Parenting - What Were We Thinking!

Lately I've reconsidered my long-standing view of parenting - that we'd all be better parents if our children came with users' manuals. Like most of us, what I knew of parenting I'd learned from my parents - good and not so good.

But then I realized that our children do come with users' manuals. If we look carefully at the Word of God, we find all the direction we need to be the parents our children need. The greatest example of what a parent should be is reflected in the way in which our Heavenly Father parents us.

I taught high school English for over 20 years, and one of the poems I loved to teach was one written by Harlem Renaissance preacher/poet James Weldon Johnson, entitled "The Creation." This poem is full of powerful, human images of God the Creator. He steps out and commands light, the universe, oceans, vegetation, animals, and birds and delights in all of them. But for me, the most moving image is one of God still finding that He feels alone. The poet has Him sitting on the side of a hill with head in hands thinking when suddenly He has an idea: "I'll make me a man!"

Understand, I was not your typical classroom teacher. When I got to this point in my rendition of the poem, I was a bit animated! But the most beautiful and touching image of Johnson's portrait of the creation is this:

"...This great God,

Like a mammy bending over her baby,
Kneeled down in the dust
Toiling over a lump of clay
Till he shaped it in is his own image;

Then into it he blew the breath of life,
And man became a living soul.
Amen. Amen."

Even as I write this, I am overwhelmed at this picture of tenderness, of intensity, of God - our Father - being lost in the act of creating a being in His image and then giving it life. This is a picture of a Father who seeks relationship with his children, a nurturing, loving parent.

For me, this moment, the point of our creation and birth, is where we begin Parenting by the Book.

I wish I could claim to have had this all figured out when I was in the thick of raising my two daughters, but I didn't. Now that I'm a grandmother (It's worth having children just to eventually become a grandparent), I am reflecting on what I can do with my granddaughter that I didn't do particularly well as a parent. I'm praying that as we take this journey through the Book, that I will learn to be like my Father.

This blog is dedicated to parents (and grandparents or anyone else who wants to influence the lives of children). Our desire is not to come off as having all the answers but to seek the Bible for direction that will enable us to provide our children a rock solid foundation that will last them for all eternity.

Our goals are to provide you with resources that you can use to support what your children are learning as Adventure Kidz and possibly to supply some answers from seasoned parents. But most importantly we want to seek God's word for His direction in how to become parents who will lead their children to a life-long relationship with their Heavenly Father.

Heavenly Father, thank you for unconditional love, for your grace, mercy, and forgiveness. Thank you for creating us and seeking to be in relationship with us. Thank you for your tenderness toward us.

Please provide us direction through your Word and through the leadership of your Holy Spirit as we seek to be the parents you desire us to be.

Protect our children, guard their hearts, and place deep within them the desire to know you and to become who you have created them to be.

Give us wisdom, patience, and love to be for our children an example of you, their Heavenly Father.

In Your name we pray, Amen.