Clothe Yourself With... - God's Girl #1

You are God's Girl!

My daughters and I are attending a special "God's Girl" event that I organized tomorrow night. I will tell you more about that and how it goes later, but I wanted to encourage you with this verse today!

Colossians 3 tells us that we are chosen, holy (set aside for God's service or sacrificially pure), and dearly loved by God!

Verse 12 reads, "Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience."

Read the rest of this encouraging chapter about how we are to act as God's Girls.
Print this sketch I drew called "Clothe yourself with..." from my downloads page on my website at http://thecharactermom.com/downloads/  and share it with your daughter or hang it in your closet!

The Wisest Words on Friendship - Wise Friends #3

We are on a countdown.

Last week we talked about (#3 )Purposefully Planning Playdates and Parties to help our kids choose friends wisely.
#2 on my list is... 

Teaching your kids what the Bible says about friendship is one of the best ways to help them choose friends wisely.

Below I have listed a few of my favorite friendship verses for your convenience.
* I Samuel 18: 1-3;20:17/II Samuel 1:23 - The example of David and Jonathan
* Proverbs 13: 20 -" Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise."
* Proverbs 17: 17 - "A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity."
* Proverbs 18:24 - "A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother."
* Proverbs 27: 6-10 - "Faithful are the wounds of a friend...the sweetness of a friend comes from his earnest counsel..."
* Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 - "Two are better than one...for if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to pick him up....and though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him - a threefold cord is not quickly broken."
* John 15: 13-15 - "Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends..."
* Philippians 2:19-23- Timothy's example of genuine concern for the welfare of others over himself
* James 4:4 - "Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God."

Are you looking for some simple and creative ways to explain or teach a few of these Scriptures to your kids, check out Teachable MOMent #5 - Help! I've fallen and I can't get up!

I would love to hear your great ideas about ways to help our kids choose friends wisely or how to hide these verses in our kids hearts!

Purposeful Playdates to Parties - Wise Friends #2

"The next best thing to being wise oneself is to live in a circle of those who are." ― C.S. Lewis

My last post ("Don't Hang out with the Kool-aid Drinkers "  was about how it is easier to encourage your child to hang out with wise friends than it is for your child to make wise choices while surrounded by negative peers.
So I thought it would be helpful now, to share three ways to help your child choose wise friends.

My #3 way for helping your kids choose wise friends is - Purposefully Plan Playdates and Parties!

You are your child's agent. You plan their calendar and schedule - who they will and will not see for appointments. Be purposeful about planning playdates, sleepovers, family dinners, etc. with the type of children that you want your child to be influenced by.

Start now! The older your kid gets, the less and less influence you will have in this area. Do what you can at each stage in your childs life to encourage the right friendships. For example:

-When your child is young this may mean building bonds with families who have the same belief system you do,
-Then you start scheduling playdates,
- Then you go to events where you know the kids you like will be
- Then you invite kids from church over for campouts or sleepovers
- Then you host parties at your home
- Then you take hand picked groups of kids on outings, etc. etc.

You get the idea. Your kids will inevitably make friends with some kids you don't like. But the idea here is to say yes less to them hanging out with these friends, and pack their calendar with events where the kids you like will be.

Use your expert Party Planning skills to help your child pick some great friends! Don't waste any time! Invite a great family over for dinner this weekend! Have fun!

Don't hang out with the Kool-aid Drinkers! - Wise Friends #1/ Teachable MOMent #4

    Most of us were just toddlers when the cult leader Jim Jones convinced 913 of his 1100 followers to commit group suicide by drinking poison kool-aid. Yet, we still have heard the saying, "Don't drink the kool-aid!"

    Our kids probably haven't heard this, and most of them are too young to even get what this saying means.  However, it is at this young age that they are going to start building friendships that are going to impact their life choices now and in the future. Get involved with helping your child choose good friends.

     Only 17% of the people at what is commonly referred to as the Jonestown Massacre mentioned above did not drink the kool-aid. That was some serious peer pressure! I would like to suggest that it may be easier to teach your kids not to hang out with the kool-aid drinkers than it is to teach them to have the strength and decision making skills to "not drink the kool-aid" when 83% of the people they are around are drinking the kool-aid.

