God of the Living

Let us then mark this as the principal part of the covenant, that he who is the God of the living, not of the dead, promises to be a God to the children of Abraham.

--John Calvin

Heritage

Recovering our Presbyterian inheritance and inscribing the doctrine of covenant succession upon the heart of family and church must have a wonderfully solemnizing and galvanizing effect.  It will set Christian parents seriously to work on the spiritual nurture of their children, equipping them and requiring them to live the life of covenant faith and duty to which their God and Savior called them at the headwaters of life, . . . lest the Lord on the Great Day should say to them: "You took your sons and daughters whom you bore to me and sacrificed them to idols."

--Robert Rayburn

Westminster on Kids

Wherever thou goest thou wilt hear men crying out of bad children--whereas indeed the source must be sought a little higher, 'tis bad parents--that make bad children--and we cannot blame so much their untowardness as our own negligence in their education. . . . The Devil hath a great spite at the Kingdom of Christ, and he knoweth no such compendious way to crush it in the egg as by the perversion of youth and supplanting family duties.  Religion was first hatched in families, and there the Devil seeketh to crush it.

--Preface to the Westminster Confession of Faith, 1658

Faith Connection

[There is] an intimate and divinely established connection between the faith of parents and the salvation of their children; [it] authorizes them to plead God's promises and to expect with confidence that through his blessing on their faithful efforts, their children will grow up children of God.

--Charles Hodge

More Than Words

I strongly suspect that more is done in the age previous to language, to affect the character of children than in all the instruction and discipline of the minority afterwards; for, in this first age . . . there goes out in the whole manner of the parent--the look, the voice, the handling--an expression of feeling, and that feeling expressed streams directly into the soul.  
--Charles Hodge

A Gift

It is inhuman and godless to have a loathing for offspring.  The saintly fathers acknowledged a fruitful wife as a special blessing of God and, on the other hand, regarded sterility as a curse.  This judgment flowed from the Word of God in Genesis 1:28, where He said, "Be fruitful and multiply."  From this, they understood that children are a gift of God.

--Martin Luther

Numbers and Names

God determines the numbers and names of every man's children.

--Thomas Boston

Divine Visitation

In the propagation of the human race, [God's] special benediction is conspicuous; and, therefore, the birth of every child is rightly deemed the effect of divine visitation.

--Martin Luther

Eternal Powers

The powers folded up in the little ones that you hushed to sleep . . . last night are powers that shall exist forever.  You are preparing them for their immortal destiny and influence.  Be faithful.

--J.R. Miller

Who's Training Who?

We talk about training our children, but they train us first.

--J.R. Miller

Human Parenting Teaches Things Divine

God has so constituted us that in loving and caring for our own children the richest and best things in our natures are drawn out.  We best understand the feelings and affections of God toward us when we bend over our own child and see in our human parenthood a faint image of the divine Fatherhood.

--J.R. Miller

Growing Pains

An adolescent is a teenager who acts like a baby when you don’t treat him like an adult.

―Anonymous

HT: Feast of Booths

Motherhood's Theme Verse

  “He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much” (Luke 16:10).

As we all spend our days dealing with the little things, we need to see them as big things. Don’t make excuses or ignore your little sins. Don’t treat your little problems as though they are beneath your attention. Don’t be ungrateful for the mental and spiritual journey surrounding turning on the dishwasher at the right time. God tells us that the little things matter over and over. He tells us that He cares about them, that He watches over even the tiniest of sparrows. He wants us to see the little too. Not in some kind of weird, narrow focus that makes no sense. But with faith, and in faith, knowing that in the presence of faithfulness, the littlest things grow. ~~Rachel at Femina

The entire post from which I extracted this excerpt is well worth reading:  The Littleness of Motherhood

Parenting for Peace and Joy

Authority is that aspect of love which parents present to their children; parents know it is love, because to them it means continual self-denial, self-repression, self-sacrifice: children recognise it as love, because to them it means quiet rest and gaiety of heart.
-Charlotte Mason

HT: Sara at Surprises Along the Way

When She Grows Up

Nancy Wilson has a post on young adult women in our culture that is well worth checking out.  Here's a tantalizing tidbit or two:

God does everything the opposite way of what we think. At the end of the day, it’s not prestige and a paycheck that rise up to call you blessed. Those things burn up. The things that last, the eternal things, have fat faces and messy hands.

Christian women must be counter-cultural and think like women of faith who take the Bible seriously and don’t mind who knows it. The flesh is weak, but God gives more faith.  Cultural cliches come and go, but God’s Word remains our standard and authority for life.

This means that Christian women must accept the fact that God has designed them for a set purpose. Eve was created because Adam needed a helper. He was no good without her. A man needs a woman to accomplish all God is calling him to do. She is his glory. She is his crown. There’s no need to feel apologetic about being a crown and a glory. What an absurd idea!

So, young women, get yourself an education. Learn all you can because you’re going to need it. You want to be one efficient, brilliant helper so this guy you married can get it done. He needs a home and he needs a family and you are the means God has appointed to bring this amazing thing about. What a delight and privilege our calling is.

Are there exceptions? Always. But there is also a norm. Don’t be afraid of embracing the norm of God’s design. It is good.

There's some edifying interaction in the comments, too, so the entire post deserves attention.

Dancing Lessons

Three guesses as to who's teaching whom.

You should have seen our twirls!

