To You, I Promise...

Dear Sweet Children of Mine,

     As 2013 begins I just want you to know that I love you and I wish the richest blessings on you both for the next year. You both are growing and learning so fast and Daddy and I are having trouble keeping up with you guys changing so fast. I know this year will come with many exciting moments, scary moments, sad moments and happy moments, but right now I want to make a promise to you. As your mother, I want to be the best for you. I want to be the mother, the best mother God has created me to be. Here is my promise to you for 2013:

I promise to play with you more than gripe at you.

I promise to pray for you and pray with you every day.

I promise to teach you about patience by practicing patience.

I promise to let you learn by letting you explore your world (and let you get dirty).

I promise to teach you about God's love by being a living example of God's love.

I promise to be slow to anger and not to raise my voice when I lose my temper.

I promise to sing with you, dance with you, and be silly with you, no matter who's watching.

I promise to teach you about the world by sometimes letting you fall down.

I promise to help you back up when you fall down.

I promise to show you how much I love you with more hugs, kisses and cuddles than you can handle.

I promise to not only take pictures of you, but take pictures with you.

I promise to read the Bible with you every day.

I promise to help you grow with self-confidence by always saying encouraging words.

I promise to play blocks, cars, dolls or kitchen with you even if I'd rather not.

I promise to let you be who you want to be, no matter what anyone else thinks.

I promise to teach you kind words by using kinds words.

I promise to show you how important you are by giving you my time.

I promise to spoil you with love, knowledge and imagination rather than with material things.

I promise to teach you that it's okay to make mistakes by admitting my own mistakes.

I love you two more than you could ever imagine! I know 2013 will be a wonderful year for us all and I pray that you enjoy it!

Love,
Mommy

___________________________________________

Dear Mommy,
     Your promises are beautiful and it is obvious you want the very best for your children, but this is a tall order. Your words will not always be encouraging, your anger will get the best of you, you will sit on the couch instead of playing blocks, and you will lose your patience. This does not mean you are not a good mother. In fact, you are the very best mother for these children. God has given and entrusted them to you.

    This does not mean you should hit the "delete" button and not make these promises. In fact, you should make these promises with the intention of keeping them. Strive toward these promises, keep them in your heart and your intentions will not go unnoticed.

     Your children will notice your gestures: that deep breath before you speak instead of getting mad, the TV being turned off to play trains with them, the extra squeeze you give them just because. They will notice and their lives will be richer because of it. And when mistakes happen, admit them. Say you are sorry in front of them. Let them know that it's okay to make mistakes and to admit them and they will be richer because of it.

Promise to promise these to your children, do the very best you can in keeping them, and 2013 will be a year full of innumerable blessings!

Love in truth,
Mommy from reality

Advent vs Christmas

I will just be honest. I am not a fan of Christmas. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Christmas carols and decorating the house with my family, but there is something about Christmas time that makes me irritable...the "I want! I want! I want!" consumerism. It bothered me as a little kid (just ask my parents) and bugs me even more now that I am grown up with kids of my own. I know I want Christmas to be different than the typical getting and giving gifts and Santa and all of that (We will save Santa for another post). So my husband and I decided to emphasize the season of Advent rather than the Christmas season. No, Advent is not about opening a box/stocking/pocket from an advent calendar and getting a gift EVERY DAY until Christmas. That is NOT what Advent is!

I am United Methodist, but many denominations have similar traditions. Even if your denomination doesn't have Advent traditions, it is never too late to start them as a family.

What is Advent? 
Advent is the four weeks prior to Christmas starting on the fourth Sunday before Christmas. Advent is time of preparation of the coming of Jesus, thus Advent comes from the Latin word adventus meaning "coming".  Advent was started in fourth century France and the number of weeks of preparation varied from 3 to 4 to 6 weeks before Christmas, but the tradition now stands at four weeks. Advent is also the start of the liturgical (church) calendar. Other seasons include Christmas (yes, this is a separate season), Epiphany, and later Lent and Easter. As a church and as individual Christians we prepare ourselves by reading the Scriptures that foretell Jesus' coming, prepare the for Jesus to be born, and Jesus' birth story. We also prepare by centering ourselves around Jesus and not around ourselves.

