How To Be A Follower; Part 2 Guest post!

Today I am excited to introduce to you Erika; a beautiful mother and wife from the blog Shine On. I was honored when she agreed to be apart of my series about, how to be a follower as a Christian. As I was able to read their stories before I posted them up, I couldn't help but become even more excited for the Lord. I hope this is what this series does for you as well.  

   

 
Hello there, my name is Erika, I'm a wife to one amazing man who loves God and mother to two little girls.

 I blog over at Shine On.

Being a mum is the greatest blessing and responsibility in the world for me.  

     If I didn't have God cheering me on I would be lost.

Today I would like to share with you something that I live by.

Every time we take a decision about our children or our family we remember this:

     Rise your children to please God, don't do it according to the world's standards and values. In eternity, what you invested in their soul will count. Think about Absalom's story, how he had everything going for him but he didn't have God, he lost everything, including his life. 

Don't put money first, clothing, gadgets next exotic vacation or big name university. Those are nice things, but with no value before God.

Don't spend your time and resources for things that don't count in eternity.  

    Even if your child grows up and chooses not to walk with the Lord, you planted a seed in his  hart. God will use that, he would have a foundation to turn to.

( no, sadly this is not our house :) )

Raising children is hard work, I know, and I didn't get to the teenage years yet, oh boy. God will sure here from me 24/7, and the local CLC library too. Somehow feel refreshed and recharged after 30 min in a Christian library during the week.

Reading other blogs helps me too, knowing I'm not alone in this, and learning from other mothers that have been there, done that and survived.

 So, dear mother, you got this, don't ever think to throw the towel and give up, everything will crumble without your gentle touch, never doubt the importance of your work.

Hot To Be A Follower Series Part 1: Raising Godly Children; Guest Post

Lately I feel I have been challenged about being a believer in God and my faith. Of course whenever I feel I'm being challenged it pushes me even more towards wanting to better myself as a Christian. These life challenges can are big or small make me question how can I be a better Mother in God's eyes? How I can be a better wife as Christian. That's when I came up with the brilliant idea of doing a short series on my blog with other Christian women bloggers that I read. I am so excited to share with all of you this weekly series about how to be a follower of God. I tried coming up with a name for this short series but I couldn't make up my mind, ha ha. So you can think of this series as, Christianity or What it takes to be a follower of God. Of course I know we all have our own opinion's and I respect that of everyone. With that being said I am beyond excited to introduce my first Guest post/blogger to kick off this series...

Marci Smith:

You can reach her blog at  www.ittakesoneministries.org

She is an amazing women with such inspirational writing.

Raising Godly Children 

I was so honored when Kaitlyn asked me to write a guest post.  I have a passion for writing and teaching for Jesus so I jumped at the opportunity!  

My name is Marci Smith and I blog over at www.ittakesoneministries.org.  I am a mama of three awesome kiddos and a wife to an amazingly patient and funny husband.  We have been married for almost 19 years (Yikes! I feel old typing that!) and our kids are 17, 13, and 10.  Our oldest baby is a senior in high school and is currently applying to colleges all over the nation…sniff, sniff.  Is it wrong to visit my sweetie every weekend?  Yeah, I thought so.

Raising kids to be Godly can be quite a challenge.  Let’s face it, they are faced with worldly challenges every day.  My kids have heard and seen things that I wasn’t exposed to until I was an adult.  My husband and I have had to run interference on numerous occasions.  We have to trust God to lead us in our decisions daily.  

When our oldest child was younger, people used to tell us we needed to lighten up a bit.  They told us that if we were too focused on God, our son would be left out and not have any friends.  I’ll be honest, that scared us in the beginning.  The thought of my baby sitting all alone at lunch and not having any friends to hang out with on the weekends made my throat feel like it was constricting!

Thankfully, we did not back down; we trusted God to take care of our munchkin.  We knew that if we obeyed God, our son would be blessed.  

We relied heavily on Deuteronomy 6:5-7

5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.  6 These words that I am giving you today are to be in your heart,  7  Repeat them to your children.  Talk about them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.

Basically, we are told to live our lives for God.  Our character, morals, behaviors, and attitudes will be evident to our children.

Listed are the things that proved successful for our family.  All of our children have hearts for Jesus and His world.  They are confident cuties who strive to live their lives for God.

Make children accountable from a young age.

Learning to accept responsibility is huge!  Kids must be taught to be accountable for their actions, behaviors, and words.  Never let them off the hook or make excuses for them.  

Empathetic hearts are taught.

In order for children to be God focused rather than me focused, they must be taught to love and be empathetic.  Rather than looking down on those who are different, teach them to love the way Jesus does.  Let them come up with ways to be kind and loving to people in need.

What goes in always comes out.

This one is huge at our home!  Everything that goes into eyes and ears will settle on the heart and come out in behaviors and actions.  There is no such thing as harmless immorality.  Parents must be mindful of what children are listening to and watching. 

Be Jesus lovers  7 days a week.

It is very important to attend church regularly as a family.  Kids learn that worship and praise are priorities.  However, openly loving and sharing Jesus shouldn’t just be a Sunday thing.  As parents, we must live out our faith every single day.  We must be doers of the Word and not just hearers.

Let them fail.

This one can be difficult.  We love them more than the breath we breathe and it hurts our hearts to see them fail.  However, it is good for them to learn how to fail in a controlled environment.  When they do fail, we can teach them how to get back up.  They will learn to rely on God and let Him lead them.  

Parenting can be a difficult thing, but when God is the focus the rewards are amazing!  Children that are taught to love God with all they are become adults who are confident in themselves and God.  They will know that their worth comes from Jesus Christ alone.  

I highly recommend the book Parenting by the Book written by John Rosemond.  

Love God with all of your being and pass it on.  Your generations will be greatly blessed! – Marci