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I think God has made each of us with different soft spots, if you will. There are certain causes or injustices in the world that affect me in a much deeper and more emotional way than others. Human trafficking, particularly of small children, is one of those things. A few months ago I attended an A21 Campaign screening of the film The Trade of Innocents.  I was pretty sure that I’d cry through the whole thing and embarrass myself publicly, but I knew I had to go. Since having children the thought that there are small ones out there being stolen and forced to do heinous things without family searching high and low to the ends of the earth for them is just something that tugs at my heart in a real way.

On the way to the theater I was praying that God would help me to pay attention without imagining if it was my daughter in their place. As I was praying I felt God challenge me that actually, this was the lowest response. It is not my daughter. It won’t be my daughter. It is other young children (who God knew before He created them) that probably didn’t have a fiercely protective mother and don’t have family who would go to the ends of the earth for them. In fact, many of their families are the one who sell them to slavery. I gathered myself and realized that this wasn’t something I needed to turn inwardly paranoid about. It was something I needed to turn outward about. 

Read These While You’re At It

Dear Childhood MeHow can we teach children truths without scaring them?Using praise to communicate values3 Simple Keys To Understanding Your Child’s Emotional Needs

The movie is great and opened my eyes. Right now in my current phase of life (3 under 2.5 years) I don’t have a lot of time for overseas mission trips and heavy involvement. What I do have time for is prayer and smaller ways of supporting the mission. When one of my dearest friends told me about Rethreaded, a ministry whose mission is to bring healing and freedom to victims of the slave trade through holistic intervention and training, I knew I found an organization that was doing work in the exact area where my heart bleeds. Here’s what they are about.

I recently got a ditty bag from their shop with some awesome rock crayons. The kids are quickly eroding those and I know I’ll use my red, white and blue striped ditty bag (signature Rachel color and pattern) for a while to come. No matter what your passion is or where your compassion lies, I encourage you to follow it. God gives us certain soft spots – I believe – to guide us to where He’d have us serve. Maybe all you can do is write a check right now. That’s okay. Maybe later you’ll have more time to travel and serve in more physical ways. That is fine. Whatever it is you can do, and whatever it is you can involve your children in, the better. This particular area, human trafficking, is a bit heavy for small children and might scare them if not approached carefully. In fact, my 2 year old obviously couldn’t grasp the concept. But I hope, as they age, to be able to involve them in reaching out to do our part.

When Does Having Material Things Become Materialism?

It is when we show our children there are others in need of rescue, that the parts inside them meant to be heroes and heroines starts to come alive.  As they grow older and we continue to serve we can fan that flame until they are bona fide rescuers. I hope my children do over and above the amount that I’ve even thought of doing. I hope they go out and make such a difference in their world. I can’t determine their God-given destiny, but I can surely help enhance their gifts, talents and habits so that they will be able to thrive.

Instead of feeling supported and encouraged by other mothers, we often feel judged, criticized and looked down upon for our choices. Instead of realizing that variety is the spice of life and differences make the world go round, we often think others should do exactly what we do. Giving advice, sharing experiences and comparing results is actually a joy and privilege we mothers have! However, when it turns to negative criticism and judgment we often alienate – or feel alienated – and that makes motherhood so much harder.

Mothers already have guilt as a constant companion and tend to judge ourselves against an unreasonably high bar. If we only share the highlights and never share the lowlights – or conversely only compare our lowlights to others’ highlights – then we are left feeling discouraged and like we don’t measure up.

I think that being a mother is the best thing in the entire world and I think that we mothers need to encourage other mothers. Those with wisdom need to share it with those seeking answers. Those who are hitting their heads against the wall looking for a solution need to ask those who are willing to offer some help and solutions. And, sometimes, we just need shoulders to cry on. Sometimes we just need someone to say “you are a good parent.” I believe that we should see it as a privilege and responsibility to be an encouragement to the other mothers around us. At times when I’ve thought I was going to crack it, a kind word of encouragement or someone saying a compliment about myself or my children was just what I needed to keep going.

How and why we can encourage one another.

Why is Christian education for our children so important? Here’s why stories and history and love of a good book bless our kids.

I blame J.R.R. Tolkien for my love of dragon tales, but I’ll begin by quoting his good mate, C.S. Lewis, who knew quite well how to tell a dragon tale of his own.

He begins one of my favorites, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader,  with this clever line, “There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.”  Lewis tells us the boy “liked animals, especially beetles, if they were dead and pinned on a card. He liked books if they were books of information and had pictures of grain elevators or of fat foreign children doing exercises in model schools.”

His school used well-researched methods and the most modern books; it certainly would have had the most advanced technology of the day and may even have had a new building (which we all know directly correlates with excellent learning and guaranteed future success for every child within its freshly painted walls).

His learning concerned itself with facts for practical use – and nothing more. He had no use for stories. He had not read Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, King Arthur or Sir George and the Dragon – all excellent dragon tales- and most seriously, he had never read the books of Genesis or Revelation (a dragon tale of another rank).

As a direct result, poor Eustace found himself in need of a rescuer and was not able to play the role of the rescuer himself, for he “had read none of the right books,” a crime which had rendered him defenseless in the face of a real dragon. Eustace was a boy unlucky enough to have received a modern education. He may have been well-prepared for employment but ill-prepared for adventure.

Why bother educating our children?

“But what do children’s stories have to do with raising a godly child?” you may wonder. And while I encourage your wondering and hate to interrupt it, I’m going to politely request we step back for a moment from the question of “How?” and deal first with the question of “Why?” because I suspect understanding the Why will lead us very quickly to the How. 

I’ve recently finished reading a Christian fiction series, and a line at the end of the book spoke to me. A husband and wife were speaking about passing their faith on to their children and the father said:

“Ye don’t just pass on faith. Ye have to pass on a desire fer ’em to find a faith of their own.” 

Clearly I like frontier books. Anyway, I was truly impacted by his statement and realized just how true it is. We can raise our children forcing them into church and forcing them into family devotion and praying over them at bedtime, but if they don’t desire to have a faith of their own then as soon as they’re out of our house the jig is up. I know this is not entirely up to us, and we are only able to do our part. God must also draw near to our children and they must respond to Him.

I do think there are some ways, however, that we can whet our children’s spiritual appetite. Sort of like leading a horse to water. They may not drink, but they’re far more likely to drink if their snout is a foot away from the water. Here are some thoughts. 

The danger of “religion”