      Proverbs 13:20 teaches us, "Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm."

     Our kids are old enough to understand the principle that if you hang out with someone long enough, they will start to rub off on you. Use kool-aid or any sugar free drink mix (Wal-mart's version of Crystal Light's Raspberry Ice is my favorite yummy and very staining drink.) to illustrate this. It stains everything. We took this picture to left on Sunday night and they still had a subtle mustache on their way to school on Monday.

     Sometimes the things our friends convince us to do have silly, temporary affects like our lips, tongue, and red mustache. Unfortunately, some consequences of unwise decisions have more permanent consequences such as your favorite shirt will never look the same, your teeth will become cavity-filled down a sugar-filled drink everyday,  or as serious as the kool-aid drinkers at the Jamestown Massacre.

Do whatever you can to help your kids build relationships with positive peers who are "non-kool-aid drinkers." Do you have any ideas about how we can help our kids make friends with positive peers?

Soccer Goals - Teachable MOMent #3

Soccer season is officially kicked off!

You can learn an abundance of lessons from sports such as as endurance, perseverance, patience, sportsmanship, patience, dealing with dissappointment, etc.. Ask your kids what they can learn from soccer.

The soccer lesson that may stick in your kids head the best is probably from Philippians 3:14. Write this out on a note card for your kid to keep in their soccer bag or in the car.

"I press on toward the GOAL to win the prize to which God in Christ Jesus is calling us upward." - Phil. 3:14

1. What are goals? Ask your kids what they think this verse means.
If we are going to get anywhere in life, it helps to have GOALS!
What is our GOAL in soccer? How do we get there?

2. Share life goals - Let everyone share what some of their LIFE goals may be? For example, my daughter Jolie would probably say her goals are, "Be on America's Funniest Home Videos, go to Disney World, learn to play the guitar, or be an artist when she grows up."

3. How do we achieve goals? Look at the SMART chart to the right.
    Talk about ways they can get closer to the goals they listed above.

4. Apply to the Christian life - What should our GOAL as Christians be? (Be more like Christ.)   What kind of things can we do to get us closer or farther away from our GOAL of being more like Christ? What is our prize in soccer? What is our prize as Christians?

While you are on the sidelines Mom, are you pointing others to the right GOAL of being more Christ-like? What kind of goals can you set for yourself in this area?

I Don't Feel Fun Anymore - Kindness Finale

God knows that kindness is important and that we struggle with it. That is why it made his top lists:

-Top 7 list of what older women should teach young women (see verses below)
-Top 9 list of the fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22&23)
-Top 8 list in II Peter 1: 4-8 of qualities needed to keep us from being ineffective in our witness and walk with Christ.

Titus 2:4-5 says, "Then they (the older women) may encourage the young women to:
1. love their husbands,
2. to love their children,
3. to be sensible,
4. pure,5. workers at home,
6. to be  KIND,
7. being subject to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be dishonored."

You are probably familiar with this passage of Scripture in Titus. Before we get married and have kids, we never think we are ever going to have trouble being kind or loving to our families. However, that is not reality. Carolyn Mahaney in her superb book Feminine Appeal says,

"Along with the many delights of marriage and motherhood comes a myriad of temptations to unkindness that we often do not anticipate."

 

I know I sometimes wonder what happened to that fun-loving girl with the infectious laughter and love for her husband sparkling in her eyes. Do you give kind service with a smile like this silly photo above, or help with a huffy attitude like I have been doing lately? It is easy to let the daily worries of life weigh down your heart and walk with God. When I try to do everything in my own strength, I usually forget to be that tiny word--KIND--that has a big impact on my family.

This month, I am striving to seek God's power and wisdom to overcome my unkind feelings. Stay tuned to hear about how we are going to overcome our weighed down hearts with God's wisdom and wise choices.

Do you have any words of wisdom for me?

Working Toward Wisdom - Happy Labor Day

Hello Friends!

I hope you enjoy this free three page download packed full of fun and simple ways to teach your kids wisdom on Labor Day and throughout the year.

Click here to go to my free downloads page at TheCharacterMom.com and then click on Working Toward Wisdom.

I would love to hear any ideas you have about teaching wisdom.