229 Sermon Illustrations on Children

Newsletter talks about building healthy relationships, how to talk with children, what to do instead of spanking. "A Memorandum from Your Child" is 27 suggestions from a child on how NOT to raise him, including: don't spoil me, don't be afraid to be firm, don't make promises you can't keep, don't be inconsistent, etc. (Very good)

In his book STRESS FRACTURES, Charles Swindoll writes:

I vividly remember some time back being caught in the undertow of too many commitments in too few days. It wasn't long before I was snapping at my wife and our children, choking down my food at mealtimes, and feeling irritated at those unexpected interruptions through the day. Before long, things around our home started reflecting the pattern of my hurry-up style. It was becoming unbearable.

I distinctly recall after supper one evening the words of our youngest daughter, Colleen. She wanted to tell me about something important that had happened to her at school that day. She hurriedly began, "Daddy-I-wanna-tell-you-somethin'-and-I'll-tell-you-really-fast."

Suddenly realizing her frustration, I answered, "Honey, you can tell me .. and you don't have to tell me really fast. Say it slowly."

I'll never forget her answer: "Then listen slowly."

Birth order theory of development:

Children look up to, and develop in relation to the person on the next rung up the family ladder. First-born and only children have only their parents to watch. They turn into little adults: responsible, hard-working, but commonly perfectionistic and discouraged.

Other children try to copy their older siblings (and usually fail to do as well). On the other hand, they may choose a different or even opposite course.

By the time the last child arrives, the parents are worn out. He gets away with murder, with charm, humor and spontaneity. The baby of the family may have a hard time learning self-discipline and can be headed for disaster.

How to reach out to neighbors when their kids are a bad influence on your kids.

Reach out to your neighbors.

Get to know your neighbors before there is a problem.

Initiate get-togethers.

Become the neighborhood "servants."

Protect your children.

Supervise playtime.

Set clear guidelines.

Give your children a heart for outreach.

What if a problem occurs?

Care enough to confront.

Don't sacrifice your kids for the sake of the neighbors.

Plan your parenting:

A. Principle #1: Set your prenatal strategy.

1) Plan ahead. Luke 14:28-32

2) Emotional baggage you bring to parenthood.

3) What did your parents do that worked? That didn't?

B. Principle #2: Parent your children's environment. Prov 22:3

1) Things we can control: TV, telephones, car keys.

2) Peer influence.

3) Welcome friends into home, be aware of influences.

C. Principle #3: Develop a strategic plan for each child. 22:6

1) Discuss plans with spouse.

2) Reminder cards.

D. Principle #4: Plan date nights with child. Prov 27:23-24

1) Talk to child.

2) Listen to child - more important.

E. Principle #5: Mature together. Deut 4:9

1) Thrilling to watch kids make mature choices.

II. Parenting - Our finest hour.

A) Plan with biblical values.

B) God planned for our salvation by sending his Son.

"The world is passing through troublous times. The young people of today think of nothing but themselves. They have no reverence for parents or old age. They are impatient of all restraint. They talk as if they knew everything, and what passes for wisdom with us is foolishness with them. As for the girls, they are forward, immodest and unwomanly in speech, behavior and dress."

That might have been written yesterday. In point of fact, it is an extract from a sermon preached by Peter the Hermit in 1274. The generations have never understood each other very well.

How to help your child develop a healthy imagination. Creativeness is good, but children need to learn discernment. We must warn them about occult influences without being paranoid.

Beverly Caruso didn't know how much her prayer principles had shaped her

children until their family was in Hong Kong on a short-term missionary trip.

Because it was an unplanned side trip, no one at home knew where they were.

They had spent the last of their money for a night's sleep. They sat knee to

knee on the beds in that tiny YWCA room. Fifteen-year-old Dave inquired,

"Have you ever been in this situation before?"

"Just what do you mean?" her husband, Pete, asked.

"In a strange country, with no ministry, no money, and no one knowing where

you are?"

Discouragement evident in his voice, Pete answered, "Not all at the same

time."

"Well, then, let's pray," Dave said. He went on to pray a faith-filled prayer

that astounded both Pete and Beverly.

The next morning they had breakfast at a nearby mission center. They were

introduced to the couple sitting across the table from them. The couple had

just arrived form the missionary base the Carusos had left three months

earlier. When the couple heard their name they expressed confusion. They

told the Carusos they were on their way to Singapore and had been asked to

hand carry a letter addressed to them. To the Caruso's amazement the letter

was from friends at home and had been mailed several months earlier. It

contained a check - just the amount we needed to get them to their next place

of ministry.

#3422

*

Nicole Coffman doesn’t remember much about last Easter, except it was fun.

