Jennifer Flanders's Blog, page 2

EP 92: Unexpected Benefits of Big Family Living

The CDC announced last week that the US General Fertility Rate has recently hit an all-time low of only 1.6 children per woman of childbearing age. That makes me sad, because I know how much joy children bring to life. The more, the merrier! In fact, as parents of twelve, my husband and I have reaped a lot of blessings from having a large family we could have never anticipated beforehand — and so have our kids. Which is exactly what I’m talking about today on Loving Life at Home: The wonderful, unexpected benefits of big family living!

Show NotesVERSES CITED:Psalm 127:3-5 – “Behold, children are a gift of the LORD, the fruit of the womb is a reward….”1 Peter 3:15 – “But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.”Proverbs 14:4 – “Where no oxen are, the manger is clean, But much increase comes by the strength of the ox.”Proverbs 27:17 –  “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.”3 John 1:4 – “I have no greater joy than this, to hear of my children walking in the truth.”RELATED LINKS:Family Unfriendly by Timothy CarneyAmerica Tonight – our interview with Al JazeeraBBC documentary  – you can watch our short clip about halfway down this post EP 42 – Traveling with ChildrenKids Eat Free in Tyler, Texas Kids Eat Free in the USA Age Appropriate Chores for Children Teaching Kids to Do Chores Cheerfully Who Knew Children’s Chores Were So Controversial?Bananagrams – a game I mentioned that my family enjoys playingProverbs for Parenting – topical arrangement of Proverbs (similar to what we used for storytime)STAY CONNECTED:Subscribe: Flanders Family Freebies -weekly themed link lists of free resourcesInstagram: @flanders_family – follow for more great contentFamily Blog: Flanders Family Home Life – parenting tips, homeschool help, printablesMarriage Blog: Loving Life at Home– encouragement for wives, mothers, believers 16 Benefits of Big Family LivingFull Transcript of Episode 92

Hello, friend.

Welcome to Episode 92 of Loving Life at Home. Today I’d like to talk about parenting – specifically all the unexpected blessings and benefits that come with raising children, especially when you have a bunch of them.

Last month the CDC released new data that indicates the general fertility rate has hit an all time low in the US recently. That GFR number is a little different than national birth rate. It’s the average births per woman between the ages of 15 -44, I believe, and that number is apparently a better indicator of a country’s population trend than the annual birth rate, which may fluctuate a little more from year to year.

So the US general fertility rate is now sitting at an average of 1.6 children per woman during all her childbearing years, which is well below the replacement level of 2.1 or 2.2 children per woman, and that spells trouble for our country.

This announcement was made last week at the same time I was reading a book by  Timothy Carney called Family Unfriendly. I’m not quite finished with it yet – I’ve only read 13 of the 14 chapters, but it’s been an interesting read so far.

Carney is a Catholic father of six commenting on how our culture has made raising kids harder than it has to be – which is the subtitle of his book. He offers a lot of good food for thought, and I’ve found myself nodding in agreement to many – though not all – of  his observations and suggested solutions.

One thing that I found interesting is the fact that the birth rates across the globe continue to plummet, despite the fact that many of countries are doing everything they can to encourage their citizens to procreate – including cash incentives, tax breaks, lengthy, government-funded maternity and paternity leave, subsidized childcare, the list goes on and on.

But despite their best efforts, it hasn’t significantly moved the needle.

Couples who are inclined to have children may have them a bit earlier to take advantage of governmental incentive programs, but couples who don’t want children do not seem suddenly tempted to have a houseful – or even a single baby — just because they’d get a bonus check for doing so.

The only thing in my reading – so far – that seems to make a big difference in family size is when a couple has strong religious beliefs that highly value children – that is certainly the case for me and my husband – or they are completely surrounded by a community who highly values children.

So I’ll start with that first idea and circle back to the second in a little bit.

The Bible presents children as an unequivocally good thing. Depending on which Bible translation you’re reading, Psalm 127:3-5 calls them

a gifta heritagea blessinga reward

So if we want to align our hearts with the heart of God, then we must view children in the same way He does.

And, in fact, that has always been my goal. I love children and I’ve wanted a bunch of them for as long as I can remember. Not surprisingly, this fact significantly narrowed the field of potential marriage partners back when I was in college.

If an interested classmate so much as invited me to grab a cup of coffee with him, I’d answer matter-of-factly. “That depends…. How many kids do you plan to have when you get married?”

Subtlety has never been my strong suit.

This line of questioning quickly scared off most would-be suitors, but I didn’t want to risk falling in love with someone who didn’t share my desire for a big family. So I held out… and my patience eventually paid off. Mr. Right – hereafter known as my husband Doug — finally showed up a few weeks before graduation.

Not only was he interested (in me!), but he gave the desired response to all of my questions — and didn’t seem intimidated by my asking them. The rest, as they say, is history: I married him 16 months later, got pregnant two weeks into our honeymoon, and spent the following quarter of a century either pregnant or nursing (or both).

Life as the mother of many has been every bit as blissful as I imagined. Sure, there have been lots of unexpected challenges, but there have also been plenty of unanticipated rewards.

I wrote a blog post over a decade ago listing a bunch of benefits we’ve reaped by having a big family.  Some of them the things I listed were a little tongue-in-cheek, as you will see in a minute when I share my favorites.

But some of the blessings we’ve reaped from having a big family fill my heart with so much gratitude it would be impossible to ever completely plumb its depths.

And still other benefits have presented themselves now that I didn’t even realize were in store for us when I first started compiling that list.

So let’s discuss them all, one by one. First on my list was something I called…

1. Expanded Options

Granted, I wouldn’t recommend having a bunch of kids ONLY to keep from having to decide on a single name, but that is definitely a perk to giving birth a dozen times over.  There are so many beautiful names with so many wonderful meanings out there, it’s difficult to narrow down the list of favorites to pick just one. 

So you have to either do what one of my great-grandmothers did and saddle one child with a dozen different names. She gave her first son a moniker a mile long. But then my grandfather was born, and I guess there were no unused options available for him, because the family just called him “Pete” until he was old enough to choose his own name, which is exactly what he did. The story goes that one day, when his mother was trying to get his attention, he told her, “If you’ll call me John, I’ll answer.” And he went by John for the rest of his life.

Of course, having a big family completely solves that quandary — you can use all your favorite names (or in our case, almost all — I never did give birth to a Hannah) without needing to bestow a long string of names upon a solitary child.

By the way, Hannah was the girl’s name my husband and I had picked out during four successive pregnancies that all ended up in my delivering boys. Then, by the time I finally got a girl, about five or six of our friends had all named their daughters Hannah, and so we went with Rebekah instead.

But even though I never had a baby of my own named Hannah Flanders, we do have a grandbaby with that name. So that makes me happy.

Incidentally, I’m not the only person that sees this idea of expanded options for naming babies as a blessing. My son Ben and his wife Mikayla just announced the fact two weeks ago that they’re expecting again. They already have four, so this will be #5 for them.

And Mikayla came over last week to get my opinion on four different names they’re considering this time around. Two of them are decidedly boy names and two equally distinctive girl names, but here’s the catch. She told me she didn’t just want me to pick a favorite. She wanted to know what ORDER of those four particular names I thought sounded best, because  they would eventually like to use all of them.

Hearing her say that made me laugh – first of all, because it tells me she’s on board for having at least eight children (which is totally awesome). And second, because the idea of planning a preferred order of gender-specific baby names without knowing the sexes of the babies receiving those names just struck me as funny.

So I told her I thought the order should depend entirely on whether a particular pregnancy resulted in a son or a daughter. So I simply told her: “I recommend you use your favorite boy name for the first boy, your favorite girl name for the first girl, and so one, adjusting as necessary if you don’t wind up with an even split.”

So, we’ll see how it goes and what they ultimately decide. I love all four names they’ve picked for the kids already born as well as the new four they’ve chosen for future babies, but I’m hoping maybe they’ll find several other names, too, that will keep them growing their family even beyond eight.

Benjamin used to tell me he wanted sixteen children. He even spent time as a teen designing a modified van that would allow him to tote a family of 18 in a single vehicle.

In fact, when he first started dating his wife, a family friend who was interested in Ben herself, tried to scare Mikayla off at a Christmas party both were attending by telling her how many kids Ben was hoping to have. “So good luck to whoever marries him, right?” the girl told Mik. But Mik was undeterred, and here they are a few years later, expecting their fifth and hoping for at least three more beyond that.

2. Boredom Busters

The second blessing I see to living in a big family is that it’s an antidote to boredom.

There is never a dull moment in a home filled with children, and there is always somebody to play with. Neighbors and schoolmates will come and go, but siblings are friends you can keep for life.

Now, when I was growing up, it was common for parents to turn their children lose in the neighborhood with instructions to come back home when the streetlights turned on at dusk. We had so much freedom….

Back when I was in grade school, I’d walk to and from school all week long, then on Saturday, I’d pack a lunch, hop on my bike, and leave home early in the morning to ride all by myself down to the park and hike along the creek hunting tadpoles or play on the jungle gym at the playground and pretend I was exploring a new planet or stranded on a desert island. Or I’d go to the neighborhood pool to swim, or climb as high up in a tree as I possibly could then perch in its branches and read a book.

I have one sister, and although she eventually married a man who LOVES to hike and takes her with him as much as he can, back when we were kids, she was not nearly as fond of exploring or scaling trees or wading through muddy creeks or catching frogs and fish and lizards as I was, so I usually did that kind of thing alone.

Which I suppose proves you don’t absolutely have to have a bunch of siblings to keep from ever feeling bored. Because I barely ever remember ever feeling bored in my whole life.

But, sadly, we are living in a much different era now than the one I grew up in. And if I let one of my kids spend a whole day at the park, alone and unsupervised, somebody might turn me in to CPS for child neglect or endangerment. Not that unsupervised play really is dangerous or negligent, but that we live in a society that seems to think so nowadays.

Fortunately, there is safety in numbers. And while I wouldn’t feel comfortable turning a young child loose to spend a Saturday afternoon hiking through woods and wading through streams, I have absolutely no problem allowing a group of my children to do exactly that. Which has allowed them to experience a lot of the same freedoms and adventures and opportunities to explore and grow and investigate that I so enjoyed as a child. And that makes my heart so happy.

