Not Alone: Trusting God to Help You Raise Godly Kids in a Spiritually Mismatched Home (8 page)

Fill me with Your promises—promises that I can lean on when I’m uncertain or fearful for my kids. Help me to pray for each child by name daily and to bring them before Your throne of grace, seeking Your favor and protection for them.

Mostly, Lord, help me to be filled with grace, overflowing with compassion and kindness. Shape everything I do with forgiveness and hope. Let me love my children, guide them faithfully and remember always that they are Yours, in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Respecting Dad

This chapter focused on the truth that our personal love relationship with Christ impacts our children. This powerful concept from 1 Corinthians absolutely applies to dads as well. We as the believing mother bring God’s power and love to bear in Dad’s life as we simply live out our faith. Living our beliefs through everyday issues, being intentional about not preaching, and allowing our actions to do the talking are among the most respectful ways to model our faith to our children and to their father. In addition, when we do this, we teach a concept that will be extremely beneficial to the relationships our children will form as adults.

Equipped Kids

Teaching Kids the Power of Prayer and
the Strength of the Sword

Lynn

Bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

EPHESIANS 6:4

I am all about the practical. Give me an idea or a suggestion on how to inspire my kids to grow in their faith, and I will run with it. This chapter is full of practical ideas about how to do just that. As I sat down to write, however, the Lord whispered in my ears, “It’s always about relationship.”

If you remember, I grew up in church. I learned how to pray. I knew the Bible stories and all the hand motions to the songs we sang in Sunday School. But my little-girl faith wilted in my early adult years because I had Jesus in my head but not in my heart. The relationship was missing.

Leading, shaping and teaching our children begins with the practical, but it must always point to a relationship with the living God of the universe, His Son, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. Our children will learn to love God’s Word because we love God’s Word. They will pray because we believe in prayer. And when you throw in some fun and a ton of laughter on this training journey, your kids will enter into an authentic love relationship with Jesus that will last a lifetime.

Who Is a Spiritual Leader?

Our online community at
www.spirituallyunequalmarriage.com
often tackles many of the unique and challenging areas of living in a spiritually mismatched union. One of the common struggles we face has to do with spiritual leadership.

The spiritual direction of our home is monumentally important. We all wrestle with how to handle this issue well. In my own marriage this was an area of great confusion for me. Many difficult questions troubled my mind, such as:

• Do I wait for my husband to become a believer before setting the tone in our home for prayer and Bible reading?
  
• If I take any initiative to teach my kids about faith, will my actions be perceived as disrespecting my husband?
  
• Can I be the spiritual leader of our home and yet follow my husband’s lead in other areas of our marriage?
  
• Will my kids listen to me if I’m not the head of the household?
  
• Does leading spiritually make me the head of the household?
  
• Am I up to the task of spiritual leadership all on my own?
  

Tell me that I haven’t been alone in this! If you, like I have been, are in the midst of this kind of confusion, today I want to set your feet on a path to freedom.

Many years ago I heard this statement:

If your husband is unwilling to lead spiritually or has abdicated his position as the spiritual leader of your home, then God expects you, the believing wife, to step into this role.

Upon hearing this single sentence, I felt the cloud of confusion lift from my soul, and freedom flooded my heart. I will add that if you are raising children as a single parent, God looks to you to step into this role as well. Somehow I guess I needed permission to become the leader for my kids, and it came with those words. What a relief. But how do we step into this role and do it well?

It begins with our motives. The effectiveness of our parenting and the successful navigation of our marriage greatly increase when we consistently check our motives. I had to ask myself, “Does my desire for my husband to lead our home come from a place that is me-centered or Christ-centered?”

Let me be specific. Here are some of my thoughts from years past:

• If only he would believe, he would help me get the kids ready for church.
  
• My life would be so much easier if only he was a believer.
  
• If he believed, I wouldn’t have to sit with each of the children tonight and pray with them. I wish he’d help.
  
• Going to church alone is so embarrassing.
  

Okay, I know I’m not the only one to have had these kinds of thoughts. But there comes a time when we must move past ourselves and truly focus on what is Christlike. Motives born out of love and humility will move us to wake the kids on Sunday morning and take them to church, even if we must do it alone. Out of a loving heart, you can say to your husband, “Sweetie, watch the television without me for an hour. I’m going to go tuck the kids into bed and say bedtime prayers.”

There are many ways you can build respect for your man and still quietly lead your family closer to Christ. More than anything, I go back to the truth of 1 Peter 3:1: win them over without words. Win your kids, your husband, your friends, your neighbor and a world that is lost and broken. Win them over with your boundless, crazy, passionate, fervent, zealous and adoring love for Jesus. When you love Jesus with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, over time it is irresistible to people. And that’s a promise.

Jesus modeled humble leadership. Doing what He did is the key to leading your children when Dad doesn’t believe. A happy marriage, whether it’s comprised of a believing husband and wife or only a believing wife, begins with love and respect. When we make Jesus our center, then add to that a sense of humor, sprinkles of grace and heaps of forgiveness, we have a winning combination that will gently lead our children to faith.

Teachable Moments

Tiny hands clutched the plastic egg. My daughter turned her six-year-old face up at me, her eyes filled with anticipation. What would she find inside this Easter egg? She turned her attention back to the blue egg. Gently she separated the halves, only to discover that the egg was empty. Her surprised face looked up at me again, this time waiting for my explanation. “Caitie,” I said, “the last egg is empty. This egg represents the empty tomb. It’s empty because on Easter morning Jesus rose from the dead. Jesus is alive.”

