Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Cultivating Curiosity in Your Children


Children are naturally inquisitive although often at inopportune times. Over the years, I've found my boys' curiosity peaks at bedtime. I'm happy to answer their questions but I am a little suspicious of the timing. 

Questions are an opportunity and I find myself missing the questions my boys asked when they were younger. Now days they can google for answers and do their own research.

Recently I was challenged when I read these instructions from Moses: 

 “In days to come, when your son asks you, ‘What does this mean?’ say to him, ‘With a mighty hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. Exodus 13:14

Am I creating opportunities for curiosity?  How could I commemorate God's work in my life in a way that would create questions? God has delivered me. Do I remember in a way that my kids notice and stop to ask, "What happened? Why do you do this?"

Here are the ideas I've come up with so far:
  • Share communion together
  • Celebrate my NEW-birth date
  • Renew our wedding vows
  • Have a debt-free feast day
  • Make #TransformationTuesday really significant

Verse 8 of this same chapter in Exodus says: 
On that day tell your son (or daughter), ‘I do this because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt.’ 
Here is my challenge, to fill in the blanks with my story:

I do _______ because of what the Lord did for me when _________.

How would you fill in the blanks with your story?

Friday, January 17, 2014

Trust - Tucking in the questions of a hurting heart



Rejection stings and my tender heart is pierced. It would appear that I am not enough, I don't measure up and I won't be given the opportunity...again. Ouch. Of course these are my thoughts in response to the circumstance. This is me trying to sort it out, needing it all to make sense.

As I bring it to my Father I hear two words, "Trust me."

I KNOW He is in this.  I know it is right and good. 

But it still hurts.

Interesting to me that he doesn't respond to my doubt with a question:

  • Why don't you trust me?
  • When will you trust me?
  • What's it gonna take for you to trust me?
He doesn't pose a question at all.

I am full of questions. I've begun several emails. I've started a couple of texts. I'm looking for answers. But then I hear  "Trust me." So I delete the draft, backspace over the text and tuck my phone away.

Maybe the fact that he isn't asking questions is an answer in itself.

He is telling me to trust him with what happened.
He is telling me to trust him with my unanswered questions.
He is telling me to stop asking these particular questions.

"Why? When? What's it gonna take?"

The answers really don't matter if I trust him with my life.

It is hard to tuck these questions away. But I'm doing my best. When they work their way up I take my pointer finger and tuck them back in with a determined choice.

Trust for me in this moment looks like my finger tucking in the unruly questions of my heart. What does trust look like for you?