When they were younger, they’d all hop on their bikes and ride to the neighborhood pool  to swim or to the bookstore to browse or to the gas station to get a treat or the craft store to buy supplies for some creative project they wanted to make or to something they called “the bamboo forest” to cut long poles for teepees. They still like to go to that bamboo forest, which was a dense grove of bamboo that grew near a creek in our old neighborhood, and earlier this summer they brought home two 10-foot poles to use as supports for a movie screen so we can host an outdoor movie for our family and friends this fall, once the Texas weather cools off a little.

Now that they’re older, they don’t just ride bikes around our town, but get in the car and drive further away to visit their grandmother and married siblings or – just last month – five of the unmarried kids – acutally four kids and one grandkids who is just a few months older than my youngest son – flew to California together to explore several national parks. They saved up their money and all bought their own plane tickets, took lots of pictures while they were there, and made wonderful memories together.

But all that adventuring started with a bike ride to the pool, which meant crossing one busy street by themselves.

Parents who helicopter and micro-manage and plan out every minute of their offspring’s childhood rob them of the growth that comes from doing some things – not everything, but some things – on their own. Each new adventure builds a little more confidence so that when the time comes, they aren’t afraid to tackle bigger escapades and more daunting challenges.

And having a  houseful of siblings gave everyone plenty of buddies to bring along on all those adventures – without forcing anybody who was more of a homebody (like my sister as a child) out of their own comfort zone prematurely.

3. Conversation Starters

Another benefit big families enjoy? Well, maybe not all of them enjoy this, but we normally did – was the knack our large crew had for starting conversations.

Big families invite all sorts of inquiries:

“Are all these kids yours?” “Don’t you know what causes that?” “Are you going to have any more?” “Do I need to buy you a TV?”

In our experience, most of the people asking such questions aren’t trying to be rude — they’re genuinely curious — so we answer as graciously and amicably as we possibly can. What a great way to meet people!

Our willingness to engage such folks and answer their questions has led to lots of newspaper articles – especially on homeschooling – and TV interviews… First for just our local papers and news stations, but those eventually led to us being interviewed by Al Jazeera’s America Tonight, and that led to the BBC contacting us about appearing in a documentary with a British actress  Miriam Margolyes – -which we did, and are still in contact with her all these years later. I’ll include links to both those interviews in today’s show notes. 

Even ABC’s 20/20 came out and filmed our family along with our good friends the Halberstadts (who now have 10 children, although I think they only had six or seven at the time of that interview), although to my knowledge, none of that footage has ever aired.

1 Peter 3:15 tells us,

“But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.”

I view having a large family as an opportunity to put this verse into practice, which is why I’m always happy to answer questions about why we’ve made the life decisions we’ve made – whether the person asking me the questions is standing behind me in line at the grocery store or eating at a table near ours in a restaurant or thrusting a microphone in my face with lights blaring and cameras rolling.

It’s all the same to me, and if you’re willing to ask the questions, I’m willing to answer them in the best, most God-honoring way I know how.

4. Group Discounts

Another benefit to big-family living is built-in group discounts.

A really big family can qualify for discounted group admission rates without even trying. And do we ever get our money’s worth on those annual zoo and museum memberships — especially the ones that offer reciprocal benefits at sister sites! Which often means free museum admission whenever we travel.

For years, I’ve planned potty breaks on road trips to coincide with museum or zoo or botanical garden visits, so that we’re stopping every 3-4 hours on the road at some reciprocal site that gives us free admission. (I talk about that more in my episode on family travel, which I’ll link in today’s shownotes, if you’re interested).

Also, whenever we travel en masse with extended family, I try to take advantage of as many kids eat free restaurants as I can. Even though most restaurants understandably limit free kids meals to one per paying adult, we usually have enough diners ages 13 and up in our group to get all the little ones fed for free.

I keep a couple of lists on my website (which I’ll link in the show notes, as well), one of local restaurants in Tyler, Texas, where we live and another of national chains like Freebirds and Luby’s where kids eat free on certain days of the week, and even though all my children have now aged out of those promotions, we still refer to it when the grandkids are in town or we have a reunion in another city.

5. A Deeper Admiration

The love and affection I felt for my husband as a spouse, great though it was, increased manifold when he became the father of my children. I so enjoyed watching him teach and train and interact with our preschoolers, adolescents, teens, and adult children, but there is something so specially endearing about the way he cuddles and cootchy-coos our babies, it makes me glad that for so long we had one in the house to draw that tenderness out of him.

He’s still that way with the grandchildren. They all adore him and attend to his voice the minute he walks into the room.

6. Household Help

A wise man once observed, “Many hands make light labor.” He was right. Of course, many hands make bigger messes to begin with, but when everyone pitches in to help clean up, household chores are knocked out in short order, and kids learn responsibility and other important life skills from an early age. It is fun to work side by side to accomplish daily tasks in short order, and then be able to play side by side making wonderful family memories.

Now, let me pause here to interject something that I think should be obvious, but evidently isn’t. I just want to acknowledge the fact that children create a lot more messes than they clean up, at least in the beginning.

But if you do your job and train them well, they will eventually get much better at cleaning up after themselves, which is a huge help to any homemaker.

I say this because whenever I’ve written about assigning children’s chores on my blog (and I’ll link a few of those posts in the show notes), I get messages from readers who tell me I’m robbing my kids of their childhoods or say things like, “Well, its obvious you only had a bunch of kids because you wanted free slave labor.” Which would be laughable if they weren’t 100% serious.

Which is utter nonsense. That would be like saying I only teach Algebra so I can copy off my students’ homework. Only a person who doesn’t understand math would ever suggest such a thing.

But I do understand math –in fact, I’ve always loved math — so (1) I can easily do all my own computations without cheating off anybody else’s work, thank you very much. And (2) I know that if I don’t do my job of teaching Algebra well, none of my students would be turning in homework worth copying, anyway.

The same is true for kids and chores. Only somebody who doesn’t have children or doesn’t understand what is involved in raising children would suggest any parent would have a whole houseful of kids so as to have extra help keeping said house nice and tidy. That’s ludicrous.

As I already mentioned, several of our single kids – including almost all the ones still living at home (Daniel had to work, so he didn’t make the trip, and neither did Isaac who’s doing an engineering internship in Longview  this summer, nor Rachel, who had one more month of serving as an au pair in Germany) – but the rest of them  spent a week in California hiking through National Parks.

And my husband and I were absolutely amazed at how clean the house stayed for the six days they were gone. We barely had any laundry. There were no dirty dishes piled in the sink – ever. We hardly messed anything up or had any housework to do while they were away. So that part was great.

However, they house was so quiet and lonely and still without all our kids in it, so we were overjoyed and relieved when they all made it back safely, despite the fact they brought a ton of dirty clothes home with them.

Because we really love our children, and we enjoy spending time with them.

Yes, they’re able to wash the dirty clothes themselves now and will often load the dishwasher and wipe down the countertops and straighten the house as well. And those are all nice things. But let’s not forget that many of those things would not need to be done at all if the kids weren’t living in our home in the first place. Proverbs 14:4 tells us, “Where no oxen are, the manger is clean, But much increase comes by the strength of the ox.”

And the same is true for kids. Where there are no kids, the house stays tidy, but much joy comes through the presence of children.

That’s because our lives are greatly enriched by our large family. Free slave labor? That’s not an efficient business model.
But if someone were to suggest we had a passel of kids because we enjoy having a houseful of amazing humans to do life with – to talk to and spend time with and make memories together and be challenged and stretched and sharpened by – that would be a far more accurate statement.

Wooo! I’m never going to get through all these benefits if I don’t pick up the pace. Next on my list, number seven, is…

7. No PMS

Between pregnancy and breastfeeding, you can literally go for years without having a monthly cycle. This is experience talking. And I’m not gonna lie — that was really, really nice.

Also, so many pregnancies allowed me to save up my eggs – a woman is born with a limited number – so I didn’t end up going through menopause – or deal with any of the side affects that normally accompany that change of life — until I was 57 years old. Which was also nice, in my opinion.

8. Pick Your Sport

Depending on the size of your family, you can field your own basketball team. Or volleyball. Or baseball. Or soccer. The physical exercise does a body good, and the games give ample opportunity to practice good sportsmanship among other players who are held to the same standard.

We’ve always had a very competitive family – but it’s a friendly sort of competition, where each child cheers on the others. Playing sports, or even board and card games – is a great way to work out character flaws. And when our kids were little, my husband hit on a great way to do just that. We’d play games every night after dinner – sometimes we’d grab a basketball to play knock-out in the driveway, sometimes we’d play zombie tag in the back yard, if it rained, we’d stay inside and play spoons or maybe bananagrams at the kitchen table or around-the-world ping pong in the garage.

But we’d play together consistently as soon as the kitchen chores were done, and if anybody got mad or upset or lost their temper or tried to cheat or showed any other sign of poor sportsmanship, he (or she) would get to be the “guest speaker” when we came back inside for storytime that evening.

We have a topical arrangement of Proverbs called Proverbs for Parenting, so we’d flip over to the appropriate section of the book and have that child read relevant verses on anger or impatience or greed or unkindness or whatever the present problem happened to be. Sometimes, even mom or dad had to take a turn as guest speaker, because ours was the most egregious behavior for that day’s game playing.

Another benefit of having a big family is…

9. Social Security

Contrary to what “Zero Population Growth” proponents will tell you, demographic declines are causing deeply troubling problems for societies worldwide, which is why many countries (Germany, Japan, and Austrailia, to name just a few) are now actually paying people to procreate. Big families are simply ahead of the curve.

And, in our case, with twelve children, my husband has always teased that when he and I get too old or feeble to care for ourselves, we can rotate houses and spend one month with each child so that nobody need be unduly burdened by our care.

Hopefully, it won’t ever come to that – or at least not for a long, long time — because the tenth benefit to having a big family is …

10. Youthful Appearance

While pregnancy keeps you looking young (think thick, glossy hair and glowing complexion), the children themselves keep you feeling young. It’s a wonderful thing to see the world through the eyes of a child, so filled with awe and excitement over each new discovery. Their energy, enthusiasm, and laughter are infectious.

And keeping up with them – whether it’s playing frisbee or taking bike rides or running foot races or hiking through National Parks — which is something our whole family normally does together. My husband’s work schedule just wouldn’t allow us to accompany them this summer. We’ve already made plans to take another 3-day hike in November together, though, and we’ll go tent camping with them for a week in October. But keeping up with the kids, in whatever form that takes, helps keep us on our toes and physically fit.

