I remember a few years ago one of my blogger friends saying she was having a hard time writing on her “mom blog” because her kids were getting older. She felt more and more that she was sharing their story instead of hers. And maybe, her kids didn’t want all that information out for anyone’s perusal.
I’m feeling that same thing.
Lydia is going into 3rd grade and the things she’s dealing with are similar to what we’ve dealt with since she was 3 years old, but now they are on a 3rd grade level. And it’s hard for me to write about them. I want to share with you so you can be encouraged but I’m having to weigh heavily how I share them in order to honor my daughter.
This is one of those stories.
This week has been hard. We’ve had lots of misunderstandings.
Today was the hardest one. I walked into my room to separate myself from the problem and am not even sure I was praying but within a couple of minutes God answered my prayer as Lydia walked into my room and said, “Will you pray for me?”
Even though my heart was still hard from the misunderstandings, that question opened a door to understand one another and more importantly understand some truth of God’s Word. We sat down together, talked and hugged. I pulled out my Bible and Power of a Praying Parent because I needed some specific Scriptures to share with her. Before I could even open either book, the Lord brought to my mind the perfect chapter from the Bible.
We talked through each section with soft tones and lots of back-rubbing and hand holding. Then, we did something that turned out so much better than I could have ever planned. We doodled.
That’s right. We doodled about the Scriptures we’d just read.
She grabbed a blank journal and I found a piece of cardstock. We wrote one of the verses and then just drew, decorated and doodled. It gave us time to calm down, to concentrate, meditate and interact with God’s Word.
We’re going to do this each day until we’ve gone through the entire chapter and I believe God’s Word will accomplish it’s purpose, cleanse our hearts and set us free.
Next time you’re at your wit’s end with a situation, go to God’ Word. If you have to sing it, read it or doodle it, let it be the cleansing, smoothing oil in the middle of your hard, sticky problems.
How do you and your kids meditate on God’s Word?