“We had to pick up the men and say, ‘He is risen,’” the third-grader said. “It was fun because we got to pick up a lot of them.”

Nicole and about 20 of her friends participated in a “soul hunt” at Lakota Baptist Church, a growing congregation in northwest Sioux Falls, S.D., which meets in a small building on a run-down trailer park.

“Easter is all about fun,” Nicole said with a wide grin just before Sunday school one recent week. “It was fun because I was looking and looking so I could get a whole bunch of the little men, and then I got one and my mother said it was my brother’s, so I gave it to him.”

Early last Easter morning, church leaders set out in the church yard about 100 brightly-colored, flour-and-water figures molded into gingerbread shapes and glued to Popsicle sticks.

When the children arrived for Sunday school with Easter baskets in hand, they lined up at the edge of the church property — there is no fence and not much grass — and listened to the instructions even as their eyes searched for the “souls” that weren’t hard to find. The gingerbread shapes were sticking up everywhere.

Easter is all about the resurrection of Jesus, the children were told. The people who love Jesus need to tell everyone he is alive, and those who do so will receive a reward in heaven.

At the “Go ye” signal, the children squealed as they raced to pick up what their eyes had spotted. “He’s alive!” they shouted as they waved each soul they found. “He is risen!”

Parents and trailer park residents attracted by the unusual commotion watched.

The children — ranging in age between “barely walking” and 11 — turned over all the little souls in their baskets to the pastor, who rewarded them with sweet treats.

“Our goal is to teach them about the resurrection of Christ,” said children’s leader and present pastor’s wife Jennie Constant. “We feel when they grow up that’s what they’re going to remember about Easter. When they think of church they think of God; when they think of Easter, they think of God.

“We’re trying to not take away the joy of Easter but just to redirect the purpose,” she continued. “We want to teach them about Easter and not about bunnies and chickens.”

The idea for a soul hunt came from a former pastor, Randy Rhodes. He’s gone now, but Lakota church and its ministries continue to thrive with bivocational carpet installer Nick Constant in the pastoral role.

Lakota church meets in a wooden building that, from the outside except for its sign, looks like a neatly painted white house at the back of the trailer park. “It’s the smallest church in town,” Jennie Constant said. “We’re getting very full sometimes. It’s barely standing room only in the kitchen with the children.” The word “kitchen” is an exaggeration. There’s a stove, but no sink. There’s a counter, but it doubles as a stove. And in this environment, the children eat a hot meal while they listen to a Bible story. For some, it’s their only hot meal of the day.

“Hot meal” also is an exaggeration. It’s usually something from a can, such as Beefaroni. “We had hamburgers recently, and that was a bit of a mistake,” Jennie Constant said with a wry grin. “I had to make 25 of them. The fried grease smell and the heat was overwhelming in that small space.”

Lakota church buys from the local food bank at 14 cents a pound to provide the children’s meals and to take food to a missionary at Crow Creek Indian reservation, a five-hour drive west of Sioux Falls.

Church members also have a Bible study and friendship evangelism ministry with inmates at the South Dakota State Penitentiary, which is directly across the street from the trailer park.

Lakota church itself is a young congregation — it constituted as a church just last summer, and the oldest members are in their mid-50s. It was begun about 10 years ago by a Conservative Baptist retired pastor as a mission for Native Americans. Before he moved into a nursing home in Michigan at age 84, he connected with Southern Baptists and gave them the property so the ministry would continue.

“Now we are a multicultural church,” Jennie Constant said. “The true gospel message is for everyone.”

This is why the gingerbread-shaped men this year will be colored in people tones, from very light to very dark, rather than in last year’s bright colors, she explained.

“Our target group is mainly Native American but whoever walks through that door we do everything we can to make them feel comfortable,” pastor Nick Constant said. “As the church grows, we’re expanding but not forsaking the original purpose.”

About 30 people from a variety of racial backgrounds attend Sunday morning worship, where they sing to the accompaniment of prerecorded cassette tapes. The full-service church also provides a choice of Sunday school or discipleship training on Sunday mornings, Bible study and prayer on Sunday evenings and Bible study on Wednesdays.

“You’ve got to get them when you’ve got them,” pastor Constant said. “We have lots and lots of baby Christians.”

About 30 children are expected to participate in this year’s soul hunt, including Nicole, who is one of just a few children still at the church who took part in last year’s hunt.

Like many families, hers moved away from poverty-stricken northwest Sioux Falls. Most of the others moved out of town, however. Nicole and her brother and sister continue to attend Lakota church because an adult church member goes by to pick them up. “It’s fun, and I help the little kids sing,” Nicole said of her Sunday mornings.

