Like Pam, I grew up in a Christian home and don't remember a time when I didn't have Jesus in my heart and life.
Two of the biggest events that changed my life were losing my father at an early age and gaining a new family when my mom remarried, as well as going on a Teen Missions trip at the age of 16. I have previously described both of these events in more detail on my regular blog and since I don't want this to get too long, please feel free to check out those posts here and here.
The one "danger" of growing up in a Christian home and living in a town where everyone claims Christ is that it's easy to coast along in your faith without making it personal, without making it real, without making it deep. At the beginning, you believe because your parents believe. And when you go to school with people who claim Christ but don't live it, things can get very gray in a hurry. Instead of seeing things in black and white, right and wrong, you start to rationalize sin - after all, they're doing it and they're Christians, so it can't be that bad. My Teen Missions trip certainly solidified my beliefs and made me dependent on God for maybe the first time in my life. I also am thankful for the fact that I have a very strong conscience (sometimes too strong - for awhile I actually thought that when I said something that people didn't hear and they asked me to repeat it, that I had to repeat the exact same thing verbatim or I would be lying - so, yeah, very active conscience!) and very grateful that I had parents and grandparents who faithfully prayed for me. And so, by the grace of God, though it took a little while for me to really solidy my beliefs in God and make them my own, I never outrightly rebelled. I am so thankful to God for His grace and His faithfulness to me.
For this reason, I want to be very proactive in teaching our children not only what we believe, but why we believe it. I want to slowly go from training them what/how to think, to being able to think things through on their own. It's a tricky line between giving too much freedom and too little freedom, and Nathan and I will need to rely on God to give us the wisdom to be the parents to our children that He wants us to be.
However, I know that I can't teach them these things properly, if I have not invested time, energy and prayer into reading and studying the Word. And that is where this blog comes in! Yes, last year I read through the Bible for the first time in my life, and I am pumped that I was able to accomplish this goal. However, I got into the bad habit of getting behind and then catching up - which meant I was often reading simply for the sake of reading instead of reading to learn/grow in the Lord. This blog is making me so much more accountable to read daily, and to really think about what I'm reading, and to study it by looking up commentaries and discussing it with you all. I am so thankful for all of you who have chosen to take this journey with me and I am excited to see what God will do in our lives as we study His Word, to know Him better, to love Him better and to become more discerning in our daily lives.
5 comments:
Tammy I have read your story a few times and it still amazes me how God worked in your family. I worry a bit about what you said, about children in Christian homes just coasting through. I pray that I do a good enough job with my kids that that doesn't happen.
Thanks Nic.
Please don't worry about what I said. Worrying doesn't help anything anyway right?
My only point is that we need to be careful we aren't coasting. We need to walk the talk. We need to be proactive in our teaching. We need to not take it for granted that they will be Christians just because we are. We need to admit to them when we fail (and we will fail!) and ask for their forgiveness.
And we need to remember that we cannot make them Christians. As parents, we will certainly never be perfect. But even if we were, that would be no guarantee that our children will make the right choice. It is still their choice after all. And if they choose wrong, even after you have done all that you knew to do, and that you felt God calling you to do, that would not be your choice, it would not be your fault, and it would not be your burden to bear.
Tammy, I am a FTM also. I'm curious what year and what team you were on. I went in 1991 to Honduras and in 1992 on the Around the World Russia team.
TMI changed my relationship with the Lord as well, especially my second summer. My first summer I was just not happy being there at all!:)
Thanks for sharing.
I've seen that here in our church as well Tammy. All the kids in my children's generation at the church, have all been raised in Christian homes, and some of them are getting to the upper teenage years, not sure about why they really need salvation, and have not made that decision yet. I think it does make a little bit of a difference when you haven't seen the real evil side of life. However, I have confidence that because of the testimony their parents have led, and the upbringing they've had, that when they do make that choice to be saved, it won't be such a long road to a Godly life for them, and they will know so much more of how to be a Godly person, mother, wife, father, son, etc., already.
My oldest son was saved this year, at 9 years old, and I've always believed with his personality, that he would be the hardest to bring to the Lord. So that makes me very opptomistic about the others, as long as Mike and I continue to make it real for them, and be the example that we need to be!
Thanks Tammy you are right.
Grace gave her heart to the Lord last year when she was almost 5, she just has such a passion and love for God and people, I trust like Kristi said if my example to the kids is what God would want they will stay the path. I pray their father will step up and set an example too.
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