Bible

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Lighthouse, Compass, Ship’s Wheel


I normally only post one to two times a week.  However, today was … a hard day.  It reminded me of  raising my girls through their hard days and how it was sometimes difficult.

Everyone deals with pain some way, some how.   For me, this is one of those days, when you hurt so bad inside it has to get out.   As an adult I deal with my pain in several ways:

Write – writing about it on my blog
Cook – yes it’s 98 degrees, but it’s raining and I made homemade chili – good old soul food/comfort food for lunch
Shop – OK it was only WalMart for some essentials (not like when my mom would go buy a hat or a new pair of shoes)

One or all of those usually helps (I did all three).  I will tell you that I did my devotionals first.  Of course it helped and led to my writing.  However, when I am hurting I have to get busy.  I am not a saint and reading scripture does not fix things immediately but, it often helps me to think through what I have read while I am busy.  Truthfully, if reading the Scriptures fixed everything immediately, I believe  God would be finished with me here and I would already be in Heaven.   As a human I have to deal with the world and all that happens.  Devotionals are needed, but we all know it does not always ‘fix’ things.  We have to apply the Word to the pain.

Maybe I do not deal with my pain on my own;  maybe God uses others to help me deal.  Or maybe it is just that when I am busy getting things done it helps heal the pain.  I am sure some psychologist would say I am not dealing with what is hurting me.  However, I was raised by a mom that taught, “don’t sit, soak and sour’.  That is one of our Southern-ism sayings for, “toughen up, life’s hard”.

While I agree to a point that moving on is the best thing to do, it is also very important to talk your child through the pain.  Children do not know how to deal with pain on their own.  They watch you and you teach them through your actions.  What are they being taught?  You are setting patterns for them as an adult.  You need to teach them how to deal with pain in their life,  it is not automatic and you do not want them growing up blaming God for bad things in their life.

He steers us through rough waters

So what hurt today and why am I writing?  Well, my cat has been ill and this morning he died.  It was raining and my husband and I stood in the rain to bury him in the garden next to the Oleander bush.  We cried.  I am sure there are those that would say, “wow, over a cat?”.  Well no, it was much more.  It was just another domino in a long, long line of dominoes that include my husband loosing his job in a triple buy out 3 years ago and still not finding work, my mom dying, my daughter having a building collapsed on her in a tornado, my lupus battles, wedding, graduation, other family member deaths … too much of a recital? Sorry.  Just so you get the point, I am not a wimp, but sometimes there is that proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.

Now satan* attacks you during these times and he is not a respecter of age; he will attack your child early on as they go through tragedies in their life.  You never know what will be the last straw.  It may be something simple after many hard battles.  Yes, the death of a pet is tragic.  I can remember everything from a butterfly funeral to a tropical fish funeral.  I also remember my youngest losing her friend to cancer at nine.  I remember their pain and helping them deal with my brother’s plane crash.  I remember helping them through disappointments like not making the squad, missed opportunities, and first crushes.  Pain comes in all shapes and sizes.  Sometimes the little pains hurt more than the big ones.  You have to watch your child and not write them off with, “they’ll get over it”.  Ignoring it will just put it off until later and build a life time of  ‘not dealing’ and baggage they carry into their adult life.

So how do you talk to them?  I love the symbolism of the nautical life.   Explaining to your child how God cares and directs during troubled times is often easier by use of symbolism.  For small children, a visual aide helps; a lighthouse that they can turn on in a dark room, a compass to use as you walk and talk, or a toy boat they can steer in the water.  Of course for older children you can just discuss what they are going through and how God can guide them using scriptures.  Basically, all three of my symbols above point the same way, to Him.

  • The lighthouse – my favorite – He is our lighthouse, a light unto my feet.
  • The ship’s wheel – Steering and guiding us through trouble waters.
  • The compass – He directs our path through the narrow road

    He guides and directs our paths

  1. John 8:12 “When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
  2. Psalm 119:105 “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.”
  3. Proverbs 3:5-6 “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”
  4. Psalms 139:3 “Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways.”
  5. Isaiah 48:17  “This is what the LORD says— your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: “I am the LORD your God, who teaches you what is best for you, who directs you in the way you should go.”