Find our more about the history and meaning of Advent:

United Methodist Church

Evangelical Lutheran Church of America

The Catholic Church

The Presbyterian Church

Our Family Advent Traditions:

Advent Calendar & Jesus Tree
This is a new tradition that we started this year. 24 Scriptures and 24 names for Jesus. One for each day in December leading up to Christmas. Each day we will read a part of Jesus' story from the bible and put an ornament on our "Advent Tree" that has a name for Jesus. The scriptures range from prophecies about the coming of Jesus, to the preparing a way for Jesus and Jesus' birth.

Our homemade Advent Calendar

Advent Wreath
The wreath has three purple candles and a pink candle around the outside and a white candle in the middle. Each Sunday night we light the candle for that week, read a scripture, sing a song or two and then have a small discussion. On Christmas Eve, we light all the candles and the white Christ candle in the middle. This is done at the Christmas Eve service at church and then at home right before we went to bed.

Our home Advent Wreath

Some people go crazy about Christmas covering their house with decorations (don't get me wrong I do LOVE Christmas decorations), doing the elf on the shelf and all of that (and I totally have no problems with that at all), but I consider myself an Advent addict! (I am considering starting a new hashtag trend with #adventaddict) love the preparation of the coming of Jesus, all the symbolism in the candles, colors and what-not, and the faith-building and togetherness it creates with my family!

God Bless you and your family this time of year and always!
Katie <><

Preparing Your Children for the Beach...of Life

No, this is not another post about water safety! I am cautious around water, but enough is enough! This is more of what parents should be preparing their children for. For the past two Sundays my pastor has been preaching on children and how important they are in and how as parents (or as someone with influence over children) should be preparing our children the best we can to be Godly adults in the future. Children are our future; they will someday run our churches, our schools, our big companies and yes, our government. So what better to equip or children with than the Word of God and the wisdom we have learned from God.


Our pastor used a beach bag and the contents of it as an analogy to how we should be preparing our children for the future. I thought it was so insightful and simple that I wanted to share it with all my mommies (and daddies) out there!

My Beach Bag!

Sunscreen- When you are out at the beach, sunscreen is a must because you are in direct sunlight. We use sunscreen to protect our bodies from the sun. We need to be protecting our children from a lot of things that go on in the world. There are things that children should not be exposed to and as parents it is our responsibility to protect our children from these things.


Sunglasses- As like sunscreen protects our skin from the sun, sunglasses protect our eyes from the sun. What are you doing to protect your childrens' eyes? There is so much we need to be protecting our childrens' eyes from; stuff on TV to stuff going on in our daily lives. I think the first step in protecting our childrens' eyes is knowing what their eye are currently being exposed to. When we know what our children are seeing we can protect them a lot better than if we do not know.


Snack- Everyone knows that when you go to the beach (or the pool) you and your children get hungry after a while. So having a healthy snack in your beach bag is always a great idea. This works for our analogy too. We need to be feeding our children spiritually. We need to be feeding then healthy spiritual snacks from the Word of God, from our own wisdom that God has given us, and from the wisdom of other strong spiritual leaders in our or our childrens' lives. Reading the Bible to your children is a wonderful place to start. Find a childrens' Bible that you like and read a story a night. Take your children to church, have them participate in age appropriate Sunday School lessons and Vacation Bible School. Stay active and volunteer in the children's department at church. Because remember, it is YOUR responsibility to spiritually feed your child NOT the church's (the church is a tool to help you!)


