Encouraging More and More

Do you ever peek in on your sweet, sleeping kids and ask yourself the question, "Why was I so hard on them today?" I already know your answer, because we all experience similar challenges ~ as much as we love our children with all of our hearts, walking out this journey of parenting seems to consistently sneak in moments of frustration.  Don't you find perspective always comes once they are in bed?  Then, you want to wake them up and tell them all over again how much you love them!

I have found a secret that is helping that happen less and less for me ~ encouraging more and more!  One of my favourite verses for parenting, comes from II Timothy 4:2 where Paul says, "Correct, rebuke,and ENCOURAGE - with great patience and careful instruction." That pretty much sums up what I do all day -  how about you?  But as you look through more verses on encouragement (which means to instill courage into someone or give hope and support), they all can apply to parenting.  Listen to this summary taken from different books in the New Testament: "Therefore encourage one another...encourage the young men...encourage one another daily...let us encourage one another...encourage them to remain true...encourage them with these words...encourage them all..."  These verses continue in on much longer, but I am sure you are seeing what I am seeing - we are called by God, to encourage those around us.  So who more should benefit from that than our children?

It can be so easy to encourage our friends, and then turn and nit-pick our children, forgetting to encourage them - I am not saying stop training, that is of primary importance.  But as we train, we can watch for ways to be using encouraging words.  This will draw our children's hearts closer to ours and I believe we will see a desire for them to enjoy learning from us more and more.  Personally, I love being encouraged - I assume you love being encouraged and I know our children need to be encouraged!  When it comes to my children - I want to be that person in their lives - how about you?