As for the youthful appearance, I know lots of large families where mom and dad look more like their children’s siblings than their parents. One of my husband’s favorite happened when our oldest daughter was in college and he drove to campus to change cars with her. Several of her friends saw him talking to her as they traded keys and came rushing over after he left to ask Bethany who the cute guy was. They thought Doug was her boyfriend, and were shocked to learn he was her dad because he “looked sooo young.”

Number 11 on my list of unexpected benefits to having lots of children is it’s…

11. One Less Excuse

Being open to pregnancy allows couples to enjoy intimacy as God intended. No frantic search for a misplaced diaphragm. No mad dash to the drugstore when you run out of condoms. No having to compensate for the fact that the Pill completely decimates a woman’s libido. Just blessed spontaneity (although regularly scheduling time for said spontaneity is highly recommended).

12. No Sour Milk

In a house full of kids (especially teenaged boys), food seldom lasts long enough to go bad. That’s a plus! You can buy in bulk without fear of spoilage.

They go through everything so fast! For several years when my oldest boys were teens, we’d buy 10 gallons of milk at a time, and it would only last us about 4 days. If it were just my husband and I drinking it, I don’t think we would finish a full gallon before it went bad.

Same is true for eggs and bread. Neither of those staples normally last long enough to go bad at our house.

As an added bonus, dinner conversation never drags with so many different personalities contributing to it.

Number thirteen, having lots of kids means you’ll eventually have…

13. Built-In Babysitters

Our kids absolutely love babies and are always clamoring to hold our newest addition. As a result, they can all handle infants very comfortably and capably — experience that definitely came in handy when they started having kids of their own.

Several of our daughters in law were youngest in their family and had little to no experience caring for infants, so having a husband who knew how to hold and swaddle and change and burp a baby was a huge help and reassuring comfort to them as new moms.

Now just to clarify, when I say “built-in babysitters,” I’m not talking about parents expecting their older children to raise the younger ones. …..This isn’t about shirking your job or pushing the hard work of parenting off on somebody else to do – especially not on older siblings who are still children themselves.

It has always been my responsibility and the responsibility of my husband to care for our babies – to feed them, provide for their needs, change their diapers, bathe them, teach them, train them, watch over them, make sure they learn right from wrong. That sort of thing.

But there’s a big difference between not leaning on your children to do your job and not allowing them to interact with the baby at all. You have to strike a balance.

I know it drove some of the grandmothers in our life crazy to watch us pass the baby around from person to person and child to child. The more babies we had, the more older siblings were at our elbows, clamoring for their turn to hold them.

And I really think that one reason our kids are still so close is that they were allowed to be involved with the babies from the get go – holding them, rocking them, entertaining them. One of our sons, Samuel, begged us to install a baby carrier on his bike so he could pump his little brother around the neighborhood.

Another son, Benjamin, would spend his own money buying little clothes for his baby brother, so they could match when we went out.

Another son, David, would whisk Abigail out of my arms nearly every Sunday morning just as church started – we always kept our babies with us in the service – and would sit with her in his lap. If she started to squirm, he would just look at her sideways, and she’d settle right back down. It was incredible. And good training for him, too, as he has three girls of his own now, plus one little boy, and they respond to his instruction just as consistently as his little sister did.

I never asked or expected him to do that. He just volunteered. And, oh my! When he left for dental school, Abby missed him so much! Whenever he’d come home to visit, he’d ask to be the one to wake her up in the morning, and she would just squeal with delight as soon as she saw him!

Whenever we did school, the older kids would each take a turn playing with the littles while I went over math lessons with school-aged siblings. They’d build blanket tents for them in the living room or feed them snacks or take them in the backyard to swing.

I felt a little conflicted about assigning them the “chore” of watching their younger siblings, even though it was for only half an hour each – but that was the easiest way I could think of to make sure everyone got their school work done and the littles weren’t neglected during the process.

But then one morning, I heard my boys arguing about something that let me know they didn’t view this half-hour of babysitting as a chore at all, but as a privilege.

On that day, Ben had claimed the 7:30-8:00 AM time slot but was precisely two minutes late handing the baby off to the next in line. So Samuel arbitrated, “That means I get her until 8:34, then David can have her until 9:06!”

As an added bonus, our big guys quickly discovered that nothing attracts attention from the opposite sex more effectively than toting around a new baby brother or sister (otherwise known as a “chick magnet”). So closer sibling relationships were not the only benefit they derived from developing great baby skills.

Another benefit to having a big family is that having a lot of children can help each child learn to put their…

14. Best Foot Forward

Not only do children help refine their parents’ character qualities, but they polish one another, as well. Proverbs 27:17 tells us,

“As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.”

And I’ve definitely seen that principle at work within the four walls of our own home.

Siblings have a way of knocking off one another’s rough edges in private, so they’re less likely to make fools of themselves in public. Corny jokes and lame pranks can be tested (then reworked as needed or altogether abandoned) at home, where the stakes are lower and the audience is more forgiving.

Homeschoolers are sometimes stereotyped as being socially awkward and unsocialized, but that has not been our experience. Most of the homeschoolers we know, including our own kids, are articulate and gregarious and able to carry on interesting conversations with a wide range of ages – not just their peers.

And I think that is largely due to the fact they get so much practice relating to young and old alike within our own family instead of spending eight hours a day sequestered in a classroom surrounded only by their age mates.

In fact, with so many children spread over so many years, a large family really forms its own micro-culture, which is especially handy if you’re interested in bucking societal norms.

For instance, if the parents of an only child were to decide, “You, know, I think eight or ten or twelve years old is much too young to own a phone. I don’t want my son or daughter to spend their whole childhood staring at a screen.” – and those are entirely reasonable concerns, by the way. But an only child will not really get the results you might be hoping to achieve by waiting to give her a phone or refusing to buy him a gaming console or by suggesting they spend more time playing outdoors.

Because now, instead of staring at her own screen, if all her little friends are still glued to their phones, she’ll wind up staring at the tops of their heads while they scroll at the lunch table or school playground or church youth group or wherever else the kids tend to congregate.

If you want to create a culture of screen-free kids who actually talk to one another and play outside with one another and go exploring together, you’ve either got to get a whole lot more parents on board, setting similar guidelines for their own kids to make it happen… or you’ve got to raise more kids yourself so that those siblings will all have built-in playmates.

That’s what I mean by micro-culture within a home. Your decisions about how your kids will or won’t spend their time, the amount of TV and YouTube and movie streaming you allow, the use (or non-use) of social media or video games, whether or not you eat refined sugar or participate in travel sports or go to slumber parties or have evening curfews or require household chores or participate in  or homeschool co-ops or attend church on Sundays – all those decisions and more affect the whole crew, and so they are all in it together and adapt accordingly – which is really a helpful thing and makes it so much easier to resist the pressure society tries to exert on parents to raise our children in a certain way.

If I decide I don’t want to spend all my time shuffling kids back and forth from one extra-curricular activity to another, guess what? I don’t have to. And they’ll still have things to do and people to play with.

Whereas, if the parent of an only child decides to avoid what Timothe Carney calls “the travel team trap” – he may be the only kids in the neighborhood on a given Saturday, because all his little friends who live nearby are at out-of-town games.

So that’s been a benefit of having a bunch of kids. Another big blessing is the fact that having a lot of children means you won’t have to deal with an empty nest as soon as you might otherwise. I love that fact!

15. Empty Nest Postponed

Also, when you are blessed with many children, you don’t have to give up all your favorite things about one stage of life to enjoy all the great things about the next. You’ll still have little ones at home to cuddle even after first ones move away.

That’s a happy distraction during what would otherwise be a bittersweet time. Also, studies show that the older a couple is when their last child leaves home, the more likely their marriage will survive the transition.

I wholeheartedly agree with what John wrote in his third epistle:

“I have no greater joy than this, to hear of my children walking in the truth.” – 3 John 1:4

It has been great watching our children grow up and mature into such amazing adults. They eventually become more like really good friends – They are all so thoughtful and kind and smart  and interesting and articulate and witty. I often feel compelled to take notes whenever I talk to them.

But I’m also grateful to still have a few children left at home, although even those few are perched on the edge of the nest ready to fledge and fly away. And it will be a little bittersweet when that happens, signaling the end, as it were, of such a wonderfully rich and rewarding season of my life.

16. Community Impact

The last benefit I want to mention is the potential impact a big family has on the people around them.

I don’t just mean pointing others to Jesus or loving your neighbors as you love yourself or trying to make the world a better place. Those are all things Christians can do whether they have a house filled with children or raise only one or two or never have kids at all. Our circumstances are all different, and we can purpose to glorify God no matter what those circumstances are – whether we get to spend our lives doing what we always dreamed of doing or our lives take a detour and we wind up with plan B or even C or D.

The impact I’m talking about here is specific to having a bunch of kids. It can actually serve to encourage and motivate other families to buck the current 1.6 accepted average of a “normal” sized family.

I’ve lost count of how many of my husband’s coworkers have confided in him over the years that they’d originally planned to stop at one or two or maybe three kids, but when they saw our family keep having baby after baby after baby (we were expecting our sixth when we first moved to town and doubled that number before it was all said and done) – it convinced them to keep going as well.

That phenomenon was something that showed up in the research Timothy Carney did for the book I mentioned at the beginning of this episode. Other than having deeply held religious convictions yourself that view children in a favorable light, one of the strongest predictors of larger family size is living in a community where larger families are common and children are valued.

The author visited Orthodox Jewish communities, Mormon neighborhoods, and cul de sacs populated primarily by large Catholic families and found that average family size even of non-religious couples shifted up when those families were surrounded by other large families.

When everyone you know has only one or two kids, choosing to raise five or six seems a little excessive. But when you know families with ten, eleven, twelve or even more children, having five or six feels much more acceptable —  almost as if you’re just getting started.

The post EP 92: Unexpected Benefits of Big Family Living appeared first on Loving Life at Home.

EP 92 – Unexpected Benefits of Big Family Living

The CDC announced last week that the US General Fertility Rate has recently hit an all-time low of only 1.6 children per woman of childbearing age. That makes me sad, because I know how much joy children bring to life. The more, the merrier! In fact, as parents of twelve, my husband and I have reaped a lot of blessings from having a large family we could have never anticipated beforehand — and so have our kids. Which is exactly what I’m talking about today on Loving Life at Home: The wonderful, unexpected benefits of big family living!