Of course small children will not understand how trials and tribulations build character, patience and virtue.

James 1:2-4 “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.  Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”

You need to continually reinforce that you are there for them as He is always there for them.  Above all, watch during hard times for open doors from the Lord to use that time to point towards Him.

*satan – I know people capitalize the “S” but, I don’t.  I refuse to give him any status of importance.  He’s a snake, so satan, devil, etc. are lower case, as he is one.

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The Greatest of These is Love


Children begin making friendships from their early years in nursery, preschool, children’s church and as they interact with siblings and relatives. All of the relationships in their lives will be built on love at some level. Scripture tells us in John 13:34-35 to LOVE one another:

34“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

I am totally amazed at how little kids are taught at home and at church about friendships, love, relationships, or looking for Mr./Mrs. Right. It is like we leave it out there for them to figure out  on their own.   It is something that affects their entire life whether they are a Christian or not. When you do not teach your child about something, someone else will. There are movies, magazines, and books all dealing with relationships, friendship, marriage and worldly views of love. Because the media throws the word around and makes it synonymous with sex most students I come in contact with have no idea of what makes a real friendship let alone a relationship or what they want in a marriage. As Christians we have the answer straight from the manual.   Have you really considered God’s word and what He has taught about love?  Everything you need to teach your child about these different aspects of relationships is taught in 1 Corinthians 13.  What is Love? How do you apply it to children as they grow so they will know what they are looking for when it “HITS” them?* (PLEASE READ NOTE AT END)

I Corinthians 13     LOVE IS:
kind, patient, never jealous, never boastful,

Love is NOT a game

never proud,

never rude,

never selfish,

never quick-tempered,

never holds grudge,

loves the truth,

saddened by evil,

supportive, hopeful, and trusting.

This is love.  Think about each area and apply them to whatever phase your child is in, learning to make friends, dating, or searching for the perfect will of God in their life mate.  When you are teaching your child about making friends you tell them the same thing you would tell a teenager about falling in love.  Basic truths must be consistent to have value.  They cannot change with age.  They also watch you to see how to love.  All of us can improve in that area.

I firmly believe that there are four areas that apply to making friends, relationships and ultimately marriage, and they are:

Balance all 4 areas
  • Friendship – every relationship should begin with friendship – of all the words describing love above, which one(s) would your child place into friendship?  I would think they would like to claim all of them about their friend, that’s what makes them a best friend.
  • Physical – there is a physical level of all relationships, whether just friends or someone you want to marry.  You should teach them that you have to be comfortable with their physical presence – as they change over time, age, fade physically, or an accident or illness sets in, none of that will matter.  You teach your child that skinny, fat, short, tall, braces … it does not matter.  So when they are older and looking for a lasting relationship, they are drawn to someone regardless of physical flaws. And then when they start dating, and chemistry sets in, the relationship is  not lopsided. Chemistry can fade, a relationship built only on hormones will fail (teach your teens this truth).  I tell kids, physical is not just about being ‘hot’ or ‘fine’.  Everywhere you look you see couples that in the human eye look ‘lopsided’.  And you think, “how did he/she get them?”  They have found the true physical balance that real love is about.
  • Spiritual – you have a spiritual concern for this person as a friend; you have a spiritual bond with them in a relationship.  If you are on two different wave lengths it will not work out. I am not allowed to talk about ‘spiritual’ matters at school.  I can only tell them that if they do not agree spiritually, like both are atheists, both environmentalists, both same theology, same beliefs, like faith, then they are bringing problems into the relationship; major hurdles to be jumped and negotiated until they are gone or they destroy the relationship.
  • Mental – you have to be able to communicate.  Many men do not want women that are more intellectual, but it goes further than that.  If one values the pursuit of education and the other scoffs at it their kids will receive mixed messages.  One will say, go play, you are only young once while the other wants to give them educational goals and values.  It is not just education, it is all things mental, you have to be on the same wave length and have a healthy respect for the other partner’s intellect.  Never should one joke about the other partner’s intelligence.

    • Basically, you have to be healthily balanced in all four areas.  You take into a relationship as few problems as you can, because when you take them in, they are in … until resolved and/or they destroy the relationship.

