The Word and My Boys
My oldest son, Hudson, is almost four years old and his younger brother, Hayes, is almost two.
Hudson’s nightly routine includes reading Bible stories from his storybook Bible. The stories are short, easy to understand, and they mostly focus on happy times.
Hudson loves them and especially likes the stories about different boys in the Bible. He’ll say, “Mommy, which boy should I read about tonight?”
At the end of each story, we pray and we talk to Jesus about what we’re thankful for, what’s worrying us, and thank God for the truths that He has given us in his Word.
My prayer for Hudson is that he recognizes the Word as truth even as he gets older.
As culture tells him that it’s not popular to obey God’s word, and as he grows up and realizes that he is different than his friends, that he’ll feel confident in what he knows.
Our belief is that God’s word is a blueprint for our lives. We are so very thankful to have it as we make decisions every single day. We fail and make many mistakes, and we’re even more thankful for the grace that can be found only through our faith in Christ Jesus.
But that time will come for Hudson and Hayes when they’ll each have to decide for themselves which way they want to go. What role will the Bible play in their lives?
I want them to know that being a Christian means loving and serving others. And I want them to see how much God loves us when they read His word. I pray that they value this blueprint of protection and guidance, instead of seeing it as a loss of freedom.
The commandments and rules are our protection. It works.
The world is changing so rapidly. And these boys of mine will face challenges that I can’t even imagine. But I pray that they’ll treat others with kindness, show as much of Jesus as they can to their friends and those around them, and that they will make a decision to value God’s word.
But this decision will have to be their own because it’s something they believe in their hearts. It’s their own personal decision.
The most important thing that I can do to help them, is to show them. Of course, I need to teach them and read to them and talk to them. But I have to show them what kindness looks like and what love looks like. And this means loving like Jesus loves. And if my boys can see and feel and their hearts are touched, they’ll understand what it’s all about.
In the meantime, we’ll still be reading our stories. And as my boys are old enough to understand, we’ll get a little deeper.
The “boys” that Hudson loves were just like him at some point. They made mistakes. They had mothers. They ran and jumped and got dirty. And they loved the Lord and asked Him for guidance through their many struggles.
As parents, Todd and I are so thankful that we have His Word as a blueprint for our own decision-making. And as young men, I pray that Hudson and Hayes find comfort in the truths and promises that they can find in His Word. As it becomes more and more culturally difficult to remain faithful, this is my prayer.
How are you thinking about faith and your children?
Share how this challenging topic is coming up in your home and what your game plan will be.
I agree that living out what you’re preaching is a big part of it. Luckily for my kids, I make tons of mistakes and so I get to model humbleness and apology and give them a chance to practice forgiveness all the time. ha!
We’ve started doing our nightly prayers on our knees. I know, duh, but I would just snuggle up with the kids in their beds before, which was nice, but now we kneel to remind us of our smallness and God’s hugeness.
We’ve also started little gratitude journals for my 4 and 6 yos. I just think so much of how we relate to God comes back to gratitude. Seeing everything as a gift coming through his hands really changes the day to day. They seem to really like having their own little notebooks and they see that I have one, which makes them feel kind of grown up.
no – not duh at all. danielle – prayer is so huge and i’m afraid we aren’t always consistent. i think you are so right about the smallness and the hugeness and inviting our kids into our big and small prayers. love it! and i love the idea of a gratitude journal – that might be a perfect journal for my oldest this summer to practice her writing.
Thanks ladies. Another bonus about the gratitude journals is that you get to buy cute notebooks. 🙂 In the back of the journal, I write specific verses that I am praying over them, inspired by a post or series I saw here a while back. I pray those aloud during our knee-time and I LOVE it. I blogged about it this month, but the short version is after I started praying Psalm 119:2 over my son, he started asking all these questions about Jesus, and eventually told me he wanted to be with Jesus, wanted to pray to accept Jesus as his savior. *Swoon* Thank you Courtney!
I love this, Danielle. Getting down on our knees is such an act of worship and submission and I love what it teaches our children. The gratitude journal will be something great for us to do with our kids in our home. Thank you!
Sent over here by Erin, and I loved what she had to say! I’m going to need to get my hands on your scripture cards! LOVE
woohoo sheaffer. i was just on your site last night convinced i needed stripes and a scarf for something. thanks for coming by. i can arrange that request.
Thank you, Sheaffer. xoxo
Yes. Yes. Yes.
“My prayer for Hudson is that he recognizes the Word as truth even as he gets older.
As culture tells him that it’s not popular to obey God’s word, and as he grows up and realizes that he is different than his friends, that he’ll feel confident in what he knows.”
I regularly use “The Power of a Praying Parent” as a guide for prayer.
Chapter 2 “Releasing My Child into God’s Hands” and Chapter 9 “Developing a Hunger for the Things of God” are exactly what you write about in this post.
Thanks for sharing, Erin. Love your blog and now love Courtney’s 🙂
– brook. [ http://www.mamabeenoe.blogspot.com ]
Hey Brook! I love The Power of a Praying Parent. Such a great guide! You will love Courtney’s blog! 🙂
Courtney, thank you so much for sharing your space with me. And thank you for paving the way for us to share our hearts.
Erin, this post really hit home for me this morning! I wrote a post yesterday morning entitled, “Fear and Faith”, and in it, I shared the fears that I have as a soon-to-be first time mom (our son is due in 6 weeks) trying to prepare to bring a little boy into this big, scary, Godless world. It is completely terrifying at times. And yet, God brings peace to my heart through fellow believers and mamas like you. So thankful for the examples you are setting for your children, and the communities around you. Including the blogging community of course:) Thank you for sharing this post today. It did my heart good!