Show NotesVERSES CITED:Psalm 127:3-5 – “Behold, children are a gift of the LORD, the fruit of the womb is a reward….”1 Peter 3:15 – “But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.”Proverbs 14:4 – “Where no oxen are, the manger is clean, But much increase comes by the strength of the ox.”Proverbs 27:17 –  “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.”3 John 1:4 – “I have no greater joy than this, to hear of my children walking in the truth.”RELATED LINKS:Family Unfriendly by Timothy CarneyAmerica Tonight – our interview with Al JazeeraBBC documentary  – you can watch our short clip about halfway down this post EP 42 – Traveling with ChildrenKids Eat Free in Tyler, Texas Kids Eat Free in the USA Age Appropriate Chores for Children Teaching Kids to Do Chores Cheerfully Who Knew Children’s Chores Were So Controversial?Bananagrams – a game I mentioned that my family enjoys playingProverbs for Parenting – topical arrangement of Proverbs (similar to what we used for storytime)STAY CONNECTED:Subscribe: Flanders Family Freebies -weekly themed link lists of free resourcesInstagram: @flanders_family – follow for more great contentFamily Blog: Flanders Family Home Life – parenting tips, homeschool help, printablesMarriage Blog: Loving Life at Home– encouragement for wives, mothers, believers 16 Benefits of Big Family LivingFull Transcript of Episode 92

Hello, friend.

Welcome to Episode 92 of Loving Life at Home. Today I’d like to talk about parenting – specifically all the unexpected blessings and benefits that come with raising children, especially when you have a bunch of them.

Last month the CDC released new data that indicates the general fertility rate has hit an all time low in the US recently. That GFR number is a little different than national birth rate. It’s the average births per woman between the ages of 15 -44, I believe, and that number is apparently a better indicator of a country’s population trend than the annual birth rate, which may fluctuate a little more from year to year.

So the US general fertility rate is now sitting at an average of 1.6 children per woman during all her childbearing years, which is well below the replacement level of 2.1 or 2.2 children per woman, and that spells trouble for our country.

This announcement was made last week at the same time I was reading a book by  Timothy Carney called Family Unfriendly. I’m not quite finished with it yet – I’ve only read 13 of the 14 chapters, but it’s been an interesting read so far.

Carney is a Catholic father of six commenting on how our culture has made raising kids harder than it has to be – which is the subtitle of his book. He offers a lot of good food for thought, and I’ve found myself nodding in agreement to many – though not all – of  his observations and suggested solutions.

One thing that I found interesting is the fact that the birth rates across the globe continue to plummet, despite the fact that many of countries are doing everything they can to encourage their citizens to procreate – including cash incentives, tax breaks, lengthy, government-funded maternity and paternity leave, subsidized childcare, the list goes on and on.

But despite their best efforts, it hasn’t significantly moved the needle.

Couples who are inclined to have children may have them a bit earlier to take advantage of governmental incentive programs, but couples who don’t want children do not seem suddenly tempted to have a houseful – or even a single baby — just because they’d get a bonus check for doing so.

The only thing in my reading – so far – that seems to make a big difference in family size is when a couple has strong religious beliefs that highly value children – that is certainly the case for me and my husband – or they are completely surrounded by a community who highly values children.

So I’ll start with that first idea and circle back to the second in a little bit.

The Bible presents children as an unequivocally good thing. Depending on which Bible translation you’re reading, Psalm 127:3-5 calls them

a gifta heritagea blessinga reward

So if we want to align our hearts with the heart of God, then we must view children in the same way He does.

And, in fact, that has always been my goal. I love children and I’ve wanted a bunch of them for as long as I can remember. Not surprisingly, this fact significantly narrowed the field of potential marriage partners back when I was in college.

If an interested classmate so much as invited me to grab a cup of coffee with him, I’d answer matter-of-factly. “That depends…. How many kids do you plan to have when you get married?”

Subtlety has never been my strong suit.

This line of questioning quickly scared off most would-be suitors, but I didn’t want to risk falling in love with someone who didn’t share my desire for a big family. So I held out… and my patience eventually paid off. Mr. Right – hereafter known as my husband Doug — finally showed up a few weeks before graduation.

Not only was he interested (in me!), but he gave the desired response to all of my questions — and didn’t seem intimidated by my asking them. The rest, as they say, is history: I married him 16 months later, got pregnant two weeks into our honeymoon, and spent the following quarter of a century either pregnant or nursing (or both).

Life as the mother of many has been every bit as blissful as I imagined. Sure, there have been lots of unexpected challenges, but there have also been plenty of unanticipated rewards.

I wrote a blog post over a decade ago listing a bunch of benefits we’ve reaped by having a big family.  Some of them the things I listed were a little tongue-in-cheek, as you will see in a minute when I share my favorites.

But some of the blessings we’ve reaped from having a big family fill my heart with so much gratitude it would be impossible to ever completely plumb its depths.

And still other benefits have presented themselves now that I didn’t even realize were in store for us when I first started compiling that list.

So let’s discuss them all, one by one. First on my list was something I called…

1. Expanded Options

Granted, I wouldn’t recommend having a bunch of kids ONLY to keep from having to decide on a single name, but that is definitely a perk to giving birth a dozen times over.  There are so many beautiful names with so many wonderful meanings out there, it’s difficult to narrow down the list of favorites to pick just one. 

So you have to either do what one of my great-grandmothers did and saddle one child with a dozen different names. She gave her first son a moniker a mile long. But then my grandfather was born, and I guess there were no unused options available for him, because the family just called him “Pete” until he was old enough to choose his own name, which is exactly what he did. The story goes that one day, when his mother was trying to get his attention, he told her, “If you’ll call me John, I’ll answer.” And he went by John for the rest of his life.

Of course, having a big family completely solves that quandary — you can use all your favorite names (or in our case, almost all — I never did give birth to a Hannah) without needing to bestow a long string of names upon a solitary child.

By the way, Hannah was the girl’s name my husband and I had picked out during four successive pregnancies that all ended up in my delivering boys. Then, by the time I finally got a girl, about five or six of our friends had all named their daughters Hannah, and so we went with Rebekah instead.

But even though I never had a baby of my own named Hannah Flanders, we do have a grandbaby with that name. So that makes me happy.

Incidentally, I’m not the only person that sees this idea of expanded options for naming babies as a blessing. My son Ben and his wife Mikayla just announced the fact two weeks ago that they’re expecting again. They already have four, so this will be #5 for them.

And Mikayla came over last week to get my opinion on four different names they’re considering this time around. Two of them are decidedly boy names and two equally distinctive girl names, but here’s the catch. She told me she didn’t just want me to pick a favorite. She wanted to know what ORDER of those four particular names I thought sounded best, because  they would eventually like to use all of them.

Hearing her say that made me laugh – first of all, because it tells me she’s on board for having at least eight children (which is totally awesome). And second, because the idea of planning a preferred order of gender-specific baby names without knowing the sexes of the babies receiving those names just struck me as funny.

So I told her I thought the order should depend entirely on whether a particular pregnancy resulted in a son or a daughter. So I simply told her: “I recommend you use your favorite boy name for the first boy, your favorite girl name for the first girl, and so one, adjusting as necessary if you don’t wind up with an even split.”

So, we’ll see how it goes and what they ultimately decide. I love all four names they’ve picked for the kids already born as well as the new four they’ve chosen for future babies, but I’m hoping maybe they’ll find several other names, too, that will keep them growing their family even beyond eight.

Benjamin used to tell me he wanted sixteen children. He even spent time as a teen designing a modified van that would allow him to tote a family of 18 in a single vehicle.

In fact, when he first started dating his wife, a family friend who was interested in Ben herself, tried to scare Mikayla off at a Christmas party both were attending by telling her how many kids Ben was hoping to have. “So good luck to whoever marries him, right?” the girl told Mik. But Mik was undeterred, and here they are a few years later, expecting their fifth and hoping for at least three more beyond that.

2. Boredom Busters

The second blessing I see to living in a big family is that it’s an antidote to boredom.

There is never a dull moment in a home filled with children, and there is always somebody to play with. Neighbors and schoolmates will come and go, but siblings are friends you can keep for life.

Now, when I was growing up, it was common for parents to turn their children lose in the neighborhood with instructions to come back home when the streetlights turned on at dusk. We had so much freedom….

Back when I was in grade school, I’d walk to and from school all week long, then on Saturday, I’d pack a lunch, hop on my bike, and leave home early in the morning to ride all by myself down to the park and hike along the creek hunting tadpoles or play on the jungle gym at the playground and pretend I was exploring a new planet or stranded on a desert island. Or I’d go to the neighborhood pool to swim, or climb as high up in a tree as I possibly could then perch in its branches and read a book.

I have one sister, and although she eventually married a man who LOVES to hike and takes her with him as much as he can, back when we were kids, she was not nearly as fond of exploring or scaling trees or wading through muddy creeks or catching frogs and fish and lizards as I was, so I usually did that kind of thing alone.

Which I suppose proves you don’t absolutely have to have a bunch of siblings to keep from ever feeling bored. Because I barely ever remember ever feeling bored in my whole life.

But, sadly, we are living in a much different era now than the one I grew up in. And if I let one of my kids spend a whole day at the park, alone and unsupervised, somebody might turn me in to CPS for child neglect or endangerment. Not that unsupervised play really is dangerous or negligent, but that we live in a society that seems to think so nowadays.

Fortunately, there is safety in numbers. And while I wouldn’t feel comfortable turning a young child loose to spend a Saturday afternoon hiking through woods and wading through streams, I have absolutely no problem allowing a group of my children to do exactly that. Which has allowed them to experience a lot of the same freedoms and adventures and opportunities to explore and grow and investigate that I so enjoyed as a child. And that makes my heart so happy.

When they were younger, they’d all hop on their bikes and ride to the neighborhood pool  to swim or to the bookstore to browse or to the gas station to get a treat or the craft store to buy supplies for some creative project they wanted to make or to something they called “the bamboo forest” to cut long poles for teepees. They still like to go to that bamboo forest, which was a dense grove of bamboo that grew near a creek in our old neighborhood, and earlier this summer they brought home two 10-foot poles to use as supports for a movie screen so we can host an outdoor movie for our family and friends this fall, once the Texas weather cools off a little.