Every year since my daughter was small, I’ve pulled down the bin of Easter decorations from the closet, and together she and I have searched for the Resurrection Eggs.®
¹
We open up the egg carton to 12 brightly colored plastic eggs that contain symbols of the Resurrection story. Opening the first egg reveals a simple donkey. And thus we share the story of Jesus entering Jerusalem on a donkey’s colt. Each successive egg contains another symbol of the Passion Week, which we animate as we talk, leading us to the last egg: the empty tomb. This is one of my daughter’s all-time favorite holiday traditions. Even as a teen she still loves to open the eggs and walk through the story of Easter.

This simple carton of eggs provided a profound teachable moment.

Teachable moments come in all shapes and sizes and can be age appropriate, impactful, funny and so often life-changing. These moments with our children can be created with intention, and some are spontaneous, catchable moments. As the believing parent in our home, I discovered a few creative ways to share biblical truths with my kids as well as to keep the peace with my unbelieving husband. These took the form of purposed moments in which I told the stories of Noah and the ark, Moses and the burning bush, the Good Samaritan, and the many fantastic stories about Jesus. It’s my prayer that my kids will carry these stories in their hearts forever.

Teachable moments can be purposely created, but I’ve found that some of the most impactful and powerful opportunities to impart my faith to my kids often arrive quite by accident. They come about when we least expect them and usually arrive at the least convenient times. They occur in moments when I may be supervising several pots on the stove, rushing to get dinner on the table, and haven’t one minute to spare. Yet that is the exact minute my young daughter might walk into the kitchen and ask me an unexpected question such as, “Why doesn’t Dad believe?” Yikes. That’s a
big
question, but it’s in that precise moment that my daughter is open to discussion. I have only an instant to pour truth into her in a meaningful way, because attention spans fade quickly and kids zone out fast. What are we moms to do?

In those scenarios, stop what you are doing. Get on your kids’ level and whisper a quick prayer under your breath, “Jesus, help me to say the right thing here.” Then speak honestly and gently into your children’s lives. “Dad isn’t quite ready yet. He’s still trying to figure out who Jesus is. But I believe he will figure it out, and until that day you and I just need to pray for your daddy to know Jesus. Can we do that?” I smile at her. My answer assures her, and it also encourages her to pray for her dad.

As I remember back, many teachable moments sprang up for me in all kinds of crazy places and at inconvenient times. One place in particular where we talked more about God than we did in church was in the car. Or, more aptly named, the prayermobile. I think our prayermobile came into being during my daughter’s middle-school years. Middle school is a challenging time for most adolescents, and it was a difficult time for my girl as well. On any given school morning, she and I would jump in the car and head off to school. As we zipped up the street, I could see anxiety rise on my daughter’s face as she contemplated the difficulties and challenges she knew she would likely face that day. My heart was moved, and spontaneously I began to pray for her as we drove. I would reach my hand over to the passenger seat and rest my hand on her knee and then quickly pray over her day. These automobile prayers went something like this:

Lord, today let my girl have a great day. Give her something to laugh about, let her be a good friend, and help her to remember her lessons and do well on the science test. Mostly, walk with her every minute of the day and protect her. Help her to remember that You are with her, and when she feels scared or anxious, remind her to say a quick prayer to ask for Your help. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

I would say, “Amen”; she would echo, “Amen.” She would look at me, I at her, and we would smile.

All was right with the world.

These simple prayers brought Caitie peace. They modeled prayer in everyday living, and they built her faith.

Today my daughter drives to school, so I make it a point to sit with her when she arrives home, usually late in the evening after a play rehearsal. I ask about her school day. She recounts some of the hilarity of her friends’ antics at lunch, then she shares her frustration with teachers or the pain of a friendship difficulty. I listen with compassion, and when she is finished getting it all out, I pray a silent and quick prayer, “Help me, Jesus, to say the right thing here.” Then I casually help her regain perspective. Mostly I try to shed a ray of hope on her troubles. I don’t spout off, “Well, the Bible says …” No, I share how her pain is understandable and how Jesus might look at the situation. What would He say about a friend who had betrayed Him?

Decide today to be ready to stop what you are doing when these kind of moments arrive and to give your kids the truth. Our kids really want to know the hard truth. They honestly desire to understand more about their faith. They want to know if Jesus can really make a difference in their crazy and mixed-message world. They want to make our faith their faith, but they have questions and need to know the
why
of it all. I frequently ask the Lord to make me keenly aware of and ready for these moments when they arrive.

These often quirky and unexpected encounters with our kids pass in an instant, but they are profound moments that stick. My daughter will always have our prayermobile conversations stored in her heart. They will guide her through her entire adult life. It’s an amazing privilege to share Jesus with your child in this way.

Everyday Faith

As a believing mom, I want my kids to be guided by God’s truth. When my children are adults and thrown into circumstances of uncertainty, or when they face a moral dilemma, that’s precisely when all the years of sharing Bible verses with them will truly pay off. Even if they don’t remember verses word for word, the basic underlying truth of God’s Word will remain with them. They will have hidden God’s truth in their hearts, and it will rise within them to guide them to wise and godly decisions.