Friday, January 28, 2011

"How to Pray for Your Kids" with Julie Sanders

Even though today's title was "How to Pray for Your kids" I think the take home message was really how to teach your children to pray.

We had a great time today listening to fellow mom Julie Sanders.  Here are just some of the many points she made it today's talk: (I know Julie could write these much better than I can, but here were my notes)
  • We are not always going to be with our children.
  • Fears (for our kids) can motivate us to pray, but they shouldn't consume our prayers
  • When we are afraid it is okay to share that with our children, as long as we then react in the proper way by going to our heavenly Father
  • Prayer can be one of our biggest ministries to our children
  • We need to pass on prayer to our kids, but we can not impart what we do not possess
  • The verse Psalms 56:3 is a great one for our children to memorize, "When I am afraid, I will trust in Him."
  • Any situation can be inserted into the above verse, "When I am ______, I will trust in Him" For example, "When I am in the dark....", or "When I am at a new school...."
  • Other good verses: Psalms 86:6-8, Psalms 145:17-19 and Jeremiah 29:11-12
  • An acronym to remind us how to pray with our children is CHIMP:
    • Comfortable - use words children can understand
    • Hallowed - teach your children to pray to God with respect
    • Impulsive - pray anytime, anywhere
    • Meaningful - pray about things that matter to your children
    • Personal - use names in your prayers
  • When we face our fears, we can pass our prayers
Thanks to Julie for coming out today!  A great resource she shared was her "Not Afraid" book.  You can download a copy as a guide to make your own or email me at boudreauxb at gmail dot com and I can help you make one with your childrens' pictures in it.  Julie had three different sizes of the book; one for at home, one for in the car, and a small one for a diaper bag or school bag.  I love the visual nature and personal quality of the book.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

More food for thought...

The speaker at our last meeting was great and in addition to the things she mentioned in her talk on "Raising Children in a Futuristic World" I wanted to share this blog post about how we create a legacy our children will remember.