Does a 9-year-old remember why she was playing the soul hunt game last year? Not exactly, but preacher’s kid Crystal Constant does. “Jesus was risen I think on Easter and it’s supposed to be about Jesus,” 10-and-a-half-year-old Crystal said. “I get to learn about Jesus and it’s fun.”

Copyright (c) 1996 Baptist Press

Each second we live is a new and unique moment of the universe that will never be again...And what do we teach our children? That two and two make four, and that Paris is the capital of France. We should say to each of them: Do you know what you are? You are a marvel. You are unique. In all the years that have passed, there has never been another child like you. Your legs, your arms, your clever fingers, the way you move. You may become a Shakespeare, a Michelangelo, a Beethoven. You have the capacity for anything. Yes, you are a marvel. And when you grow up, can you then harm another who is, like you, a marvel? We must all work to make the world worthy of its children.

_____________________

By Pablo Casals from Condensed Chicken Soup for the Soul Copyright 1996 by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen & Patty Hansen

Last month, Jesse Jackson made headlines by defending six students who were expelled from a Decatur, Illinois, high school for fighting at a football game. In a spirit of compromise, the school board agreed to send the boys to an "alternative school" for disruptive youth.

Dealing with youth violence is one the hot issues in today's public square. But if we want to change kids' attitudes, we need to do more than send them off into exile.

Interestingly enough, a story about exiled boys may help us understand how to address the root causes of youth violence.

I'm talking about William Golding's brilliant 1954 novel, LORD OF THE FLIES.

The story begins when a planeload of British boys between the ages of six and twelve are marooned on a desert island. At first, they institute a British-style government based on civility and order. But order erodes into savagery when most of the boys secede from the group and commence a wild cycle of hunting, dancing, and feasting. One night, the renegade group murders a boy, and the desert island, which began as a mirror of orderly British society, dissolves into a picture of brutal mayhem.

Golding says the theme of his novel is that the "defects of society" can be traced "to the defects of human nature." At one time, he explains, he held the typical liberal belief "that man was perfectible" - that "all you had to do was to remove certain inequities and provide practical sociological solutions, and man would have a perfect paradise on earth." But World War II shattered Golding's utopianism, and in Lord of the Flies he portrays a more realistic view of human nature-showing that youngsters can be quickly overtaken by the evil within, if adults do not provide moral direction and guidance.

What Golding gives us is a powerful parable of the Christian doctrine of original sin. And today, in places like Decatur or Littleton, we are seeing a Lord of the Flies mentality emerging in all its horror. The Littleton killers were not on a desert island, but they were certainly insulated in a separate culture of violent movies and video games. Their own parents apparently failed to notice that they were building bombs in their bedrooms.

Unfortunately, Americans have created a broad range of institutions that segregate children into a parallel world. Many kids today spend so much time in day care, camps, sports groups, and malls that they bond more closely to their peers than to their parents. The entertainment industry offers teens a parallel culture with their own movies, their own videos, their own music, their own Internet games.

If we hope to prevent kids from falling prey to the chaos depicted in print in Golding's Lord of the Flies -- and at a football stadium in Decatur -- passing new laws or sending troublemakers to different schools is not enough. We have to recommit ourselves to giving children the supervision and moral guidance they so desperately need. This might be a good time for mature adults to reread Golding's classic novel -- and then be sure to give our children the love and discipline that helps keep us all civilized.

___________________________

Copyright (c) 1999 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

*

There are three ways to get something done: do it yourself, hire someone to do it, or forbid your kids to do it.

Domestic peace is the luxury you enjoy between the children's bedtime and your own.

Psychiatrists tell us that discipline doesn't break a child's spirit half as often as the lack of it breaks a parent's heart.

"Pretty much all the honest truth telling there is in the world is done by children."

-- Oliver Wendell Holmes

Helping Kids Cope With Grief

O Be available

O Listen (with your ears, eyes and heart)

O Touch (often says "I know what happened and I care. I am here if you

need me.")

O Face your own feelings of loss and grief. Share them if you like.

O Be open and honest with feelings. Create an atmosphere of open

acceptance that invites questions and fosters confidence and love.

O Encourage expressions of grief (talking, writing, painting, etc.)

O Provide appropriate places to express grief.

O Acknowledge the reality that grief "hurts"! Do not attempt to rescue

the child (or yourself) from hurt. Work through the pain.

O Provide a quiet, private place for whenever the child needs to be alone.

O Respect a child's need to grieve. Almost anything can trigger grief.

O Understand that priorities change. What you think is important may NOT

be considered by the child as such.

O Realize that grief causes difficulty in concentration. Children often

experience a shortened attention span. School work is often affected.

O Do not isolate or insulate children from grief. Grief is a normal and

natural reaction to loss (of any kind).

