has contributed to the rampant adult patterns we see around us of self-absorption and manipulation, often developing into narcissistic behavior. 

I think there are some phrases kids often say today (with obvious variations)  that we can and should eradicate from our homes. Here are some examples: 

“But what if I don’t want __________ for breakfast?”

“I will get in the bed, if you will do _________________.”

“But I really wanted to go to McDonald’s instead of this place.” 

‘I hate wearing these dress shoes.” 

“I’m first!” 

“Yes. But I finished that snack and I’m still hungry.” 

“I’m bored.” 

“I don’t want to drink just water.” 

“No, mom. I’m leaving that there because I am going to play with it again later.” 

“It’s too hot outside today. I’m staying in here.” 

“But that theater is not the kind with the comfy seats.” 

 When we foster this thinking, we pave the way for an unfulfilling adulthood; one in which there is never enough. We enable selfishness and selfishness never co-exists with true happiness. 

 

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Mama’s K.I.S.S. #71–Newswatch

As you know, if you’ve been reading, for quite some time, I’ve occasionally been running little installments called “Mama’s K.I.S.S.” I know that lots of readers could give many more and far more creative ideas than I can offer, but these installments are just a few tried and true and mostly old-fashioned ideas for putting service hearts in our kids.  This is number 71 of a list of one hundred ways we train our kids to serve. K.I.S.S. is an acronym for “Kids In Service Suggestions”.

Most of us don’t take time to watch the local news anymore. Some of us have community facebook groups that feature the local crises and even damage from disasters. Sometimes the stories of local fires, or even the stories of  nearby automobile accidents make the news. sometimes children who are victims are disease are featured when there are community outpourings of support.

Whichever medium you use. have your children listen up for a week and find a community family that may be encouraged by your families’ cards or gifts or food delivery. Have your children help make the cards or the food and take it to the family whose house burned or whose power is out from the storm.  They may even be able to help with clean-up after storm damage or for a family who has spent an extensive time away at a children’s hospital or rehab. It’s good for your kids to learn to look out for opportunities and it’s good for them to develop courage and poise in meeting strangers who may be in need. Be sure to study the relevant portion of Matthew 25 with them as you serve strangers. This one is about strangers you located on television or social media.

This is one worth repeating over and over. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you gained a Bible study through this outreach? You just might. But you WILL gain another level of a servitude in your child. Be sure you verbally encourage your child for the goodness he is showing. Be sure each child follows and participates in the process all the way through.

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Moms of Boys…Can You Make this Happen?


In the midst of a time when more and more young adults are choosing a path of deconstruction—deconstruction of a Biblically ordered faith—there’s a lot that parents can do to spiritually protect their kids from taking the path that will eventually take them to sorrow in this life and to the unspeakable in the next. We cannot make their choices for them, but we can give them a jumpstart toward true success. We can invest in that.

I’m thankful for programs like this one that Daniel Samek has put together for guys, ages 14-20. I love everything about it. I love the ages of the guys who will attend. So many times we fail to include those who have left high school and entered the work force or a university. Often these are the ones who need it most and will find the tools offered to be extremely valuable as they are influenced by those who are militant in an atheistic world view. 

I’m thankful for the speakers chosen.  They are Jeremy Burleson, Scott Ballard, Glenn Colley and B.J. Clarke. I know that Daniel worked  very hard to insure soundness and I know they are not only faithful men, but they also love the souls of the hearers. They are passionate about putting truth in them. One of them, I know especially well. =)

I’m thankful for the expense and effort on the part of the organizers. It’s a lot to put something like this together. But it’s the kind of effort that keeps on working when the event is past. Sometimes, programs like this keep influencing till the final “Well done” is spoken in the last day. 

I’m thankful for the topics. I’ve seen that list as well, and it’s a type of spiritual insurance that parents take out on young souls that will face a barrage of unbelief, often even mockery in our post-modern world.

They tell me that there’s still a place for your son. I wish mine could have experienced this. I hope it will still be around one day for my grandsons.

Here is all you need to know!   SOTK Flyer Finished

Registration is here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfjo3MUT1FLE4zooPkdK3exvnOCFl4dSMPRfA8fNAlQjM0a8w/viewform

 

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Parenting is not for Sissies; It’s for Mommies.

 

I ran across this letter to my daughter when she was expecting her first child and several moms around her must have been going through PPD. They were less than encouraging to her about life after giving birth.

She already knew all of these things I wrote to her. You do, too. But, every mama needs a reminder now and then. One day, soon, you will peer into a quiet dark room and remember the days you looked at the mess in that room,  considered the immaturity, the childish tantrum or the poor grade and said “Why don’t you grow up and take responsibility?”

And you will hear the soft whisper echoing back: “I did.”

Dear Han,

IT IS SO WORTH IT! Every time that little boy brings you dandelions and kisses, it’s worth it. Every time you lie down with that little girl for nap and she falls asleep on your breast and drools on your shirt, it’s worth it. Every time she fills in the blanks when you tell her the story of Noah or David and the Giant, it’s worth it. And, especially, the first time you tell him about the cross and tiny tears roll down his cheeks, it’s worth it a thousand times-plus. Every time you blow bubbles and she chases them, every time you build towers and forts and tents under quilts pinned to chairs in the living room, it’s worth it. When you are drinking lemonade that you paid for at the grocery, made this morning and then carted out to the end of your driveway for that lemonade stand, and then you paid for it again (only it was more expensive the second time around), it’s still worth it. Every time you see tiny hands folded in prayer or hear that little shrill voice beside you in worship singing “He loves me, He loves me, He loves me, this I know,” it is worth it. And, oh, for that one moment…that moment when you take her in your arms when she’s fresh up from the waters of baptism…just that moment is worth it over and over and over again.

But you know what? You don’t even really start to understand how much it’s worth till the day she comes to you and says “You’re a grandmother.” See, Hannah, it’s something about knowing that you’re going to get to keep making investments in a little heart…investments that will not fully render their dividends till we’re with Jesus one day. Which missed naps? What pain in childbirth? Nursing soreness? Very short-lived. Scarcity of alone time with your dad? Okay, maybe a little scarce, but I barely remember. (We have wonderful catch-up time now.)

It’s that thing you said about crying together and still being able to laugh till you can’t catch your breath. It’s all the tears you invest in your kids that make them all the more valuable to you. There are plenty of biological moms out there who don’t really get much joy. See, when you don’t put in the time and tears and occasional missed naps (but, anyway, naps are more fun when they start with a fairy tale), you don’t get the return of two hearts bonded for life in a relationship that only moms and kids know. And you don’t generally get heaven together, either.

Somehow, I think there’s a sense in which I can’t even know how “worth it” motherhood is yet. But I think I will know when I’m sitting around the throne…with you and Caleb (and the little people who grow up for Him) and I hear all those voices (with a sweet familiar tone) blending together. “He loves me. He loves me. He loves me, this I know.”

Love,
Mom