Dannette For the last few years we’ve given the kids a new verse at the beginning of the year. We try to find something we think their little souls need to hear, depending on what they struggle with. We’ve used verses like Isaiah 41 “do not fear for I am with you…” and Philippians 4 “do not need anxious about anything…” Then they decorate a cross with the words and we hang it in their room.
Then throughout the year, when we are a better version of ourselves and not too tired or too grouchy or just DONE with life, we have the kids say the verse before bedtime. Oddly enough, they end up looking forward to it. And there are times I admit, as the ugly failures we sometimes are, we even tell them no when they ask to do the verse ? … because as I mentioned before, we have nothing left to give. Life is not a pretty picture, and bedtime can be exhausting. But the work? It’s been done ahead of time. The verse is there, hanging on the wall within their view. And the kids have put their stamp of creativity on it, making it THEIRS. They know it, even when we are spent. Then sometimes, it beckons thru our brokenness, and we share a special moment with our kids asking about moments they’ve called the verse to mind and believed it.
And so this becomes the verse they meditate on and that we remind them of for a whole year. Our hope is not for memorization, but for God to move and for them to believe it.
I share this not because I want to be seen as some great parent, because I’m totally not. I was just thinking back this morning watching Rage craft his first little cross, of the glimmers of hope and growth we’ve seen in our kids because of this.
Maybe one of your kids struggles with nightmares or worry or needs to learn to stand tall. We are not able to “make” our kids believe the good things or even become them, but there is POWER in the word of God. Let’s not forget that.
?