O Understand that other losses often accompany the identified loss. A

change in residence, caretaker, school or peer group all add to the grief

experience. Loss of trust often compounds grief.

O Try not to single out the grieving child for special privileges or

compensations. He still needs to feel a part of his peer group and should

be expected to function accordingly.

O Temper your expectations with kindness and understanding. Continue to

expect function.

O Set realistic goals with the child concerning his behavior, school

performance and homework. Help the child create his own routines if

necessary.

O Help the child find a supportive peer group.

O Help a child's friends learn to be supportive.

O Become part of a caring team by establishing lines of communication with

everyone involved with the child. Keep each other informed about the

child's progress.

O Understand grieving children are often "busy" with the tasks of

establishing a new identity. "Who am I now?" Becomes a major concern.

Family roles may change as well as identities. This self-search often

overshadows all other concerns for many weeks and months.

O Know that grief lasts for longer than anyone expects. It may take months

or even years before a child displays signs of the full impact of a family

change.

O Maintain a daily routine if at all possible. Continuity becomes a safety

net for grieving children. The continuity of attending school daily, being

required to perform certain tasks in and out of school and having a social

routine provides children with some security and sense of stability in a

topsy turvey world.

O Have resources available about grief, loss and change.

O Understand that children and young people will continue to deal with the

losses/changes they experience as they grow and mature. They will not get

over it, but they can learn to grow through the grief and discover that

love never goes away.

O Continue to be available long after you think they "should be over it."

Continue to reach out and care, just as you do now!

by Darcie D. Sims, 1983

The last to board the plane from Seattle to Dallas were a woman and three children. “Oh please don’t sit next to me,” I thought. “I’ve got so much work to do.” But a moment later an eleven-year-old girl and her nine-year- old brother were climbing over me while the woman and a four- year-old boy sat behind. Almost immediately the older children started bickering while the child behind intermittently kicked my seat. Every few minutes the boy would ask his sister, “Where are we now?” “Shut up!” she’d snap and a new round of squirming and whining would ensue.

“Kids have no concept of important work,” I thought, quietly resenting my predicament. Then in my mind a voice as clear as a song simply said, Love them. “These kids are brats, and I’ve got important work to do,” I countered to myself. My inner voice simply replied, Love them as if they were your children.

Having heard the “Where-are-we-now?” question repeatedly, I turned to the in-flight magazine map, in spite of my important work.

I explained our flight path, dividing it into quarter-hour flight increments and estimated when we would land in Dallas.

Soon they were telling me about their trip to Seattle to see their father who was in the hospital. As we talked they asked about flying, navigation, science and grown-ups’ views about life. The time passed quickly and my “important” work was left undone.

As we were preparing to land, I asked how their father was doing now. They grew quiet and the boy simply said, “He died.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah, me too. But it’s my little brother I’m most worried about. He’s taking it real hard.”

I suddenly realized what we’d really been talking about was the most important work we ever face: living, loving and growing in spite of heartbreak. When we said good-bye in Dallas the boy shook my hand and thanked me for being his “airline teacher.” And I thanked him for being mine.

–––––––––

By Dan S. Bagley from A Cup of Chicken Soup for the Soul, Copyright 1996 by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen & Barry Spilchuk

#4524

*

ALL I EVER REALLY NEEDED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN

-----------------------------------------------------------

Most of what I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be, I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate mountain, but there in the sandbox at nursery school.

These are the things I learned: Share everything. Play fair. Don't hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don't take things that aren't yours. Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody. Wash your hands before you eat. Flush. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. Live a balanced life. Learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.

Take a nap every afternoon. When you go out into the world, watch for traffic, hold hands and stick together. Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the plastic cup. The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.

Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the plastic cup - they all die. So do we.

And then remember the book about Dick and Jane and the first word you learned, the biggest word of all: Look. Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and sane living.

Think of what a better world it would be if we all - the whole world - had cookies and milk about 3 o'clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankets for a nap. Or if we had a basic policy in our nations to always put things back where found them and cleaned up our own messes. And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out into the world, it is better to hold hands and stick together.

________

By Robert Fulghum from Chicken Soup for the Soul Copyright 1993 by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen

DEAR PASTOR (letters from the kids) ------------

Dear Pastor, I know God loves everybody but He never met my sister.

Yours sincerely, Arnold.

Age 8, Nashville.

Dear Pastor, Please say in your sermon that Peter Peterson has been a good boy all week. I am Peter Peterson.

Sincerely, Pete.

Age 9, Phoenix

Dear Pastor, My father should be a minister. Every day he gives us a sermon about something.

Robert Anderson, age 11

Dear Pastor, I'm sorry I can't leave more money in the plate, but my father didn't give me a raise in my allowance. Could you have a sermon about a raise in my allowance?

