Happy Thanksgiving!

Greetings to all my readers! Today in the United States we are celebrating a holiday called Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving was first suggested as a holiday from President George Washington, but it didn't become a annual national holiday until 1863 and President Lincoln's proclamation. I hadn't read the Thanksgiving Day proclamation from President Lincoln before this week. It is a great speech and is very thought provoking. Here is an excerpt:

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American people. I do, therefore, invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a Day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that, while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation, and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.

This speech came when our country was in the middle of a civil war. A very violent and horrible time in our history, and yet we had things to be thankful for.

I am amazed by how openly Lincoln spoke about God's amazing blessings. I pray that more of us would have the courage to speak opening about the many blessings that God has given us. Thankfulness is contagious, and us sharing our thankfulness might be all it takes to help someone redirect their focus.

May this day have your family celebrating your blessings (we don't need a national holiday to celebrate) and may you take time each day to help your children gives thanks....even in the hard times.

I pray that God's abundant blessings are evident in your home today and always! Happy Thanksgiving!

Loving Them Into Adulthood

I have been given a heart for kids, no really, I love kids. They don't have to be mine, I still love them and want to encourage them. I am that annoying person at the store talking to your children, we're having a full conversation and before you know it they will be inviting me over for dinner. :-) I am always noticing kids, watching them and thinking about them.....and I mean ALWAYS. It is a blessing most of the time, but it can also get me in trouble.

Something I have noticed recently is a large number of parents doing things for their children and/or taking responsibility for things their children are responsible for. I agree 100% with the understanding that we are only going to have our little ones for a short time. They will be grown before we know it and we will no longer have small footsteps to listen to. However, I don't think we should encourage our children to stop growing up and stay little just because they are "so cute." One of our primary jobs as parents is to prepare our children to do things on their own....we need to prepare them to live on their own and grow into responsible adults that can start their own healthy, loving family.

I find encouraging my children to "grow up" challenging sometimes. For example: when our son says "peas" instead of "please," it is very cute and does it really hurt anyone? well, yes, it actually hurts him and his natural speech development patterns; when our daughter works incredibly hard for something and is not able to achieve her goal, I don't want her to see the pains of growing up, I want to protect her and tell her everything is going to be ok; when someone leaves their "important item" they need at home, it is tough to decide whether to bale them out or let them learn more about responsibility. These are just some of the times when I want to ignore the opportunity I have the help our children grow and just keep them small, I want to put aside my responsibility to help them become the best person they can be and just hold them tight in my arms.

Recently I heard on the radio that the age of adolescence is now being defined as age 13-27. The speaker went on to explain how parents need to give their children more responsibility to help them make the journey from childhood to adulthood. I was floored. I still cannot believe that children are not leaving the adolescence stage until 27 years of age. What are they doing for over a decade in adolescence? That just seems crazy to me.

It is great to hold our kiddos tight in our arms, and I know without a doubt that an empty nest is hard and scary.... but is our holding them back helping THEM or is it just making US feel better? Watching our kiddos as they fail and correcting them when they make mistakes are difficult tasks, but in the end, our children will be stronger, more prepared adults because we loved them enough to teach them how to grow-up.

Let me encourage you today to take a new look at your relationship with your child. Are you making the tough choices and loving them into adulthood? Or, are you holding on a bit too tight? The transition might be a difficult one, but when your 24 year old is living on their own and not stuck in adolescence, you can look back and declare that it was worth it! You loved your children enough to love them into adults!

Giving Thanks For All Things

It is November, so many of the social media sites have people who are writing a different thing each day that they are thankful for. They write things like they are thankful for family, thankful for shelter, thankful for friends and thankful for specific things going on in their lives. I think it is great and have done it often myself.

Yesterday, I had the privilege of leading Children's Church at our congregation. The lesson happened to be on praying about everything. For one of the activities we took the alphabet and wrote down things we could pray to God about. The letter "A" paper looked like this: Anger, Apples, Animals, Adoration, Attitude, Aunts and America. We wanted to pray both for things we are thankful for and for items we need help with. I really liked this activity. It was great to see all the ideas the children could come up with for each letter.

After thinking about these two ideas, giving thanks each day and praying through the alphabet, I thought it would be a great idea for our family to combine the two ideas. Why don't we take time each day to thank God using a different letter of the alphabet to inspire us? This should help our children to focus on all the great blessings they have and to remember exactly whom those blessings come from. Now, I realize that we are 10 days behind, but there are only 26 letters in our alphabet and  maybe on some of the more challenging letters we can double up. I am excited to give it a try!

Let me encourage you to find fun, simple ways to help your child remember they can talk to God about anything and praise God for everything. I wonder what your family will be thankful for? We are going to display our "Thanks Alphabet" in our hall, hopefully that will help encourage others to give thanks for all things. Have a great day thank God!

Changing A Life

Have you ever watched a show with your family when on comes a commercial that shows children or animals in very desperate situations, and they need your help? It happens occasionally in our home. I generally ignore the commercials. Our family already sponsors some children and has two pets, so I just haven't felt the need to focus on these types of campaigns. What about you?

Recently, our family has entered the "foster care" world. It has been quite an adjustment for everyone, but it has also been a huge blessing. I had no idea how much I personally would grow because of two children that six months ago were basically strangers to me. I am thankful each day for the decision we made to invite them into our family. 

Since entering this new season, our eyes have been opened to so much that is going on around us each and everyday, but we never noticed. We have met or learned about many children in the "system" that are simply looking for a little hope. These are children below grade level in school because no one has ever cared enough to help them with their homework and make sure they are in school each day. These are children that are still having potty accidents at 10 years old because no one has ever taken the time to truly potty train them. These are children that have lived in 4 or 5 different homes just this year. These are children who have no idea what they want to be when they grow-up, because they can't see past tomorrow. These are children who have been abused and/ or experienced things that we can not even imagine. These are children who just want to be loved, know that they will receive three meals a day and be able to come home to the same place each day. 

I know what you are thinking, I thought the same things. We don't have enough money at this time to help....I know about not having enough money. We don't have the room for more children.....yep, we don't either. We don't have the time to take on anything else.....I'm with you, my plate is full. What about the safety and development of our own children.....this is a huge concern, but with monitors, boundaries and open conversations everyone can be on the same page. There is only so much that a person can do....this is very true, but through Christ's strength we can do so much more. 

Today, I am writing a post different than any other. Today, I am going to ask you to think about getting involved in the lives of others. Would you consider being a foster parent? Would you think about being a "Big Brother or Big Sister?" Would you consider sponsoring a child, not just for Christmas, but every month of the year? Getting involved in the foster system is easy, just contact your local county human services department. The organization Big Brothers and Big Sisters is a wonderful place to start to reach out to kids that are struggling. They match you up with a youth and the two of you get to know each other, go on adventures together and build a relationship that could last a lifetime. There are several organization where you can sponsor a child, we use Compassion International, but we also have first hand experience with World Vision, Children International and Children's Christian Concern Society. (I am sure there are many more great ministries out there)

Let me encourage you to take time to pray about how God might be leading you to touch the life of another child. I know that it may be a huge step for you and your family, but I also know that you will be blessed. God has something amazing in store for both you and the child(ren) you are going to share your life with! I'll be praying for you, and thanks for thinking about changing a life.