Now that they’re older, they don’t just ride bikes around our town, but get in the car and drive further away to visit their grandmother and married siblings or – just last month – five of the unmarried kids – acutally four kids and one grandkids who is just a few months older than my youngest son – flew to California together to explore several national parks. They saved up their money and all bought their own plane tickets, took lots of pictures while they were there, and made wonderful memories together.

But all that adventuring started with a bike ride to the pool, which meant crossing one busy street by themselves.

Parents who helicopter and micro-manage and plan out every minute of their offspring’s childhood rob them of the growth that comes from doing some things – not everything, but some things – on their own. Each new adventure builds a little more confidence so that when the time comes, they aren’t afraid to tackle bigger escapades and more daunting challenges.

And having a  houseful of siblings gave everyone plenty of buddies to bring along on all those adventures – without forcing anybody who was more of a homebody (like my sister as a child) out of their own comfort zone prematurely.

3. Conversation Starters

Another benefit big families enjoy? Well, maybe not all of them enjoy this, but we normally did – was the knack our large crew had for starting conversations.

Big families invite all sorts of inquiries:

“Are all these kids yours?” “Don’t you know what causes that?” “Are you going to have any more?” “Do I need to buy you a TV?”

In our experience, most of the people asking such questions aren’t trying to be rude — they’re genuinely curious — so we answer as graciously and amicably as we possibly can. What a great way to meet people!

Our willingness to engage such folks and answer their questions has led to lots of newspaper articles – especially on homeschooling – and TV interviews… First for just our local papers and news stations, but those eventually led to us being interviewed by Al Jazeera’s America Tonight, and that led to the BBC contacting us about appearing in a documentary with a British actress  Miriam Margolyes – -which we did, and are still in contact with her all these years later. I’ll include links to both those interviews in today’s show notes. 

Even ABC’s 20/20 came out and filmed our family along with our good friends the Halberstadts (who now have 10 children, although I think they only had six or seven at the time of that interview), although to my knowledge, none of that footage has ever aired.

1 Peter 3:15 tells us,

“But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.”

I view having a large family as an opportunity to put this verse into practice, which is why I’m always happy to answer questions about why we’ve made the life decisions we’ve made – whether the person asking me the questions is standing behind me in line at the grocery store or eating at a table near ours in a restaurant or thrusting a microphone in my face with lights blaring and cameras rolling.

It’s all the same to me, and if you’re willing to ask the questions, I’m willing to answer them in the best, most God-honoring way I know how.

4. Group Discounts

Another benefit to big-family living is built-in group discounts.

A really big family can qualify for discounted group admission rates without even trying. And do we ever get our money’s worth on those annual zoo and museum memberships — especially the ones that offer reciprocal benefits at sister sites! Which often means free museum admission whenever we travel.

For years, I’ve planned potty breaks on road trips to coincide with museum or zoo or botanical garden visits, so that we’re stopping every 3-4 hours on the road at some reciprocal site that gives us free admission. (I talk about that more in my episode on family travel, which I’ll link in today’s shownotes, if you’re interested).

Also, whenever we travel en masse with extended family, I try to take advantage of as many kids eat free restaurants as I can. Even though most restaurants understandably limit free kids meals to one per paying adult, we usually have enough diners ages 13 and up in our group to get all the little ones fed for free.

I keep a couple of lists on my website (which I’ll link in the show notes, as well), one of local restaurants in Tyler, Texas, where we live and another of national chains like Freebirds and Luby’s where kids eat free on certain days of the week, and even though all my children have now aged out of those promotions, we still refer to it when the grandkids are in town or we have a reunion in another city.

5. A Deeper Admiration

The love and affection I felt for my husband as a spouse, great though it was, increased manifold when he became the father of my children. I so enjoyed watching him teach and train and interact with our preschoolers, adolescents, teens, and adult children, but there is something so specially endearing about the way he cuddles and cootchy-coos our babies, it makes me glad that for so long we had one in the house to draw that tenderness out of him.

He’s still that way with the grandchildren. They all adore him and attend to his voice the minute he walks into the room.

6. Household Help

A wise man once observed, “Many hands make light labor.” He was right. Of course, many hands make bigger messes to begin with, but when everyone pitches in to help clean up, household chores are knocked out in short order, and kids learn responsibility and other important life skills from an early age. It is fun to work side by side to accomplish daily tasks in short order, and then be able to play side by side making wonderful family memories.

Now, let me pause here to interject something that I think should be obvious, but evidently isn’t. I just want to acknowledge the fact that children create a lot more messes than they clean up, at least in the beginning.

But if you do your job and train them well, they will eventually get much better at cleaning up after themselves, which is a huge help to any homemaker.

I say this because whenever I’ve written about assigning children’s chores on my blog (and I’ll link a few of those posts in the show notes), I get messages from readers who tell me I’m robbing my kids of their childhoods or say things like, “Well, its obvious you only had a bunch of kids because you wanted free slave labor.” Which would be laughable if they weren’t 100% serious.

Which is utter nonsense. That would be like saying I only teach Algebra so I can copy off my students’ homework. Only a person who doesn’t understand math would ever suggest such a thing.

But I do understand math –in fact, I’ve always loved math — so (1) I can easily do all my own computations without cheating off anybody else’s work, thank you very much. And (2) I know that if I don’t do my job of teaching Algebra well, none of my students would be turning in homework worth copying, anyway.

The same is true for kids and chores. Only somebody who doesn’t have children or doesn’t understand what is involved in raising children would suggest any parent would have a whole houseful of kids so as to have extra help keeping said house nice and tidy. That’s ludicrous.

As I already mentioned, several of our single kids – including almost all the ones still living at home (Daniel had to work, so he didn’t make the trip, and neither did Isaac who’s doing an engineering internship in Longview  this summer, nor Rachel, who had one more month of serving as an au pair in Germany) – but the rest of them  spent a week in California hiking through National Parks.

And my husband and I were absolutely amazed at how clean the house stayed for the six days they were gone. We barely had any laundry. There were no dirty dishes piled in the sink – ever. We hardly messed anything up or had any housework to do while they were away. So that part was great.

However, they house was so quiet and lonely and still without all our kids in it, so we were overjoyed and relieved when they all made it back safely, despite the fact they brought a ton of dirty clothes home with them.

Because we really love our children, and we enjoy spending time with them.

Yes, they’re able to wash the dirty clothes themselves now and will often load the dishwasher and wipe down the countertops and straighten the house as well. And those are all nice things. But let’s not forget that many of those things would not need to be done at all if the kids weren’t living in our home in the first place. Proverbs 14:4 tells us, “Where no oxen are, the manger is clean, But much increase comes by the strength of the ox.”

And the same is true for kids. Where there are no kids, the house stays tidy, but much joy comes through the presence of children.

That’s because our lives are greatly enriched by our large family. Free slave labor? That’s not an efficient business model.
But if someone were to suggest we had a passel of kids because we enjoy having a houseful of amazing humans to do life with – to talk to and spend time with and make memories together and be challenged and stretched and sharpened by – that would be a far more accurate statement.

Wooo! I’m never going to get through all these benefits if I don’t pick up the pace. Next on my list, number seven, is…

7. No PMS

Between pregnancy and breastfeeding, you can literally go for years without having a monthly cycle. This is experience talking. And I’m not gonna lie — that was really, really nice.

Also, so many pregnancies allowed me to save up my eggs – a woman is born with a limited number – so I didn’t end up going through menopause – or deal with any of the side affects that normally accompany that change of life — until I was 57 years old. Which was also nice, in my opinion.

8. Pick Your Sport

Depending on the size of your family, you can field your own basketball team. Or volleyball. Or baseball. Or soccer. The physical exercise does a body good, and the games give ample opportunity to practice good sportsmanship among other players who are held to the same standard.

We’ve always had a very competitive family – but it’s a friendly sort of competition, where each child cheers on the others. Playing sports, or even board and card games – is a great way to work out character flaws. And when our kids were little, my husband hit on a great way to do just that. We’d play games every night after dinner – sometimes we’d grab a basketball to play knock-out in the driveway, sometimes we’d play zombie tag in the back yard, if it rained, we’d stay inside and play spoons or maybe bananagrams at the kitchen table or around-the-world ping pong in the garage.

But we’d play together consistently as soon as the kitchen chores were done, and if anybody got mad or upset or lost their temper or tried to cheat or showed any other sign of poor sportsmanship, he (or she) would get to be the “guest speaker” when we came back inside for storytime that evening.

We have a topical arrangement of Proverbs called Proverbs for Parenting, so we’d flip over to the appropriate section of the book and have that child read relevant verses on anger or impatience or greed or unkindness or whatever the present problem happened to be. Sometimes, even mom or dad had to take a turn as guest speaker, because ours was the most egregious behavior for that day’s game playing.

Another benefit of having a big family is…

9. Social Security

Contrary to what “Zero Population Growth” proponents will tell you, demographic declines are causing deeply troubling problems for societies worldwide, which is why many countries (Germany, Japan, and Austrailia, to name just a few) are now actually paying people to procreate. Big families are simply ahead of the curve.

And, in our case, with twelve children, my husband has always teased that when he and I get too old or feeble to care for ourselves, we can rotate houses and spend one month with each child so that nobody need be unduly burdened by our care.

Hopefully, it won’t ever come to that – or at least not for a long, long time — because the tenth benefit to having a big family is …

10. Youthful Appearance

While pregnancy keeps you looking young (think thick, glossy hair and glowing complexion), the children themselves keep you feeling young. It’s a wonderful thing to see the world through the eyes of a child, so filled with awe and excitement over each new discovery. Their energy, enthusiasm, and laughter are infectious.

And keeping up with them – whether it’s playing frisbee or taking bike rides or running foot races or hiking through National Parks — which is something our whole family normally does together. My husband’s work schedule just wouldn’t allow us to accompany them this summer. We’ve already made plans to take another 3-day hike in November together, though, and we’ll go tent camping with them for a week in October. But keeping up with the kids, in whatever form that takes, helps keep us on our toes and physically fit.

As for the youthful appearance, I know lots of large families where mom and dad look more like their children’s siblings than their parents. One of my husband’s favorite happened when our oldest daughter was in college and he drove to campus to change cars with her. Several of her friends saw him talking to her as they traded keys and came rushing over after he left to ask Bethany who the cute guy was. They thought Doug was her boyfriend, and were shocked to learn he was her dad because he “looked sooo young.”