Love, Patty.

Age 10, New Haven

Dear Pastor, My mother is very religious. She goes to play bingo at church every week even if she has a cold.

Yours truly, Annette.

Age 9, Albany

Dear Pastor, I would like to go to heaven someday because I know my brother won't be there.

Stephen.

Age 8, Chicago

Dear Pastor, I think a lot more people would come to your church if you moved it to Disneyland.

Loreen.

Age 9, Tacoma

Dear Pastor, I liked your sermon where you said that good health is more important than money but I still want a raise in my allowance.

Sincerely, Eleanor.

Age 12, Sarasota

Dear Pastor, Please pray for all the airline pilots. I am flying to California tomorrow.

Laurie.

Age 10, New York City

Dear Pastor, I hope to go to heaven some day but later than sooner.

Love, Ellen.

Age 9, Athens

Dear Pastor, Please say a prayer for our Little League team. We need God's help or a new pitcher. Thank you.

Alexander.

Age 10, Raleigh

Dear Pastor, My father says I should learn the Ten Commandments. But I don't think I want to because we have enough rules already in my house.

Joshua.

Age 10, South Pasadena

Dear Pastor, Who does God pray to? Is there a God for God?

Sincerely, Christopher.

Age 9, Titusville

Dear Pastor, Are there any devils on earth? I think there may be one in my class.

Carla.

Age 10, Salina

Dear Pastor, I liked your sermon on Sunday. Especially when it was finished.

Ralph, Age 11, Akron

Dear Pastor, How does God know the good people from the bad people? Do you tell Him or does He read about it in the newspapers?

Sincerely, Marie.

Age 9, Lewiston

*

If a child is to develop integrity, he must be allowed to feel the pain of his own wrongdoing, an educator and author said.

"We want our children to be responsible, but we don't hold them accountable for anything that would upset them, make them feel bad or lower their self-esteem," Madelyn Swift told children's leaders attending a national conference in Nashville, Tenn.

Swift said she believes that if children are never held accountable for a wrongful action -- "if they never hurt enough over it" -- they won't learn to change their behavior.

"We need our children to feel pain, but we don't want to cause it. We want to allow them the pain they earn for themselves."

Swift gave the example of a young man who was expected to water the family's elderly dog while his parents were away. The boy failed to provide water for the dog during a hot, dry summer, and the dog died.

The mother attempted to comfort her son by telling him the dog was old anyway and would have died soon, said Swift, who considered this the wrong method of parenting. The mother should have been there for her son and hugged him, but she should not have tried to make him feel better for his wrong actions, she said.

"Our job is to help a kid live through it, but let him learn his lessons. To deny a child his pain denies him the opportunity to develop character and conscience."

Teaching children integrity and helping them build character requires rethinking some trusted educational paradigms, Swift said.

For example, proximity praise, or publicly praising one child displaying good behavior when the intent is to discipline another child with bad behavior, sends children the wrong message, she said.

"Proximity praise is really terrible even though most of you are taught to do it. The more directly you communicate, the more healthy it is."

Swift suggested teachers simply ask a child who is not paying attention in class to do so rather than praising another child for exhibiting correct behavior.

"Being direct does not mean you have to be ugly. What you are doing is sending the message to the child it was intended for rather than creating ill will by being indirect."

Another misdirected teaching tool, Swift believes, is exuberant praise for successes while making no comments about failures.

"One of the bill of goods we sell our children is that success is very important," she said. "What we are doing here is hooking self-esteem on success and accomplishments. What happens to self-esteem when our children fail or when they make a mistake?" she asked.

She said she believes parents and teachers who treat successes and failures with equal importance are ultimately allowing children to risk failures safely.

"In a healthy child, 85 percent of his self-esteem comes from someplace else besides his successes," she said.

Swift also believes it is wrong for parents or teachers to use the statement, "I like you, but I don't like what you are doing."

"This is a huge integrity conflict," she said.

"First of all, it's simply not true. You cannot separate the deed from the doer."

The key to teaching children accountability is to hold them responsible for what they do, she said.

The intent of teaching children integrity, character and conscience, Swift said, is not to try and make them feel good about themselves, but to help them feel right about themselves.

"If they act wrong, they'll feel wrong. If they act right, they'll feel right."

_______________________________

Swift is author of "Discipline for Life: Getting it Right with Children," a study program on discipline for leaders and teachers of children.

*

Words of wisdom from children...

Never trust a dog to watch your food.

- Patrick, age 10

When your dad is mad and asks you, "Do I look stupid?" don't answer him.

- Michael, 14

Never tell your mom her diet's not working.

- Michael, 14

Stay away from prunes.

- Randy, 9

Never allow your three-year old brother in the same room as your school assignment.

