Tag Archives: worry and fear

This is Who You Are, Day 6

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Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth. 2 Timothy 2:15

I have been talking about parenting for a long time, not because I have it down, by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, the older I get and the older my kids get, I realize how much I really don’t know and how very dependent on the Lord I am.

It’s easy for me to get tired and busy and neglect my own time with the Lord. Maybe you can relate. If you are parenting your children from a spiritually dry place yourself, remember this: you can’t give them what you don’t have. If you don’t have a walk with the Lord, if you don’t have a clear understanding of God’s Word, or a love for His will, or a clear method of reasoning with Biblical convictions, your children won’t have that either.

I want to encourage you today to spend time with God. Read His Word for yourself. Often times, we do not know how to use the Bible to guide us in matters of everyday living, and our own lack of knowledge is keeping us from teaching our children to live in a Biblically wise way. Our job is to teach them to develop their own set of internalized Biblical convictions: a set of standards that they derive from the Bible, so that when we are not around them, they are capable of making good, moral, and wise decisions.

We should be teaching our children to love, serve, and follow the Lord, so that they can stay away from the two spectrums that the world defines as religion. There’s a ditch on either side. We always tell our kids; the one ditch is legalism–where everything is bound by law and things done by rote. The other side of that is moral relativism where truth is undefined.

Neither of those are Biblical boundaries. A true believer decides that the Lord is in charge of his life and willingly lives inside those boundaries, he does not live testing them. Often times we find our children testing them and I’ve noticed some things in the life of our own children, and, frankly, in my own life, that our convictions are based on the truth of God’s word. We must have those convictions in our hearts, and in order for me to impart those to my children, and to do what the Bible says in Deuteronomy, to train my children to love and follow the Lord, I have to be doing that in my own life.

Jay and I wrote a Bible Study series because we are seeing so many families who are giving their kids rules but they are not directing them to Scripture. It’s easy to parent our children out of fear and not even realize we’re doing it. Older kids, especially, need to understand the boundaries that God has set for us in Scripture. As parents, we have to know God’s word.

When you think about what the most important thing is you can do for your children, think of it in the context of how you can help them walk with the Lord. I am convinced that it is so important to define the concept of conviction and personal responsibility in our children within the framework of God’s Word.

So, take them back to His Word–over and over again. If they have a question that you don’t have an answer to, it’s okay to say, “You know what? I don’t have the answer to that. But God does. Let’s pray about it.”

Be a place where your kids can be a sounding board and get to know God’s word yourself in a personal way, because you can’t give your kids what you don’t have yourself. You can do it, because God will give you what you need. Just ask!

This is Who You Are, Day 2

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“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29:11-13

I looked in the mirror one day and laughed along with God. No joke. I laughed.

Why? Because I have seven kids, that’s why. And I think it makes God smile. Why? Because it’s me, that’s why. Me.

The woman who has to buy silk plants because I have a startling ability to kill both plants and small animals. (I boiled my fish to death in their aquarium when I was 14. True story. In my defense, the thermostat broke while I was at school. But still. I think I have PTSD from that episode.) God knew all about my anti-nurturing qualities and still, He saw fit to entrust me with seven precious lives. S E V E N beautiful pairs of baby feet. Made just for me and my husband by the God of the universe.

I think God is smiling at me right this minute, thinking about my dead fish and my silk plants—and those seven precious people who call me … MOM.

You see, God knows me. I’ve learned He knows me better than I know myself. He knows my name. I like to picture Him saying it … I listen for it. And I hear Him—in the stillness that comes with the morning light. I hear Him. “Heidi.”

Just.Like.That. Gentle, patient, like a father should be.

Like any good father, He knew I was terrified of motherhood. Terrified that I was destined to repeat a generational sin in my family. Terrified that I was not equipped to take care of a baby. Terrified that I would mess it up. And even more terrified to admit it.

My Father knew my fears as a young mother-to-be.

And He still knows them. {He’s good like that.}

Sometimes, Father lets me wrestle with a question. Sometimes, He sends an answer. Rarely early. Never late. I think He knows when I need an answer and when I can wait a while longer.

In September of 1991, I had a question that couldn’t wait. I needed an answer. Life hung in the balance. New life. I was a woman who was about to give birth. My fear of failing bubbled to the surface. My spirit struggled under the weight of an uncertain future.

He knows my name. He knows my name.

Could I do this? Really? Could I overcome my fear?

Just a few days before our precious first-born entered this world, I broke down. As I sat in the living room of a dear woman of God, I confided in her. I unpacked my fears. I told my story, and God sent me His answer through this precious friend. Rarely early. Never late. “I can’t do it!” I wailed. “I don’t know how! I don’t know how not to be angry.” It was all I had ever known, really. Anger.

He knows my name.

“Heidi, ” Nola said, “Why are you crying? God has made you new. You are a new creation! You are redeemed! Called by name. Loved. Set apart. You are not bound by your past. You.Are.New.”

He knows my name.

In that moment, I was set free. Free to be the woman God made me to be. Free to be the mother I wanted to be. That was nearly twenty-two years ago. Do I still battle with my fears? Yes. Do I struggle? Fall? Fail? Yes. But here’s the thing: I’m learning what it means to be truly free. Free to be imperfect. Free to ask for help. Free to mess things up. To ask for grace —grace to be the woman God sees when He looks at me.

He knows my name.

He knows your name too, precious mom. He knows your fears—He’s seen your failures.

And He loves you.

You can trust Him with those. Lean hard into His arms. He can hold you up.

He knows your name. Can you hear Him saying it? Look up. Listen. He knows your name.