Party like a princess...

So times are a changing here in the King household. Almost 2 teens live here, and soon to be a bunch of pre-teens to follow. :) Trying to...

Sunday, March 13, 2011

coffee talk. done. finished.


friendship

so...for the past 5 weeks i have held "coffee talk" in my basement.
every other sunday night at 8 p.m.
i usually provided the coffee,
and jaime provided the tastey treats.
(thanks again jaime...)
we discussed the book,
creative correction by: lisa whelchel
(who was "blair" on the facts of life)

so...what did i learn?
i don't know that i "learned" anything.
but there is something comforting to me knowing that we
are all in the same place.
just trying to do things right and raise God fearing children
in the midst of us messing things up.

so...my 'favorites' from the book...

~ seeing another parent's struggles is like walking into a friend's house and finding unfolded laundry on the couch, dirty dishes in the sink, and cereal on the floor. i hope you will find comfort in my failures and in my children's foibles.

~ fortunately, God can continue to mold our kids even after we've tried everything. he can use us in our weaknesses, whether or not we feel we're being effective parents. but that still doesn't make the process easy.

~ ( i think i've noted this before...) if we ever run into each other's children on the streets-even if that means literally "on the streets"- let's not judge each other as bad parents. let's give one another the benefit of the doubt. after all, we're doing the best we can. "my children aren't perfect, but neither are yours."

~ you love your children, and i love mine. so let's give each other room to try new things, learn from failures, and find what works best for each of our kids.

~teaching our children to obey us and our words is primarily to teach them to obey God and His Word. when we discipline a child for wrongdoing, we do so because God says his action is wrong, not because of some arbitrary standard we have fabricated. if the Bible is our authority, our children will grow to understand that "right" and "wrong" are based on God's standards, not our own personal standards...for instance, "honey, i didn't make up these rules, God did. And this is what he says makes life work. and because i believe him and i love you, i'm going to enforce what he says."

~ and how challenging was this for me to swallow :) "God has given our children the free will to choose or reject Him, so we, their parents, must give them good reasons to follow His ways. the goal is for  our kids to make obedient choices because they know it's the right thing to do, because it pleases God- not because they want to avoid correction. if our children are motivated to obey only out of fear, they'll miss the whole point of obedience." hmmm. :)

~ even if we as parents do nothing in the way of guidance or correction, God will be able to accomplish His purposes in our children. imagine all He can do with our help!

~ our kids are going to face plenty of failure. we can't expect them to be mature christians in tiny bodies.

so thanks laura, jaime, kim and glenda. i appreciated you coming out in the cold and sharing your hearts. thanks for being real...   ~mk.







1 comment:

Jaime said...

Thank you so much for opening up your home, Missy. Thank you all for your fellowship. It was a pleasure to get to know you all! Such a blessing! May the Lord bless you all and your families richly. Keep me informed of any future coffee talks;)