- Traci, 14

Puppies still have bad breath even after eating a Tic-Tac.

- Andrew, 9

Never hold a dust buster and a cat at the same time.

- Kyoyo, 9

You can't hide a piece of broccoli in a glass of milk.

- Armir, 9

If you want a kitten, start out by asking for a horse.

-Naomi, 15

Felt markers are not good to use as lipstick.

- Lauren, 9

Don't pick on your sister when she's holding a baseball bat.

- Joel, 10

Never try to baptize a cat.

- Eileen, 8

Family Albums

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-------------

GREAT TRUTHS ABOUT LIFE

That Little Children Have Learned

--No matter how hard you try, you can't baptize cats.

--When your mom is mad at your dad, don't let her brush your hair.

--If your sister hits you, don't hit her back. They always catch the second person.

--Never ask your 3-year old brother to hold a tomato.

--You can't trust dogs to watch your food.

--Reading what people write on desks can teach you a lot.

--Don't sneeze when someone is cutting your hair.

--Puppies still have bad breath even after eating a Tic-Tac.

--Never hold a dustbuster and a cat at the same time.

--School lunches stick to the wall.

--You can't hide a piece of broccoli in a glass of milk.

--Don't wear polka-dot underwear under white shorts.

--The best place to be when you are sad is in Grandpa's lap.

Collected from John Kerr, Puxatawney, Pa, bulletin.

A friend and I were standing in line at the grocery store the other day, and I was telling her how lazy my children were. I had come in from work that morning, and like most times, my house was wrecked.

"I believe children nowadays are just out for what they can get. I bend over backwards for them, and they can't even help keep our house clean. It wouldn't bother me so, but it's the woman who looks bad if the house is a mess."

"Do you know how blessed you are?" a woman behind us asked. "I would love to go home and find my house a mess. I wouldn't mind my carpet being ruined or the dishes left everywhere. I wouldn't mind the dirty clothes being piled high or the many socks to match. I wouldn't even mind anyone talking about my dirty home. Matter of fact, I would love it. I would dearly love to kick my way through the house just to get to my kids and be able to hug them, kiss them and tell them how much I love them. You see, my two children were killed in an auto accident and now it's just my husband and me. My house stays clean, my clothes stay put up, the dishes are done. There are no fingerprints on my walls, no mysterious spots on my carpets. There are no sounds of arguing, no slamming doors, no laughter, no 'I love you Mom.' So you see, you are very blessed. What I would give to be going through what you are right now. How I would love to be able to hold my kids, wipe away their tears, share their dreams. Just to watch them play. If I had my children, I wouldn't care how my house looked. I would be happy just to have them."

Now if you come into my house and see a big old mess, you can think bad thoughts if you want, but I feel greatly blessed.

__________________

By Tammy Laws Lawson from Chicken Soup for the Christian Family Soul, Copyright 2000 by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen

The Christmas story isn't a children's fairy tale.

How often during these days of holiday preparations do we hear people say, "This is what the season is all about!" Maybe we say it ourselves: Through a misting of tears, perhaps, as we look over our family gathered at the table. Or at the end of a well-sung Christmas concert.

I've heard it most often when someone is talking about children. Some folks even say, "Christmas is for children." Do they mean that Christmas is no more than fairy-tale wonderment? For sure, December is chock-full of kid fun, from cartoon specials and candy treats to Santa and his sack.

Even when we say, "Let's not lose the real meaning of Christmas," that points us to the manger where we find — a child! But just because Christmas is about the coming of a child does not make it childish.

Before we even come to the climatic episode of Christ's birth, we stub our toes on this little hidden rock of faith concealed in the story's beginning.

It's when the angel Gabriel tells Mary of God's plan, which includes her participation. It's out of sync with her plans and seems humanly impossible. We hear this text on the fourth Sunday in Advent, often the day congregations stage their children's pageant. This incredible story could open these plays.

We'd all be reminded that Mary is a bit perplexed — and shocked — hearing that she is about to bear a child. Before the multitude of angels announced Jesus' birth — the "reason for the season" — this one angel tells a lone young woman what all of this is going to do, to prove, to mean. Here's the point of it all, Gabriel proclaims: Nothing will be impossible with God.

This statement of faith hasn't found its way into the messages on our Christmas cards. But it is the explanation Mary received. It's what the season reveals: Nothing will be impossible with God.

GROWING UP IN FAITH

One of the reasons I loved my parents as a little child was that nothing seemed impossible for them. They seemed to know everything. And anything I needed or needed to know, they were able to provide.

Of course, a part of growing up is the slow realization that parents don't have all the answers to the world's problems — or to ours. Believing your parents can do anything is a fairy tale that fades.

