What do you see when you look at it?

Do you see destruction, despair, loneliness?

I see possibilities.

And I am fascinated.

Every time I drive by I have the urge to drive up the lot, get out and explore. My fear of snakes keeps me safely in my minivan.

I think it’s my love of home improvement projects and decorating that lets me see the possibilities in a house (trust me we’ve a couple gross looking houses over the years).

But I tend to be less about the possibilities and more about the current condition when it comes to other things – like my children. It’s so easy to focus on the negative behaviors (and I’m not saying that they don’t need addressing)  and it takes so much of our energy and time that I am left exhausted.

And quite frankly, sometimes I’m just not feelin’ the love, you know what I mean?

Recently I’ve been really convicted about how critical I can be with the kids. I don’t want to be the mom they remember as always nagging them.

I’m starting with making a point to say one super-encouraging thing to each child each day.

Anyone have some creative ideas on how to encourage children? I’m all ears!

Last March when Mark and I visited Wears Valley Ranch on the World Orphans Staff retreat we were totally blown away by the scripture passages these kids had learned. We’re talking 6, 7 and 8 year olds who can recite multiple CHAPTERS of the Bible perfectly!

We realized right then and there that our kids were capable of so much more than we had been asking of them. They have a weekly memory verse for school but this summer we decided to kick it into high gear.

Each week they will have a new passage of scripture to learn. We kicked around the idea of making it a whole chapter but we felt that individual passages allowed us more freedom to hit on lots of different topics.

We broke out the plan last Tuesday (a day late) with Romans 12: 1-3.

“THREE verses? I can’t learn 3 verses!” was heard from multiple children.

We gave them some encouragement and sent them off with their sheet of paper for 30 minutes of study time. The boys knew it by the end of the 30 minutes. The loudest naysayer had half of it done.

So we have 30 minutes of study time each day. Each night before dinner each kid says it once (or as much as they know at that point) and on Friday before dinner they get the test.

Of course they wanted to know “What happens if we don’t know it?” Why is it that we always want to know the consequences of disobedience BEFORE we decide whether or not we’ll obey? (Yeah, that’s a whole ‘nother post worth of discussion.)

Of course they did brilliantly the first week. Here’s the video of them saying it all together after their test.

Oh yeah, and lest it be in one ear and out the other, they’ll be expected to recite the previous weeks verses each Friday as well…and during random pop quiz times 🙂