Ideas for Getting Ready for Lent

Is Lent Okay? Should I practice Lent?

There appears to be a resurgence of interest in Lent among various Protestants. I did not grow up practicing Lent and I do think this is a decision that should be considered thoughtfully. Many
people practice giving something up as a check list or a societal expectation or a game.These are not good reasons to practice Lent. We do not practice Lent to please God or make Him like us more.

But here are some resources I put together for those of us thinking about Lent and/or incorporating our families into Lent.

Here is a lovely article about the why of practicing Lent. This is geared for us adults growing in our practice of Lent or considering using it for the first time.

Here is an article about talking with your children about the season of Lent along with some of the
difficult conversations about sin and death that arise from the Lent season.

Another article about bringing your children to an Ash Wednesday service.

And here is another article with some resources for family devotions during the Lent season.

Last but certainly not least is a site with free printables that follow along with The Jesus Storybook Bible.



I hope you enjoy these resources as much I enjoyed finding them. Blessings!

How to Help Children (and Adults) Say "Thank You"

Or How to Help You be Thankful too!

It's the worst part of winter right now. The days are still short, still to cold to play outside every day, and there is no Christmas to be excited about. We are living in dreary dark days and needing graciousness for one another.

I don't think most of us enjoy haranguing our sons and  daughters to say "thank you." Repetition, groans, eye rolls, and not genuine thankfulness all go with making kids say "thank you."

But I noticed something early on with my firstborn is that I didn't have to prompt him very much to say "thank you" if I was consistently using it like I should. I also noticed when I stop, look a child in the eye and give them an unexpected encouraging word, they encourage each other in the same way.

How to Help Children Learn the Lord's Prayer

Recently, we have been helping our 5 and 3 year old memorize the Lord's Prayer. Our church says the Prayer together every week and learning it is a way to further involve our children in our church service. Don't misunderstand, I don't believe that by my children learning the Lord's Prayer, it will magically create in them awesome faith or faith at all. It won't solve all our problems or make my kids perfect. But it is a discipline, and a wonderful passage of Scripture they can fall back on.

I started working on it with our 5 year old, but did not expect the 3 year to memorize much. Wow! He surprised me, the 3 year old has the Lord's Prayer better memorized than his older brother.

My husband and I started out by incorporating the Prayer into our bedtime routine with the kids. The kids would say parts of it, but were not excited about it.

Are You Good Enough?

I had one of those once a year 2 hour phone conversations with my brother a few weeks ago. We talked about many things, but one of the topics that came up was his concerns if could be a good parent. I of course told him that no one can ever really be ready to be a parent and knowing you don't have it all together is a great first step. But I also told him what my husband and I remind ourselves all the time. "You don't have to be a perfect parent, just good enough."

Everyone feels the pressure before the first child is born. Will we be good enough? What are we not doing right? I MUST DO EVERYTHING CORRECTLY! Will non-organic cotton sheets harm my child? What if I miss something something really major that I don't even know about?

You have done things imperfectly and you will continue to not be a perfect person. You won't be perfect, but you can be good enough.

The various parenting research we have done shows that kids are resilient, and will do okay in life as long as you don't do something to horrible to them. So we aren't the perfect parents, we don't even try to be. We just try to be good enough.

Fuzzy Baby Head

Take time to kiss a fuzzy baby head today. You will be glad you did.