Throughout the millennia the believer's relationship with God has often been described as one of child and parent. "Our Father who art in heaven," begins our most common prayer. Some also use the image of God as Mother or Grandfather, but the relationship is the same. We are like the 3-year-old walking through life with our parents, needing and trusting them to provide everything. Children have little problem believing that with God nothing is impossible because they live it in their little lives every day.

I'm afraid when I hear someone say, "Christmas is for children."

I fear that we will miss Gabriel's incredible statement to Mary: For nothing will be impossible with God. If Christmas is only for children, if we have grown beyond it, then what is Christmas for us?

The book of Daniel, a writing designed to boost the faith and courage of a people being oppressed and tortured by foreign powers, contains the well-known story of three young men who are threatened with death in the fiery furnace if they don't worship foreign idols. They refuse to do so.

The mighty King Nebuchadnezzar, who believes he holds their lives in his hands, asks them what god will save them. They answer: It may be that our God will come and save us from your hand, but know this, even if it seems that God is going to let us be burned up, we will still believe!

These ancestors in the faith standing before the heat of the oven, and Mary kneeling in the coolness of the angel's wings, accepted the grown-up truth about faith in God's possibilities. Putting yourself in God's hands means trusting in the promise that God will work all things for good in God's way, in God's time, in God's economy. It does not mean we will always understand what is happening in us, through us, to us — or why.

Mary's belief in God's possibilities led her to be an embarrassment to her family, unwed and pregnant. Later she watched her son executed as a criminal. Some blessed life!

The three men before the furnace did not assume their faith would save them. But they acknowledged that even death could not kill the hope within them.

The Christmas story is nothing like the Disney fairy tales where all your self-centered dreams come true. No rags-to-riches. No happily-ever-after that the world would understand.

Taking the Christ Child into our hearts does not guarantee our cancer will be cured, our jobs will be secure or our children will all be above average. We aren't wishing upon a star. We're being led by one. And that makes all the difference in how we understand our lives.

I hear about a man in the last stages of cancer, and I ask his sister if he belongs to a church, if he has a pastor to care for him. She answers, with regret, that he left the church 30 years ago — after the loss of a second child. She didn't need to explain further.

Most of our congregations have among their inactive members the names of our brothers and sisters who have been crushed with despair and disappointment.

The Christmas promise of God's possibilities is challenging in the face of the tragedy, oppression and hopelessness the world can send our way.

But the message of this season is clear: Nothing is impossible with God. The Christmas angels tell us there are no God-forsaken people or places. Emmanuel is here — God with us, and with us all the time.

In this Christmastide as we hear the story again, we each must choose whether to receive it as fairy tale or truth. For nothing will be impossible with God, the angel said. We can only assume that includes turning our impossible hearts as well.

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The Lutheran | 8765 W. higgins rd. | chicago, il 60631 | usa | 773 380 2540

©1999 Augsburg Fortress.

We parents love all our children equally, of course, but most of us admit that, after each baby, our standards relax just a bit when it comes to the little things in life. Check out the observations listed below and see if any ring a bell in your household. (Please keep in mind that these aren't recommended practices - they're just meant as humorous observances on the art of parenting!)

BABY BOTTLES

First child: Not only do you have your bottles lined up neatly in your baby bottle cabinet, color coded for breast milk, formula, juice, and water, but you buy a sterilizing kit and routinely boil nearly everything that comes in contact with your baby's mouth.

Second child: You buy a convenient plastic rack to hold baby bottle lids and nipples, and pop everything in the dishwasher.

Third child: Remember the five-second rule for when a piece of food falls on the ground?

DIAPERS FOR YOUR NEW BABY

First child: You buy top-of-the-line newborn diapers with the convenient umbilical cord cutouts and carefully stock the diaper holder so that it matches your baby's room.

Second child: You move on to generic diapers and fold over the part that covers the umbilical cord until the cord dries and falls off.

Third child: You grab as many extra diapers from the hospital's newborn nursery as allowed, and when you run out at home, you settle for the unused size 4's left over from your previous diapering days while you send someone out to buy more.

DIAPER DISPOSALS

First child: You buy a Diaper Genie or other specialized container and use it religiously to dispose of all of your baby's diapers.

Second child: You still have a Diaper Genie, and if you happen to change your baby in its vicinity, you use it.

Third child: You ran out of replacement bags for your Diaper Genie last time around, and instead you keep a lot of old plastic shopping bags on hand to cut down the smell of the diapers in the household garbage cans.

MONOGRAMMED BABY CLOTHES

First child: Your friends throw you a big party after the baby is born and you get the cutest little monogrammed baby outfit.

Second child: You decide to spring for a similar monogrammed baby outfit for your second child so that she can have a baby picture that matches your firstborn's.

