Book Review: The Ministry of Motherhood, Ch 10

Chapter Ten Quotes - Faith in a Living God ~ my comments in green
Great chapter! I'm not sure I'll have internet access on our trip, so I'm going to try to post the rest of these chapter summaries. Simply click on them when you are ready to discuss...and check back to interact with others.
"My faith, though wasn't just in thin air or in wishful thinking. The more I know about Christ and study his life, and the more I see the absolute integrity of his life, the more amazed I am at his charcter and love and his heart to reach out to us and help and redeem us. My faith is founded on the basis of God, his Word, his creation, and all that I know to be true about him." page 112
And that doesn't change with our circumstances. It's settled.
It is essential for parents to instill faith in our children (though that really is going to come as a work of grace and not through my parenting, as I'm sure Sally would agree) because "They are bound to experience many obstacles and difficulties in their lives. We cannot take away those circumstances, but we can offer our children the gift of faith so they will have the strength to live through them and a relationship with God that gives meaning to it all. " p112
"As I trust God to carry me through my problems, I actually learn to trust him more! And even more important, I become a living testimony of faith to others, especially to my children. The best way we can give the critical gift of faith to our children, in other words, is to exercise faith in our own lives - to accept the difficulties of life and choose to trust God in the midst of them. This means we will choose to be thankful, choose to be joyful, choose to be mature and strong, and try to be an example for our children. It also means we will talk to our children about why we're choosing to respond in this way and share with them what God's Word says about faith." page 113.
I, personally, found this section to be very encouraging. Of course the idea of children watching how we handle things is challenging...but I've worried and prayed for my children's hearts with our repeated miscarriages.... I'm thinking that yes, I need to pray for their heart and it is a concern....and yet they are also seeing how a child of God walks through sad times with faith intact...and that is a good thing. We are all growing through the trial - and that seems to me to be the purpose of most trials.
"But modeling is not the only way parents can teach faith to children. Children also learn by observing the lives of others,...Stories about men and women of faith - from missionaries and martyrs to quiet overcomers - can help move our children's hearts toward trust. ....the best stories of faith can be found in the New and Old Testaments...page 114
"Having a Bible on their bedside table won't automatically help children develop a trusting relationship with God. When Jesus called his disciples after all, he didn't just hand them an instruction manual and leave them on their own. ::snort:: Instead, he lived beside them for three years - building a relationship, teaching them repeating himself, correcting them, affirming them, showing them what to do and how to do it. Jesus taught the disciples to base their faith not only on the integrity of his words but also on the integrity of his faithfulness." page 114 And what a great example of parenting this is to us.
"The gift of faith, is not just wishful thinking but an accurate understanding of God's character and his integrity. Faith provides our children the security they need to step out in their lives, making confidet decisions because they have developed a relationship with the God who is worthy of their trust. page 115