My Thoughts

What have I been doing for the last few weeks? Thinking. Researching. Reading. Visiting Family. Thinking some more. Getting annoyed with the media. Having minor asthma attacks. Thinking yet some more.

Lately I've been passionate about what raising a child in a Christian home looks like. I've been thinking about what things we would like to do to share our faith with our children and what it looks like practically. There is SO much more to raising a child than just taking them to church and occasionally talking about Bible stories. We, as Tristen's parents, are the greatest influencers of him and I pray I don't take the responsibility lightly.

I've been doing research and would LOVE some book titles that any parents out there have found helpful. I have "Shepherding a Child's Heart" on my list but would love other helpful books. I've been searching the Scriptures too and would love to hear any particular passages that you have found helpful in your quest to raising children in a Christian home.

I have been thinking about service because I want to instill the importance of serving others to our children. We have some ideas of how we would like to do this but any ideas any of you have in this area would be liked as well :)

Some more thoughts? I'm getting ridiculously annoyed with the media these days. While feeding Tristen in the wee hours of the morning (well, wee hours is 6:00am, but I'm not a morning person so it's early to me!), I watch the news to keep myself awake. And, oh.my.goodness. I'm so annoyed at the headlines these days....making news out of other people's hurt and disasters. Charlie Sheen. Ted Williams. Gabriella Gifford. The disaster in Japan. The ongoing disaster in Haiti. People are in pain and are hurting and what do we do? Make a good story about it. It's sick. It's wrong. Yes, I appreciate being informed about these things and I know I need to give the media a bit of grace because they may not know better but honestly pouncing on disasters and people's mistakes like a piece of meat has become sickening to me.

So, what can I do? Well, I can surely pray. These last two weeks and all the thinking that I've done has driven me to more prayer. Prayer for my kids. Prayer for the world they will grow up in. Prayer for wisdom on how to parent. Prayer for Japan. Prayer for the media, Charlie Sheen, Ted Williams, etc.

Oh yeah, and the asthma attacks. I had a little scare on Monday morning which made all this even more real for me. While I was at the doctor, trying to get a good breath in, I thought about the realization that we all die someday. (Just to clarify, I wasn't on my death bed....but not breathing IS a scary thing and I've lost friends/relatives to asthma attacks :( I guess you could say the asthma attacks made me more passionate about living for Christ TODAY because we are not guaranteed tomorrow.

*Whew* Those are my thoughts as of late. Take them or leave them....