Number 11 on my list of unexpected benefits to having lots of children is it’s…

11. One Less Excuse

Being open to pregnancy allows couples to enjoy intimacy as God intended. No frantic search for a misplaced diaphragm. No mad dash to the drugstore when you run out of condoms. No having to compensate for the fact that the Pill completely decimates a woman’s libido. Just blessed spontaneity (although regularly scheduling time for said spontaneity is highly recommended).

12. No Sour Milk

In a house full of kids (especially teenaged boys), food seldom lasts long enough to go bad. That’s a plus! You can buy in bulk without fear of spoilage.

They go through everything so fast! For several years when my oldest boys were teens, we’d buy 10 gallons of milk at a time, and it would only last us about 4 days. If it were just my husband and I drinking it, I don’t think we would finish a full gallon before it went bad.

Same is true for eggs and bread. Neither of those staples normally last long enough to go bad at our house.

As an added bonus, dinner conversation never drags with so many different personalities contributing to it.

Number thirteen, having lots of kids means you’ll eventually have…

13. Built-In Babysitters

Our kids absolutely love babies and are always clamoring to hold our newest addition. As a result, they can all handle infants very comfortably and capably — experience that definitely came in handy when they started having kids of their own.

Several of our daughters in law were youngest in their family and had little to no experience caring for infants, so having a husband who knew how to hold and swaddle and change and burp a baby was a huge help and reassuring comfort to them as new moms.

Now just to clarify, when I say “built-in babysitters,” I’m not talking about parents expecting their older children to raise the younger ones. …..This isn’t about shirking your job or pushing the hard work of parenting off on somebody else to do – especially not on older siblings who are still children themselves.

It has always been my responsibility and the responsibility of my husband to care for our babies – to feed them, provide for their needs, change their diapers, bathe them, teach them, train them, watch over them, make sure they learn right from wrong. That sort of thing.

But there’s a big difference between not leaning on your children to do your job and not allowing them to interact with the baby at all. You have to strike a balance.

I know it drove some of the grandmothers in our life crazy to watch us pass the baby around from person to person and child to child. The more babies we had, the more older siblings were at our elbows, clamoring for their turn to hold them.

And I really think that one reason our kids are still so close is that they were allowed to be involved with the babies from the get go – holding them, rocking them, entertaining them. One of our sons, Samuel, begged us to install a baby carrier on his bike so he could pump his little brother around the neighborhood.

Another son, Benjamin, would spend his own money buying little clothes for his baby brother, so they could match when we went out.

Another son, David, would whisk Abigail out of my arms nearly every Sunday morning just as church started – we always kept our babies with us in the service – and would sit with her in his lap. If she started to squirm, he would just look at her sideways, and she’d settle right back down. It was incredible. And good training for him, too, as he has three girls of his own now, plus one little boy, and they respond to his instruction just as consistently as his little sister did.

I never asked or expected him to do that. He just volunteered. And, oh my! When he left for dental school, Abby missed him so much! Whenever he’d come home to visit, he’d ask to be the one to wake her up in the morning, and she would just squeal with delight as soon as she saw him!

Whenever we did school, the older kids would each take a turn playing with the littles while I went over math lessons with school-aged siblings. They’d build blanket tents for them in the living room or feed them snacks or take them in the backyard to swing.

I felt a little conflicted about assigning them the “chore” of watching their younger siblings, even though it was for only half an hour each – but that was the easiest way I could think of to make sure everyone got their school work done and the littles weren’t neglected during the process.

But then one morning, I heard my boys arguing about something that let me know they didn’t view this half-hour of babysitting as a chore at all, but as a privilege.

On that day, Ben had claimed the 7:30-8:00 AM time slot but was precisely two minutes late handing the baby off to the next in line. So Samuel arbitrated, “That means I get her until 8:34, then David can have her until 9:06!”

As an added bonus, our big guys quickly discovered that nothing attracts attention from the opposite sex more effectively than toting around a new baby brother or sister (otherwise known as a “chick magnet”). So closer sibling relationships were not the only benefit they derived from developing great baby skills.

Another benefit to having a big family is that having a lot of children can help each child learn to put their…

14. Best Foot Forward

Not only do children help refine their parents’ character qualities, but they polish one another, as well. Proverbs 27:17 tells us,

“As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.”

And I’ve definitely seen that principle at work within the four walls of our own home.

Siblings have a way of knocking off one another’s rough edges in private, so they’re less likely to make fools of themselves in public. Corny jokes and lame pranks can be tested (then reworked as needed or altogether abandoned) at home, where the stakes are lower and the audience is more forgiving.

Homeschoolers are sometimes stereotyped as being socially awkward and unsocialized, but that has not been our experience. Most of the homeschoolers we know, including our own kids, are articulate and gregarious and able to carry on interesting conversations with a wide range of ages – not just their peers.

And I think that is largely due to the fact they get so much practice relating to young and old alike within our own family instead of spending eight hours a day sequestered in a classroom surrounded only by their age mates.

In fact, with so many children spread over so many years, a large family really forms its own micro-culture, which is especially handy if you’re interested in bucking societal norms.

For instance, if the parents of an only child were to decide, “You, know, I think eight or ten or twelve years old is much too young to own a phone. I don’t want my son or daughter to spend their whole childhood staring at a screen.” – and those are entirely reasonable concerns, by the way. But an only child will not really get the results you might be hoping to achieve by waiting to give her a phone or refusing to buy him a gaming console or by suggesting they spend more time playing outdoors.

Because now, instead of staring at her own screen, if all her little friends are still glued to their phones, she’ll wind up staring at the tops of their heads while they scroll at the lunch table or school playground or church youth group or wherever else the kids tend to congregate.

If you want to create a culture of screen-free kids who actually talk to one another and play outside with one another and go exploring together, you’ve either got to get a whole lot more parents on board, setting similar guidelines for their own kids to make it happen… or you’ve got to raise more kids yourself so that those siblings will all have built-in playmates.

That’s what I mean by micro-culture within a home. Your decisions about how your kids will or won’t spend their time, the amount of TV and YouTube and movie streaming you allow, the use (or non-use) of social media or video games, whether or not you eat refined sugar or participate in travel sports or go to slumber parties or have evening curfews or require household chores or participate in  or homeschool co-ops or attend church on Sundays – all those decisions and more affect the whole crew, and so they are all in it together and adapt accordingly – which is really a helpful thing and makes it so much easier to resist the pressure society tries to exert on parents to raise our children in a certain way.

If I decide I don’t want to spend all my time shuffling kids back and forth from one extra-curricular activity to another, guess what? I don’t have to. And they’ll still have things to do and people to play with.

Whereas, if the parent of an only child decides to avoid what Timothe Carney calls “the travel team trap” – he may be the only kids in the neighborhood on a given Saturday, because all his little friends who live nearby are at out-of-town games.

So that’s been a benefit of having a bunch of kids. Another big blessing is the fact that having a lot of children means you won’t have to deal with an empty nest as soon as you might otherwise. I love that fact!

15. Empty Nest Postponed

Also, when you are blessed with many children, you don’t have to give up all your favorite things about one stage of life to enjoy all the great things about the next. You’ll still have little ones at home to cuddle even after first ones move away.

That’s a happy distraction during what would otherwise be a bittersweet time. Also, studies show that the older a couple is when their last child leaves home, the more likely their marriage will survive the transition.

I wholeheartedly agree with what John wrote in his third epistle:

“I have no greater joy than this, to hear of my children walking in the truth.” – 3 John 1:4

It has been great watching our children grow up and mature into such amazing adults. They eventually become more like really good friends – They are all so thoughtful and kind and smart  and interesting and articulate and witty. I often feel compelled to take notes whenever I talk to them.

But I’m also grateful to still have a few children left at home, although even those few are perched on the edge of the nest ready to fledge and fly away. And it will be a little bittersweet when that happens, signaling the end, as it were, of such a wonderfully rich and rewarding season of my life.

16. Community Impact

The last benefit I want to mention is the potential impact a big family has on the people around them.

I don’t just mean pointing others to Jesus or loving your neighbors as you love yourself or trying to make the world a better place. Those are all things Christians can do whether they have a house filled with children or raise only one or two or never have kids at all. Our circumstances are all different, and we can purpose to glorify God no matter what those circumstances are – whether we get to spend our lives doing what we always dreamed of doing or our lives take a detour and we wind up with plan B or even C or D.

The impact I’m talking about here is specific to having a bunch of kids. It can actually serve to encourage and motivate other families to buck the current 1.6 accepted average of a “normal” sized family.

I’ve lost count of how many of my husband’s coworkers have confided in him over the years that they’d originally planned to stop at one or two or maybe three kids, but when they saw our family keep having baby after baby after baby (we were expecting our sixth when we first moved to town and doubled that number before it was all said and done) – it convinced them to keep going as well.

That phenomenon was something that showed up in the research Timothy Carney did for the book I mentioned at the beginning of this episode. Other than having deeply held religious convictions yourself that view children in a favorable light, one of the strongest predictors of larger family size is living in a community where larger families are common and children are valued.

The author visited Orthodox Jewish communities, Mormon neighborhoods, and cul de sacs populated primarily by large Catholic families and found that average family size even of non-religious couples shifted up when those families were surrounded by other large families.

When everyone you know has only one or two kids, choosing to raise five or six seems a little excessive. But when you know families with ten, eleven, twelve or even more children, having five or six feels much more acceptable —  almost as if you’re just getting started.

The post EP 92 – Unexpected Benefits of Big Family Living appeared first on Loving Life at Home.

Fantastic Four Takes a Step in the Right Direction

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My husband took me to see Fantastic Four: First Steps over the weekend, and I was pleasantly surprised by the film’s pro-natal messaging.

An avid comic book collector in childhood, Doug is still a big fan of the genre, so I’ve seen far more superhero flicks in our 38 years of marriage than my single self could’ve anticipated (though I’ve only reviewed a select few).

Several of the Marvel Universe’s recent offerings have been so problematic we haven’t bothered watching them at all, but the trailer for First Steps persuaded us to return to the theater. And I’m glad we went.

Never mind the fact the plot had more holes in it than Swiss Cheese. The Supers were starting a family! And — at least in my mind — all other story elements took a backseat to that one.