Parental Temptations

If I had to name a besetting sin right now it would be impatience, especially with my kids. I don’t think this is a constant problem, but it is recurring. I love my kids dearly and play with them and do special things with them and try to teach them the Bible and discipline them when they disobey. But I can also be impatient. And that’s a sin. I needlessly exasperate them at times. And that’s a sin too . . . .

It only gets better from here, so click on over and enjoy the rest of Kevin DeYoung's post on stressed parents

The Power of Read-Alouds

The kids and I have started a little church history jaunt with Heroes of God by Dan and Katie Montgomery.  It's a compilation of fifteen short biographies profiling various prominent Christians from 451 A.D. to the nineteenth century.  We've really enjoyed the storytelling and illustrations so far despite not always completely agreeing with certain aspects of the authors' perspective.


However, I think the most valuable part of the book is the forward presented by Lutheran pastor, professor, and writer, Walter Wangerin, Jr., entitled "Worlds to Share."

How often I wished I could companioning my children through their most difficult experiences--or through their every joy.  Too often I learned of the twists of their personal journeys after the fact.  I hadn't been there.  Moreover, if I had been, I may have been denied full access to--a full understanding of--their hearts and minds in the event.

But there is a way, a blessed way, into the hearts and minds of our children as they journey through life.  When the parent reads out loud to the child, the older one becomes the younger one's most intimate companion.  They travel together through dangers and delights, through adventures and mysteries, through stories, through genuine experiences--through life itself.

The power of a story well told is to create whole experiences for the child, but controlled experiences with beginnings and middles, and with good endings.

The reward for parents who read such stories to their children is an intimacy that is emotional, spiritual, and real.  The walls come down; nothing is hidden between them.

And the benefits to children are legion:

*They are assured that, whatever the experience, they are not alone.

*They are fearless before the circumstances of the story, however frightening or thrilling.  And, in consequence, they are prepared to meet similar circumstances in their real life with the boldness and trust that come of experience.

*They, when they laugh heartily, are empowered!  For the laughter of children in the face of giants or troubles or evils is their sense of superiority.  Their ability to see silliness in danger is their freedom to take spiritual steps above the danger.

*And they are granted a genuine independence, a freedom of choice.  For children can choose to hear a fantasy tale as fantasy only, something fun and funny, but not anything you would meet in the real world.  And they can listen to stories of distant heroes and heroic deeds as ancient history and nothing to do with their life.  Or else they can choose to identify completely with the main character--in which case this fantasy or this ancient story stands for things absolutely real in their own world.  Children don't make such choices consciously; they make them in the deep parts of their souls, when they are ready to take the real ride of the story.  And the fact that they can and do choose grants them true personhood.

And you, their parent, are there, companioning your child through wonders and terrors, through friendships and wisdom, through experience into experience.

******************************************************

When my father bought a thick book containing all the tales of Hans Christian Andersen and read them to us, he did me a kindness more profound than mere entertainment.  He began to weave a world that genuinely acknowledged all the monsters in mine, as well as all the ridiculous situations and silly asides that I as a child found significant.  Dad/Andersen was my whispering, laughing, wise companion when I most needed companionship.

Night after night my dad would read a story in his articulate, baritone voice.  Gently the voice invited me.  Slowly I accepted the invitation and delivered myself to a wonderful world.  And as I looked around, I discovered that this world was confident with solutions, and I was a citizen of some authority and reputation.  I was no longer alone, no longer helpless.

Dad would sit in a chair beside my bed, one lamp low at his shoulder, his pipe clamped between his teeth and sending the smell of his presence and his affections to me where I lay.  Mostly the room, an attic with slanted ceilings, was in darkness.  The wind whistled in the eaves.

"Ready?" Dad would say.

We would nod.  We would curl tight beneath the covers.

"Once upon a time," Dad would read, sending me straight through the attic walls into the night, onto the wind, for gorgeous breathtaking flights.

What  of my being could not find affirmation in such an event?  My body was present, delighting in its vicarious adventures.  All my senses were alert and active, sight and sound and smell and touch.  My emotions were given every opportunity--highs so tremendously high, and lows acceptable because Dad was the leader.  My mind, my intellect, labored at solutions before the story itself declared them.

And all my affections were granted lovely objects.  I could love in that event when my father read to us: I could love characters in the tale; I could love their qualities, their deeds, their struggles; I could love the tale itself--but mostly, I could love my father, whose very voice was his offering of love to me.  We were one in this event, one in the reading and in the listening and in the experiencing.

Night after night my father read to us from that thick book.  Night after night I lived the adventures that gave order to my turbulent child's experience.  The tales gave shape to my waking self, to my instincts, to my faith in God, and to my adulthood yet to come.  For I am what I am now, in part, because once I experienced important events within the protected sphere of my father's dear influence.

These events were deep and primal.

But on the page they were merely stories--until my father opened his mouth and read them to me.

In researching Mr. Wangerin, I came across this inspiring Cancer Letter on his website.  His excellent insights on glorifying God in death are most encouraging and definitely worth a couple extra clicks.  I would reprint it entirely here, but I'm not sure it would be good manners to do so.

A Promise from Zechariah 10

¹² I will make them strong in the LORD,
   and they shall walk in his name,"

         declares the LORD.

Motherhood Motto

"Judge each day not by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant."--Robert Louis Stevenson