Third child: Your baby is still decked out in a monogrammed outfit -- it's just pink and bears his sibling's initials.

ONESIES

First child: You look in a book to find out what a "onesie" is and then make sure to buy one for each day of the week

Second child: You go through your old onesies and sort out the ones in the wrong color or that are too stained. You also make sure to buy enough to have a week's worth of onesies (which you now realize is closer to three per day!)

Third child: You figure that color and spit-up stains don't show through an outer layer of clothing, and if one of the three snaps is functional, hey, it's acceptable.

STOCKING UP ON BABY CLOTHES

First child: Full price.

Second child: You still spring for full price for special occasions, but you basically outfit your child off the sale racks.

Third child: Hand-me-downs and garage sales. Can't beat 25 cents a shirt, now, can you?

DEALING WITH TANTRUMS

First child: You question what you've done wrong, get out the parenting books, and ponder how to best handle the situation so you don't damage your child's fragile ego.

Second child: You yell at your child when she throws a tantrum, but give in because you don't want her shrieks to wake your other child.

Third child: Your calm response to your child's tantrum is to ask "OK, so whom do you want to go live with?"

BABY BOOKS

First child: You record every coo and hiccup, and the pages are so full of memorabilia that the book won't shut.

Second child: You keep your baby book in a big storage box along with all of the important notes, scraps, and photos in hopes of one day finding time to record all the memorable moments.

Third child: Memorabilia gets hung on the refrigerator with a magnet and the baby book is still in its original wrapper, which proves to be very fortunate when you are invited to a friend's baby shower and find yourself at the last minute without a gift.

FEEDING SUPPLIES

First child: Tiffany silver spoon and Royal Doulton Bunnykins cup and bowl.

Second child: Matched sets of plastic, compartmentalized kid plates and utensils with cute designs.

Third child: A motley assortment of free souvenir plates and cups collected from countless meals at family restaurants.

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By Laura Jana, M.D., F.A.A.P. Reviewed by Robert Needlman, M.D., F.A.A.P.

*

Grown Children of Divorce at Risk for Depression Children whose parents divorced are more likely to suffer from depression when they grow up than those whose parents died, a new study found. Researchers at the University of Michigan surveyed 2867 people nationwide age 25 and older and found the highest rates of adult depression were among those who grew up in a family touched by violence, mental illness or divorce. Sociology professor Ronald C. Kessler said his results were surprising because previous research had indicated a parent's death was the most traumatic childhood event. When compared to the general population, the likelihood of adult depression was:

* 2.6 times for people raised in violent families

* 2 times for people raised in families with mental illness

* 1.7 times for people from divorced families

* 1.6 times for those from families with serious parental marital problems

* 1.4 times for those from families with serious drinking problems.

When 6-year-old Desre’e Watson threw a tantrum in her kindergarten class a couple of weeks ago she could not have known that the full force of the law would be brought down on her and that she would be carted off by the police as a felon.

But that’s what happened in the small rural Florida town of Avon Park. According to the authorities, there were no other options.

“The student became violent,” said Frank Mercurio, the no-nonsense chief of police. “She was yelling, screaming – just being uncontrollable. Defiant.”

A reporter protested, “But she was 6.”

The chief’s reply came faster than a speeding bullet: “Do you think this is the first 6-year-old we’re arrested?”

The little girl’s tantrum had resulted in injuries – “At least one woman reported ‘some redness’.”

After 20 minutes of this “uncontrollable” behavior, the police were called in. They had to drag her out from under a table. They handcuffed her (around her biceps since her wrists were too small) and took her to the police station. From there she was transported to central booking, which is the county jail. She was fingerprinted and a mug shot was taken.

Desre’e was charged with battery on a school official, which is a felony, and two misdemeanors: disruption of a school function and resisting a law enforcement officer.

After a brief stay in the county jail, she was released to the custody of her mother.

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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #29377]

A nervous clergyman, who could prepare his sermons only when

absolutely alone and undisturbed, thoughtlessly left his study door

unlocked and his little three year old child softly opened the door

and came in. He was disturbed and a little impatiently asked, "My

child, what do you want?" "Nothing, Papa." "Then what did you come in

for?" "Just because I wanted to be with you," was the reply.

What rest and quietness we would receive from God if we would only

go into His presence and wait before Him, wanting nothing only to be

with Him. How soon His care would rest us!

By William Moses Tidwell, "Effective Illustrations."

"Eighty-percent of parental advice is good advice; twenty-percent is bad advice. Children ignore eighty-percent of parental advice."

(From: MURPHY'S LAWS OF PARENTING, by Steve Dennie & Rob Suggs, InterVarsity Press)