As parents we are spread very thin and pulled in every direction by so many demands. We often feel guilty that amidst the laundry, school pick-ups, cooking, cleaning, disciplining, we don’t have time for what really matters. We don’t have enough time to focus on the eternal work – leading our children to Christ and helping them lay a foundation for a lasting relationship with Him.
Kids soak up everything
If there is one thing I know for sure on this journey of parenthood it’s that our kids are always watching and listening, even when you think they aren’t. They hear our every word, watch our every move, and soak up everything we are doing – for better or worse.
For example: my five-year-old knows every word to Bruno Mars’s “Uptown Funk” (but it doesn’t always sound like that) is what he is saying. And I often hear my three year old talking to his baby brother in quite a disciplinary tone, “If you don’t share your cookie, I am putting you in time-out!”
They are watching, they are taking our cues and we are modeling their behavior – appropriate or not. Author Ginger Payne has given Christian parents the opportunity to pour out the Good News into their kids. Her new children’s devotional, Blessings, My Child, contains 101 blessings for parents and children to sit down and read together or even easy enough for a child to enjoy in their own devotional time.
The lessons are simple enough for a young child (geared toward 6 to 12-year-olds) to understand, but also draw in their attention with an eye-catching illustration followed by a devotional passage. What makes this devotional book unique is that it is written to the child from God’s perspective, in the first person.
How special that each child will feel personally blessed by their Creator, and how important that they feel His love at such a young age! Ginger has even put discussion questions at the end of each devotional to help engage the reader and parents in a conversation about what they learned.
It is every Christian parent’s wish for their child to know their worth in Christ and to feel His unconditional love at an early age. Sometimes it is hard for parents to put that into words for their kids, but Blessings, My Child, gives parents the tools to point them to the Lord in a direct and effortless way.