It’s interesting this movie should debut the same week newscasters announced the US general fertility rate has hit an all-time low, because First Steps hints at several pro-natal truths modern day movie goers would do well to remember.

7 Pro-Life Truths First Steps Got Right1. A baby is not a given.

The movie opens with Reed and Sue in a bathroom. He’s asking her questions about where to find something. She is obviously distracted, her facial expression showing a wide range of emotions: excitement, uncertainty, disbelief, and perhaps even a hesitancy to get her hopes up.

She finally joins her husband at the sink and slides a positive pregnancy test over to him, which he stares at in amazement and wonder. In the conversation that ensues, we learn they’d tried for a baby for some time before finally giving up.

Infertility is a theme to which many movie-going couples will be able to relate. The fact is, just wanting a baby is no guarantee you’ll be able to have a baby — and certainly not on some strict time schedule of your own making.

That’s one reason I don’t even like the term “birth control.” Because the very wording suggests birth is something humans can control — as if we could conceive a baby just as easily as we can prevent one — when that is indisputably not the case.

Photo Credit: Marvel Studios2. A baby is a blessing.

The two discuss the fact they’d made peace with the idea of remaining childless. But Reed was quick to note, “This is better.” And Sue immediately smiles in agreement. “Yes. This is better.”

This was probably my favorite quote in the entire movie. As a Christian, I understand that “The mind of a man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.” (Proverbs 16:9)

And I know from experience that the most disruptive surprises the LORD sends our way often herald His biggest blessings. So I’m frequently forced to admit, “This isn’t what I planned, but it is better.”

The Bible tells us God’s thoughts are higher than our thoughts and His ways are higher than our ways. (Isaiah 55:9) And that is true. His plan for our life is perfect — as is His timing in bringing that plan to fruition.

Photo Credit: Marvel Studios3. An unborn baby is still a baby.

Thanks to Sue’s ability to make herself invisible, we got a clear picture of her developing baby inside the womb, underscoring the fact that a baby in utero is still very much a baby.

Incidentally, the “unborn” baby we glimpse in this scene looks like a fully developed two-month-old.

Photo Credit: Marvel Studios4. A baby’s birth is worthy of wonder.

The birth of any baby is a marvelous, miraculous event. I don’t want to give any spoilers, so let me just say that the birth scene in Fantastic Four was appropriately awe-inspiring without being too graphic.

I was impressed — but also grateful I never had to give birth under similar circumstances.

Photo Credit: Marvel Studios5. A baby’s life is worth protecting.

Babies are vulnerable and needy and completely dependent upon the care of others for survival.

You can tell a lot about a society by how it treats its weakest members. In times of crisis, a false dichotomy will often present itself — as if two and only two solutions exist to a particular problem, and neither is optimal.

Thankfully, the superheroes in Fantastic Four didn’t buy this bleak narrative. They continued to brainstorm, kept thinking outside the box, kept searching for an answer that valued and protected all life rather than pitting one group against the other.

I appreciate Sue’s explanation to a hostile crowd as to why they did this: ““That’s what family is. It’s about fighting for something bigger than yourself. Connecting to something bigger than yourself.”

Photo Credit: Marvel Studios6. A baby is a big responsibility.

Having a baby involves so much more than giving birth. I means loving, nurturing, teaching, training, watching over your little one, and doing all you can to keep him safe.

Anybody who threatens to interfere with that process risks provoking a mama bear response. This is exactly what viewers witnessed in Sue. She was fierce, and I suspect every mother in the theater could relate to her turmoil, could feel her pain, and was cheering her on.

Photo Credit: Marvel Studios7. A baby needs supernatural protection.

In the end, it took every ounce of supernatural strength Sue had to achieve her goal.

But for the rest of us? We don’t possess any supernatural powers to make motherhood easier — but, praise be to God, we can tap into such strength if we know the LORD.

Photo Credit: Marvel Studios

God can bless and multiply our efforts to watch over our babies and can keep His protective hand over them at all times, both when we are physically present and when we are absent. Besides, as Psalm 127:1 explains, “Unless the LORD builds the house, they labor in vain who build it; unless the LORD guards the city, the watchman stays awake in vain.”

It’s a comfort to know that I don’t have to be a superhero to build a home or form a family or guard the lives of the children the LORD has entrusted to my care. I only need the Him.

“And my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.”

Philippians 4:19

God has promised to provide all wisdom, love, strength, patience, sustaining grace, and everything else I require in my role as a mother. No superpowers necessary.

Photo Credit: Marvel Studios

With all that going for it, it seems fitting for First Steps to be my favorite by far in the Fantastic Four Franchise. Do you feel the same way? Then leave a comment or follow along.

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The Word of God is full of wisdom for every facet of life, but we’ve found it especially helpful in building a happy, healthy marriage. For a fascinating look at how science has confirmed the superiority of God’s design, check out my book Love Your Husband/Love Yourself.

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The post Fantastic Four Takes a Step in the Right Direction appeared first on Loving Life at Home.

EP 91: Changing Course When You’ve Done It All Wrong

A listener wrote me recently to say she’s made more mistakes that she can count. She wanted advice as to how she could get back on track. “How do I change course when I’ve done everything wrong?”

She had lots of other great questions, too, so in Episode 91, I’m tackling all of them. I hope you’ll listen in and be blessed.

Show NotesVERSES CITED: James 1:5 – “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all freely and without reproach, and it will be given to him.”Deuteronomy 30:19 – “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have placed before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants.”Luke 11:24-26 –  “When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and not finding any, it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’  And when it comes, it finds it swept and put in order. Then it goes and takes along seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they go in and live there; and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first.”Proverbs 14:1 – “The wise woman builds her house, But the foolish tears it down with her own hands.”Matthew 12:36 – “But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment.”Ephesians 3:20 – “God is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us.”John 10:10 – “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come that they may have life and have it more abundantly.”Philippians 2:3-4 – “Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.”Galatians 5:22 – “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”Philippians 4:8 – “Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.”Philippians 4:6 – “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.”Isaiah 41:10 – “Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be afraid, for I am your God. I will strengthen you; I will surely help you; I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.”Matthew 6:25 – “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?”RELATED LINKS:Love Your Husband/ Love Yourself (my marriage book)EP 84: How Not to Diet (But Still Lose Weight)Help! My Kids Won’t Stop FightingExtend Your Reach (Ideas for Limiting Your Child’s Screen Time)50 Great Chapter Books to Read Aloud to Your Family50 Picture Books Every Child Should ReadEncouraging Creativity in Young ChildrenAge-Appropriate Chores for ChildrenEP 28: Bible Memory Tips and TricksVerses to Read When Battling Big EmotionsPraying for Your Children from Head to ToePraying for Your Husband from Head to Toe31 Bible Verses to Pray over Your Children31 Bible Verses to Pray over Your HusbandPraying Boldly for YourselfSTAY CONNECTED:Subscribe: Flanders Family Freebies -weekly themed link lists of free resourcesInstagram: @flanders_family – follow for more great contentFamily Blog: Flanders Family Home Life – parenting tips, homeschool help, lprintablesMarriage Blog: Loving Life at Home– encouragement for wives, mothers, believers How to Change Course When You’ve Done Everything Wrongcomplete transcript from episode 91

Hello, friend.

Welcome to Episode 91 of Loving Life at Home. This week, I want to talk about some steps you can take when you wake up one day and realize you made a wrong turn somewhere in your past and are feeling lost and unsure of how to get to the place you’d originally intended to go – or to start living the life you’d originally hoped to have.

I got a message recently – actually, I think it was several months ago, but it resurfaced in my inbox this week – written by a young mother who is raising a large family of many young children. I won’t share her name or the specifics of her situation, but I do want to read you her letter and respond to it here, because it could have easily been written by any number of my listeners.

Best I can tell, with the exception of my own, sweet, 87-year-old mother who faithfully tunes into every episode I post, most of my regular listeners ARE mothers with children still at home.

Many of them are caring for very young children, others have teens, and some are on the verge of having an empty nest and navigating what their lives are going to look like once their last child leaves home.

But I suspect almost all of us can relate to some of the sentiments expressed in this particular young woman’s letter. She writes:

Hi Jennifer!

You must have a barrage of messages on social media, but that isn’t going to stop me from trying to connect .

I am in a season where I have matured in understanding that God is my source and I don’t need all the things I thought I did, and it is a beautiful thing to love the ones God had given me to love in the simple ordinary ways I do.

But that said, I feel like I am GREATLY missing seasoned mamas in my life that are around my mother’s age are like-minded and wise and able to encourage me in the life I am currently desiring to live.

I want to live surrendered to God, in unity with my husband, selfless love for my babies, surrendered fertility for the future, wisdom and creativity for homeschooling, and organizing time to write, as I have wanted to be an author from a young age.

That being said, [my entire motherhood journey is] chock full of mistakes that didn’t lay a great foundation for a growing family. My husband and I are committed to each other, but often at odds and differing on everything.

I know I can’t compare our marriage to others because it’s the story God is writing for us. I guess I just feel discouraged because, well, how do you move forward when so MANY things need changing?

How do you create a culture of honor when you have a horrible habit of being short-tempered?

How do you regain the trust and attention of your children when you have parented poorly?

How do I redirect their attention to reading and productivity when I have used the television to cope with all the chaos and am not sure how to NOT use it for very long?

I don’t want to overdramatize, but I sometimes feel grief when I see people in love and thriving as a team together, [while my husband and I] are not on the same page.

I used to say I wanted a cheaper by the dozen family. lol That desire kinda waned by the time I got married, but now I’m thinking again, “What if God has so much more [in store for us, but], in our strife and selfishness, we [completely] miss it?”

I don’t know. The Holy Spirit has so kindly comforted me and spoken to me and highlighted scripture to me, and that’s the first place I can go. But as a seasoned mama that has found JOY in motherhood, marriage, and the things you love to do besides, I sure would appreciate your encouragement.

My mother is kind, loves the Lord, and has spoken words of wisdom, but…her opinions and viewpoints don’t really align with my season of life or beliefs at times. If I could just hug you and maybe cry a little, I would. I think my heart still wants a close mama relationship with someone older even though I now have the honor of being that mama to my children.

If you even read this message, thank you for listening to my heart’s cry. And thank you for shining your light as you mother “…as unto the Lord.”

Perhaps a simple addendum to the above outpouring would be, how have you grown as a mother and matured [in your] 35+ years of motherhood?