    When it comes to dating and marriage, the Bible is explicit about Christians seeking Christians.  It is hard to be ‘best friends’ with someone with whom you are not ‘equally yoked’ (2 Cor 6:14-18), even more so in a relationship or marriage.  I would go so far as to teach them they should not date a non-believer.  Do not tempt yourself into falling in love with a  non-believer by dating them.  By teaching your child the scriptures about love and what the four areas are, you help them when they are making those all important decisions in dating and marriage.   When they start dating should not be the first time they have thought about such matters or considerations.  Give your child the greatest gift, the ability to love as Christ loved us.   The greatest of these is LOVE.

    *If you have not already started praying for your child’s future husband/wife, then start now.  I started when my girls were infants.  If children are already teens, get busy praying.  I assure that satan is not waiting in his planning on making a mess of things.


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    Ouch! That hurt!


    No amount of good parenting takes away all the owies from your child’s life.  Whether by accident, or part of growing up or even self-inflicted,  they will have pain in life.  Teaching your child to sort through the pain and growing from it can be a monumental task at times.  The common sense ones we have no trouble with like, ‘I told you the stove was hot’ or “see, what did I tell you about running on concrete?”  These daily accidents, although sometimes self-inflicted, result in pain that brings many lessons in life.  The pain of touching the hot stove after you told them not to is an obvious lesson and quickly learned because of the quick consequences.

    But, what about the ‘stuff’ we push back and do not deal with until it is too late.  As adults we do this in our life, waiting, procrastinating, deciding it will not matter.  What you have to remember is that you are passing on this pattern to your child.  They are always watching.  How you deal with situations in your life is a daily lesson to them.  I was thinking about this while working in my yard this weekend.  The scripture Romans 1:19-20 came to mind:

    Romans 1:19-20

    “19For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.”

    Get rid of your life's weeds.

    This is a great way to teach your child a Biblical truth.  Your child is watching and observing you with situations in your life every day.  What  are they learing?  Do you wait until it causes excruciating pain to deal with the issue?

    Consider spring yard work, or storm clean up to illustrate my point.  This past winter we had months of bitter cold instead of a couple of weeks.  The unusual hard winter killed most of my yard, and what it did not kill, it severely crippled.  This past weekend I finally got around to the last area.  I had put it off because from the street it looked fine.  There was plenty of green and flowers covering the winter damage.  My procrastination became evident when I started pruning back the area that had been left to its own wild growing.  Underneath were long, leggy stalks with no support that would have soon withered and not passed along nutrients to the beautiful outer growth and blooms.  Near the ground was rotting debris from the storm that had not been dealt with.  Eventually, the plants would have withered and died and I would need to replace them completely if I had waited much longer.  Amazing how all around us in nature are lessons and truths from God.  We have to deal with circumstances as they arise so that we teach our children to do so as well.  Otherwise, we end up with root rot and wild unhealthy growth.

    Of course there is the pain of growing up.  Sometimes through no one’s fault, life happens and it hurts.    The death of a pet, or worse a love one; financial hardship that takes away their piano lessons or football camp, these pains all hurt.  A friend moves away, a teacher over looks them on awards day, these hurt.  There are so many hurts as they grow that need to be handled.  They will ask why, just like we ask God why when we lose a job, a love one or get sick.  Life hurts.  The Bible tells us that the trials and tribulations are  testing:

    “In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith— of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire— may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed.”
    I Peter 1:6-7

    Pruning. What's it doing for you?

    Trials build character, patience and faith.  That is hard to teach a child in concept if they are young.  However, the way you yourself react to similar pain is how they will learn first.  Are you patient?  Does the situation make you mad and you explode?  Mad is an emotion (my girls always hated this next phrase), “No one can make you mad.  You have to choose to be mad.”  It is true, you choose how you respond.  How are you teaching your child to react to the pain in their life?

    Sometimes though, our pain is self-inflicted.  We have been away from Him in our walk for so long that the ‘pruning’ finally has to happen for us to survive and it is severe.  Only you know if your season of pruning is simply growth in the Lord, a testimony for those watching you or if it is because you have gone your own wild way.  What’s hurting you and why?  Your kids are watching.