Towel- After you get out of the water, or get done playing in the sand, a great thing to have is a towel to wipe off all the water and sand from your body. As parents we need to come to the reality that things are going to happen to our children that upset or hurt them. This is a sad, but real fact. So we need to teach them how to "wipe off" the bad stuff that happens to them in life. At first we are the fixers. We are the ones that fix (wipe off) the bad stuff that happens to our children, but as they grow up we need to be teaching them to do it for themselves because you won't always be there to do it (and independence is a part of growing up)


Aloe Vera- After being in the sun all day, your skin can sometimes get a little burned or pink. The aloe vera is great to soothe your skin, cool it, and heal it. We have already established that bad things happen. We have the towel to wipe them off, but that doesn't mean the wound is healed. Sometimes our children need soothing. This can come from us as parents, other family member or church leaders. This soothing part of healing should also come from God. This is where we teach our children the importance of prayer and how God can really heal and soothe us in our time of need. Pray with your children. Pray for each of your meals throughout the day, pray at bedtime and pray whenever it feels right. Praying with your children shows them how important it is and how important God is.


Umbrella- The last thing my pastor used was an umbrella. He talked about how the umbrella is an analogy for Jesus. We use the umbrella for shade and protection, but for it to do any good we have to open it up and hold it over us. We hold the umbrella over our children for a little while, but soon we have to teach them to hold it themselves. They have to learn about Jesus and choose to follow Him all on their own. If we equip our children with the right things then it will not be hard for them to accept faith in Jesus. Our goal is to help our children hold their own umbrella.


I loved the analogies my pastor used about raising children. I obviously asked him for permission to use them and he was very happy to agree and said that what he shares with us, he encourages us to share with others. I hope you are equipping your children to become wonderfully strong men and women of God. As always God bless you and your family!


Until the Whole World Hears,
Katie
grace.faith.dirt@gmail.com

A New Life

"For I know the plans I have made for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you; plans to give you hope and and a future" Jeremiah 29:11

In the Islamic tradition, at the moment of birth, the newborn's mother or father will whisper the Islamic call to prayer into the newborn's ear as the first thing the baby hears.Thus, the child's life begins with words of praise to Allah and a call to faith in Allah.

My husband and I love this tradition, but being Christian we changed it to fit our own faith. So when I was pregnant with my son, my husband and I decided to say a prayer into our newborn's ear the moment he was born. I spend many nights throughout my pregnancy praying and thinking about the perfect prayer to whisper into my son's ear when he was born. I wanted it to be specific to him and special to the both of us.

So, as my son was being put on my chest, as the madness of the hospital team was bustling around me and pictures were being taken, I looked down at this tiny creation that God had placed in my life and I whispered the prayer God had given me into my son's ear. As I whispered the prayer, my eyes filled with tears, and even as I write this over a year later, it sends shivers down my spine to think of that wonderful moment.

The prayer that God gave to me was perfect and it stemmed from a thought that I had throughout my entire pregnancy. How can anyone, who has had a child, deny the existence of God? It seemed like in every step of my pregnancy, I was in awe of God's wonder, majesty and power because of this little miracle growing inside of me. I think that is exactly how each of us starts life. God creates each one of us, this beautiful, unique masterpiece. He breathes life into us and says, "I have a wonderful plan for your life!"

I can tell you one thing...I grew more in my faith and grew closer to God in those nine months before my son was born than I have in the past five years. It was like God was letting me take part in a tiny part of his creation. And that tiny role that I had was so huge...it changed my life forever. If this tiny part of creation that I was able to be a part of radically changed my life so much, can you imagine how HUGE the power of God is? 

So I pray that you get to touch and understand a tiny piece of God's creation. I also pray you understand how tiny that piece is and as a result gain understanding about how GREAT the power of God really is. How AMAZING! As always, God Bless you and your family!

Until the Whole World Hears,

Katie <><

grace.faith.dirt@gmail.com 

Why Grace Faith Dirt?

"Start children off on the way they should go,
   and even when they are old they will not turn from it".  Proverbs 22:6

My other posts have been very information based up to this point, but I want to make sure and not leave out the faith aspect of my life and how vitally important it is in raising my children. God has been tugging on my heart to start this blog to help others for a while. I put it off for a long time, until I was talking with my midwife last Friday. I was telling her about all the stuff I had read and all the resources I had found (with help from other moms) and my idea of a mommy resource blog/website just happened to fall out of my mouth. All she simply said was, "Wow! That's a great idea!" and it clicked for me. No more waiting, no more putting off what God wanted me to do. 

