learning young

Our niece has been with us for the past seven days. It has been a joy to have her around the house. She is thirteen years old and loves to cook and be around young children. She has the sweetest heart and is very loveable. It was a great time for me because I spent so much time asking God to help me be a good male role model in her life. This experience was also helpful in giving me insight in the responsibility I will soon have as a parent. God is showing me that it is going to take work to be FIT as a family. Over the seven days I learned how easy it is to make the oversight of my niece nothing more than keeping her busy with activity. While keeping young teens involved in constructive activity is very important because they have so much energy, it will never supplement the important role I have as a parent to shepherd their heart. I had to work and overcome the laziness and selfishness of my own flesh to make time to engage with her and ask her about life, dialogue about her walk with Lord, and teach her how to have quiet time and how to hear from the Lord. Teressa felt the same way. She did a very good job making time and debriefing our niece about a movie she had watched. It's amazing when you have these times to realize how many different messages your child receives in one day through various billboards, shows, movies, things at restaurant, etc. These messages are constantly, and subconsciously, interpreted by our young teens and impacts their worldview and most importantly their heart. If we don't make the time to get involved in this process of our teens life we will not understand the changes that are going on thier minds and hearts and ti will be very difficult to fulfill our responsibility to shepherd their hearts to the Lord.

In short, I learned... Don't just keep them busy with activity, include activities that incorporate the family and those that train them for life. Make the time for family time, constantly test their spiritual temperature and encourage them to have intimacy with God, finally teach them the word of God. We'll keep a lot of influence over them if we are their main teacher in this area.

Love you all

Jean