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    Practical Lessons


    Today I have spent time adding a new tab to my blog, Practical Lessons.  It is summertime and rather than allow your children to vegetate in front of some electronic device, find ways to teach them about God.  I had an adult S.S. teacher that called this “I SPY GOD”.  It is good for all of us to constantly see God in all that we do and arm ourselves against satan’s attacks.  There is so much to learn about God, from the kitchen to the shore, to the back deck and more.  (I know, but I love to rhyme).  I hope you enjoy the few lessons I have put up and will add to them from time to time just as I add to Gwen’s Pen and Dinner Time.  ENJOY!

    PS: These are excerpts from my book and are copyrighted (sorry, have to throw the legal jargon in – see my copyright notice for blog at bottom as well).

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    I Got Rights!


    Rights.

    The Justice or Injustice of Life

    While raising kids you will hear them express what they perceive to be their rights on a daily (if not hourly) basis.  “That’s not right. That’s not fair.”  They have their perception of what are their rights and what is fair.  It is your responsibility to teach them what their rights are and what is fair.  Teach your children from the child rearing manual, the Bible.  And they learn from watching YOU follow that manual for your own life.

    My daughters grew up hearing the standard retorts we grew up with, “I don’t have to be fair, I’m your mom, life’s not fair.”  I believe that as adults we are guilty of the same attitude with God.  “That’s not fair”, is uttered in our mind and hearts if not out loud. Honestly, as we look around at those that are still employed and are suffering no economic hardship, it is difficult not to look towards Heaven and question the fairness.   Except for the fact that we have no money, no idea what is going to happen to us, our home, etc., Phil and I have never been so blessed.  We have wonderful daughters and we have each other.  Simplistic as it may seem, we have our needs of food, clothes, shelter and love for TODAY.  Our daily bread, so to speak.

    It really all boils down to needs and wants.  I often told my girls they were brought into this world with the right to a place to sleep, food to eat and clothes to wear.  I told them that nothing guaranteed them a private bedroom decorated to their taste, clothes that they liked to wear or their favorite foods.   All of those luxuries were earned, not rights.  Of course I never held them to just a pallet on the floor, one pair of shoes and one change or clothes and bread and water.  Most parents want the best for their children and we enjoy lavishing them with the best.

    I am fond of reminding people how everything on earth is a minuscule picture of our relationship with our Heavenly Father.  God has promised us a place to sleep, food to eat and clothes to wear.  Everything else is His blessings.   We do not earn our blessings based on our works.   Just like we may want to bless our children but do not do so because of timing or their being ready for such blessings, God too, has a perfect timing for what He has for us.  Seriously, who would give a sports car to a toddler?  We receive what we need and want when it is in accordance to God’s will and timing.  If blessings were based on works, the Apostles would not have suffered.  Suffering is not a sign that God does not love us or has forgotten us.  God does know our needs as well as our hearts desires.  Going through times of hardship, we tend to think God has quit loving us.  Have you ever heard your child say, “you just don’t love me” when you denied a perceived right or held back a wanted item?  Even as adults we can be so childish.  God loves us and He has a perfect timing.  I could scream I have rights to the Lord.  We’ve been faithful in all areas of our lives, so why are we about to lose all that we have left, the house, the cars?  What will we do?  Where will we get food? Where will we sleep?  We have rights Lord, right?  We are your children Lord, right?  Right.   And what does the Bible tell us?

    Matthew 6:

    25“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his lifeb?

    28“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

    Just as you love your child and you want to give them all their needs and even all their wants that you can, so does God love us and want to give us all our needs and even our hearts desires.  When you trust, fully trust and when you obey, fully obey, God can and will do everything to work His perfect will in your life IN HIS TIME.  Ultimately, that is what you want is it not?  His perfect will?  We cannot even imagine the blessings He has for us in His perfect timing.  SO many times we settle for less than His best because we want it now, RIGHT now.  We still have a place to sleep and food to eat.  We have no idea where God is leading us or what is in store.  Do we want to know?  Right now?  Of course we do.  However, if we can be still, and know that He is God and wait on Him then we, our children and all those watching us, will have grown in Him and in our faith.

    Matthew 7:11
    If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!