I was struggling with what to call my blog. I wanted something unique, faith-based, but also applicable to the "mommy crowd". So I thought to myself, "what does it take to be a great mommy" and grace, faith and dirt were the things that came to mind. (yeah, that makes you wonder what goes through my mind sometimes!) As I have said before, being a Godly parent requires lots of all three.

"Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given."   John 1:16

This is most easily defined as a gift that we do no deserve. God shows us grace through the gift of salvation. We do no deserve to spend eternity with God and there is NOTHING we can do to earn the gift of salvation no matter how many "good deeds" we do through out our life. All we have to simply do is accept this gift by accepting Jesus into our hearts! It takes lots of grace to be a Godly mom! We must show, by example, the grace of God to us by showing grace to our children. Showing and sharing how much God loves us and how much we love our children when we get a "gift" of any kind undeserved is a great way to show grace. Today was a perfect example of showing my son grace. All afternoon he was fussy, throwing fits and not listening. It took all that I had not to loose my composure and just give in. I just wanted to put him in his crib and let him cry until Daddy got home. Through the grace of God we made it through. We worked on walking around the room, watched an episode of Blues Clues, and went outside for a short walk. Small acts like these are perfect ways to show grace to our children.

"I have chosen to be faithful;
      I have determined to live by your regulations". Psalm 119:30

As Christians we have faith in God. We believe, we have faith, that God is the creator of the universe and that he sent his only son to die on a cross and then rise from the dead so we can have the opportunity to get to heaven. As Christian parents, we need to also have faith in ourselves, our spouses and our children. God has given you this most wonderful gift, a child, to nurture and raise up to be Godly adults with strong faith in Him. That means that God knows you can do it! God has FAITH in your ability as a parent! That is some powerful encouragement (at least for me it is!) Have faith in yourself, in your gut instincts. As the saying goes, "Mommy knows best" and it is so true. The same thing goes for your spouse. I hear so many stories of moms being so worried about leaving their newborns with their husbands. I understand the fear and anxiety (trust me, I do!) but at the same time, God has just as much faith in your spouse as a parent as he does you! God has entrusted you AND your spouse to this wonderful gift and God has faith that you both will raise your children the way He wants you to. Lastly you have to have faith that everything is going to work out! This is the HARDEST part for me! When things go wrong and you have no control, you must put your faith in God. When something happens, you have to have faith in the doctors and nurses that are helping your little one. Having faith is one of the most important, yet one of the hardest things about being a parent.
 

"Then the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground. He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nostrils, and the man became a living person." Genesis 2:7

This may be the least serious of the three, but yet I think it is important. These are just the facts of life: Your baby is going to get dirty. Your baby is going to get hurt, scratched, pushed down, etc. The important thing to remember is IT IS OK! Dirt don't hurt! (If God made man from the "dust of the ground", how bad can it be?)It is such a wonderful thing that God made babies washable! I think we need to remember to let our babies explore, even if it means he will get sand in his diaper, or mashed potatoes in his hair! Though there is a difference in letting your baby explore but being cautious and being just plain stupid. I used to not let my son get into things or explore certain places because I was scared of the dirt. My mom and my husband would laugh and ignore my "freak outs". I finally realized that my son was missing out on learning new thing and exploring new places because I was scared of a little dirt that would come off in the tub! I know it is hard, but when you finally feel comfortable and your baby is past the 8 weeks mark (more on that later, if you are wondering) let your baby down in the dirt, let him pet the dog that sheds like crazy, let him be barefoot! You might even find that getting dirty is fun!

As a fellow parent and Christian, I pray that your life is filled with lots of grace, faith and dirt all throughout your child rearing years! I pray that God's grace is show to you in a very real way. I pray that your faith in God, your spouse and your children grow stronger every day. Lastly I pray that you get down and dirty and have lots of fun raising your children! As always! God bless you and your family!

Until the Whole World Hears,
Katie <><
grace.faith.dirt@gmail.com