Morning
Lately during my morning devotional time, I’ve remembered how when my girls were little they would come pattering out and climb on my lap when they woke up. Usually when they wake up now, they turn on their lights and lie in bed reading for awhile before they get up. So I’ve been feeling nostalgic. But this morning my 9-year-old came out fully dressed at 6:30 and snuggled up next to me on the couch.
I often feel like I do a crummy job discipling my kids. Since graduating from Bible storybooks to the real Bible, I have a harder time choosing passages to read together, and my prayers with the girls often seem very formulaic. I have a hard time praying aloud with them (or anyone, with the exception of my husband) in the same way I pray by myself.
But this morning it crossed my mind that this experience of coming out in the mornings and being welcomed into that time, in all the comfort and security of snuggling up and just sitting there quietly, might go farther toward communicating the importance and joy of spiritual discipline than anything I plan out on purpose. Maybe it already has.
5 Comments
Dennis King
What a quiet yet rich and powerful legacy you are instilling within your girls.
I remember how when our boys were little, one of them would sometimes come scampering down the hallway and into the living room while I was kneeling at the couch for my early morning prayer time. It was not uncommon for them to climb on my back while I was kneeling there, and I would need to explain that daddy was praying and I would play with them when I got up. Now as grown young men they will sometimes speak of that memory and how it has influenced them.
I have concluded that most of the spiritual training of our children is done without speaking and probably when we’re not even aware it’s taking place.
Janet
That’s both freeing and sobering, isn’t it?
What wonderful memories!
Alice@Supratentorial
My 9 year old son still loves to snuggle, the first thing he does on awakening has always been to come and get a hug and snuggle up next to me. I don’t know how long it will last but I’m quite grateful for it now.
I wanted to also say that I’ve been reading your posts about faith and really appreciating them. I don’t take the time I should to comment on them but many of your thoughts mirror some of my own recent questionings and wonderings and I’ve found what you’ve had to say really helpful.
Barbara H.
When mine were young I used to somewhat resent the “intrusion” into my quiet time until a friend shared a memory of walking in on her mother praying in her bedroom and feeling she had walked in on something sacred. Then I began to enjoy their coming in and snuggling up at that time. Sometimes they were content to just sit, sometimes I’d read aloud what I was reading.
It does get a little harder to go from Bible storybooks to the Bible itself — hard to know where to start, how to explain along the way. There are family devotional books for all ages, but they seem have more story or comments that actual Biblical content. One family that I was close to for years welcomed dinner guests into their after-dinner family devotions, and the father was great at going through a passage verse by verse and asking appropriate age-level questions to each of the children, from college age down to a first-grader. I wish he had written a book before he passed away. :-)
DebD
I have not been as good at instilling these disciplines into my children as I have wished either. I appreciate you words, especially now that Lent is upon me and I feel so utterly unprepared.
But , also wanted to share that I remember my father quietly reading his Bible every morning as he ate breakfast (alone). He never shared Bible stories or prayed in the morning/evening with us, but his quiet faithfulness to this one task has always stayed with me.