Well, as much as I would love to hug this sweet mama’s neck and offer her a hanky to wipe away her tears, I can’t do that. All I can do is pray for her and offer some words of encouragement via email, blog post, or podcast – so that is what I’ll attempt to do today.

First off, Mama, I want to encourage you to keep writing as the LORD gives you opportunity to do so, because you’ve done an excellent job of expressing the frustration and anxiety that many mothers feel.

They earnestly want to be excellent wives, mothers, and homemakers who are good stewards of all the various responsibilities God has entrusted to them:

They want to be a loving and devoted wife to their husband – a close friend, companion, helpmeet, and teammate to the man they married. ,They want to joyful mothers to their children. They want to be patient and nurturing and help their kids grow into capable, intelligent, and emotionally stable adults.And they want to be good housekeepers. They want to create and maintain a beautiful, orderly, warm, and welcoming home that is a haven of rest to the family members who share it and a beacon of hope to its guests.

However, they often feel lonely in these pursuits. They lack good role models who are successfully pursuing the same goals. They may not even have close friends who share similar visions. They are subjected to a constant stream of conflicting parenting advice that suggests their kids will be hopelessly jacked up unless they get onboard with the latest child-training trend — trends that are often promoted by charismatic influencers who don’t necessarily have any kind of good-fruit-bearing track record but are merely reacting against whatever past failed parenting trend was popular and/or the method their own parents used.

Which is sad, because in general, the present generation of children seem to be far less happy, physically and emotionally healthy, confident, well-adjusted, and resilient, than the children of all those backward parents of the past who did everything wrong according to the current, enlightened standard. But that’s a different episode for a different day.

Today, I want to talk about how to change your ways when you feel like you’ve done everything wrong and you’ve lost confidence in the modern parenting mindset’s ability to deliver the kind of joyful, purpose-driven, soul-nourishing, calm and peaceful homelife you crave.

Well, the mom who wrote this letter is already off to a good start – because she recognizes her profound need for God to effect the change she wants to see in her life. So let’s start there, and tackle her message question by question and point by point:

1. How do you move forward when so MANY things need changing?

You start by praying for wisdom. James 1:5 tells us, “If any of you lack wisdom, let him [or her] ask of God, who gives to all freely and without reproach, and it will be given to him [or her – this promise isn’t just for men, but for all believers, male and female].

So pray for wisdom in deciding what to tackle first. The wonderful thing about your situation is that, when so many things are off, then whatever areas you choose to work on have the potential – by God’s grace — to change for the better in ways you’ll be able to see and appreciate fairly soon.

That’s the beauty of finally reaching a place where you recognize big changes are necessary and warranted. It’s kind of like when I found out I had breast cancer last year. It served as a wonderful wake up call for me.

I’d known for years that I really needed to make some lifestyle changes for the sake of my health – you know, I needed to eat better, move more, stop burning the candle at both ends. And I’d give it a half-hearted attempt every now and then, where I count calories every single day and lose 20-30 pounds by being super vigilant.

But I wasn’t really changing WHAT I ate… only HOW MUCH. And as soon as I stopped giving that effort my full attention, my weight would start to creep back up.

It wasn’t until things reached the critical mass that resulted in my cancer diagnosis that I got serious about making sweeping changes to my life and health habits. And once I adopted those new and different habits – like cutting out all refined sugar, all refined flour, all ultra-processed food and eating a mostly raw, whole, plant-based diet instead, plus consistently walking a mile or more every single day and fasting once a month – that my excess weight fell off and stayed off — almost effortlessly in the sense that I didn’t have to count calories or track steps or spend hours at the gym. I lost around 60 lbs and have kept it off for several months now, and I feel like I have a new lease on life. It’s amazing.

And it’s God who’s given me the strength and will power to stick with it. Every time I feel tempted to eat something I know I shouldn’t or to skip my daily walk, I am reminded of Deuteronomy 30:19, where Moses charges the children of Israel: “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have placed before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants.”

You could memorize that same verse and use it to motivate you to stick with the changes you need to make. You deeply desire life for your family. You want God to pour out his richest blessings on your home and for your relationships to thrive… so purpose to make changes that will facilitate the process and stick with them.

Which brings us to the second question:

2. How do you create a culture of honor when you have a horrible habit of being short-tempered?

First, you repent. Acknowledge your anger problem to God, confess that sin, ask for and accept the forgiveness He freely offers, pray for His help in overcoming the struggle and establishing better habits, then address the problem with the family members most affected by your short temper. That may be all of them. Or maybe you’re just inclined to butt heads with one or two. However, if you are blowing your fuse in front of the children – then, guess what? They’re affected, even if they aren’t the one you are yelling at.

So you may need to sit everyone down for a family discussion and let them know that God has convicted you of your bed attitude and that you are going to try to do better, but would like their help, too.

It’s important that you don’t just try to erase the bad habit.

Jesus explains the reasoning behind this in Luke 11:24-26. “When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and not finding any, it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’  And when it comes, it finds it swept and put in order. Then it goes and takes along seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they go in and live there; and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first.”

That’s why, if you only make it your goal to STOP losing your temper, you’re going to continue to struggle. You’ve got to replace the bad habit with a good habit. Otherwise, there will just be a big void that the anger will eventually rush back in to fill.

SO replace the harsh, angry, demeaning words with kind, loving, encouraging words. It isn’t enough to just NOT lose your temper. You’ve got to train yourself to do the opposite.

Proverbs 14:1 tells us, “The wise woman builds her house, But the foolish tears it down with her own hands.”

See how the wise woman is actively doing the opposite of the foolish woman? The verse doesn’t say the foolish woman tears down her house but the wise leaves it alone. No.

So let your family know you’re turning over a new leaf and ask them to give you a gentle reminder every time they see or hear you beginning to slip back into your old ways.

There was a time in my life when I fell into a bad habit of saying, “Shoot” or “Darn it” when I got frustrated with something. I know a lot of people may not consider that particular expletive a big deal, but when I was little, my parents drilled home the idea that we will all have to give an account on the day of judgement for every idle word we speak (as Jesus warned us in Matthew 12:36) – and I got in trouble for even saying gosh or golly gee when I was little. So my conscience definitely pricked me every time I let those minced curses cross my lips as a young wife and mother.

So, I apologized to my children for the poor example I was setting and enlisted their help. I told them that if any of them caught me saying shoot or darn it, and brought it to my attention, I would give them $1. I’m pretty sure it cost me less than $20 – possibly less than $10 – to completely break the habit.

I guess, depending on the kids, you might need to specify that they can’t intentionally try to provoke you in an effort to earn more money, but mine were all young enough at the time that such a thought didn’t seem to occur to any of them.

Now, in the interest of transparency – I must admit I haven’t kept a perfect track record. Several months ago, I was lying on my back with my head under our kitchen sink trying to fix a jammed garbage disposal and I let a frustrated “darn it” slip after my third or fourth attempt at resetting it failed.

I thought I was alone in the kitchen until one of my adult sons piped up, “I heard that! Does that mean I get a dollar.”

I honestly don’t remember whether I gave him one or not after I finished the repair, but his gentle reminder was much appreciated and prompted me to do what I should’ve done at the outset, which was to pray, “LORD, please help me fix this garbage disposal.” Which is exactly what He did.

3. How do you regain the trust and attention of your children when you have parented poorly?

Here again, you apologize, ask their forgiveness, tell them you want to do better, and brainstorm with them what “better” should look like. Then rinse and repeat.

Every single time you fall short, confess it again and ask for forgiveness, both from God and from your kids, and walk through the preferred response so that you’ll get practice and will simultaneously establish new neural pathways doing things the way they should be done.

We did this with our little ones all the time. One snatches a toy away from the other. We have them practice apologizing, then asking nicely for a turn playing with the toy when the other is finished with it. Or when the timer goes off, if the sibling is inclined to hogging that particular plaything.

So you can run through the same kind of training session for your own sake. I’m so sorry I was impatient with you, son. Let me try that again. And rehearse a better way to handle whatever triggered the irritated tone in your voice.

Of course, sometimes parents lose it because they’ve trained their kids not to listen until they’ve said something 15 times then finally blow up. The behavior you need to repent of in that case is not only blowing up after the 15th time, but not following through with reasonable consequences the first 14 times your child ignored your instruction.

So part of the retraining will be letting your children know what is expected of them and then being consistent in follow through from the very beginning. If your homelife has been operating on the 15 reminders before obedience is required rule for years, you will probably need to extend some grace as you transition to doing things differently.

By this, I don’t mean give 5 or 10 reminders instead of the full 15. But rather, come along beside your little ones to help them obey immediately. If you ask them to pick up the toys, stay in the room and help, or hold the basket for them to toss the blocks in. Make it a game. Help them succeed. You will be creating new neural pathways for each of you, and eventually, if you stick with it and remain consistent, then the new habit will be even more deeply ingrained than the old habits.

4. How do I redirect their attention to reading and productivity when I have used the television to cope with all the chaos and am not sure how to NOT use it for very long?

When I was growing up and my parents decided my sister and I were spending too much time watching TV, my mom told us we could only pick one 30-minute program a piece per day. But we were allowed to watch each other’s program, too, if we picked different ones, which of course we did. Since there was only 2 of us, that meant an hour of TV a day.

But now parents have to contend not only with broadcast programing, but cable, YouTube, social media, smart phones, tablets, and computers, so it becomes even more of a challenge to give our kids a screen-free childhood – or at least a childhood that is not dominated by digital media.

I know I’ve told the story before, but my husband and I got a television as a wedding gift and watched so much of it the first couple of years of our marriage that the thing actually blew up – presumably from overuse. We couldn’t afford a replacement, so we went without, and were so thrilled with the positive changes doing so had on our overall happiness, life satisfaction, and time management that we never got another one.

Well, we did eventually get a TV set, but we never programmed any channels or paid for cable or satellite, so you would only see a plain blue screen if you tried to turn it on. We did use that to watch videos for many years, but we found that even that was too easy to rely on for babysitting, so we ditched that one too, and now we just have the projector my husband bought for me to use when I speak at events, so when we want to watch a movie, we drag that out, take the artwork off the wall, push the furniture aside and project the movie on that large, resultant blank space.

It’s a huge hassle, so we don’t do it very often – which is perfect. So, if you don’t want to be tempted to watch too much television, I’d recommend making it as inconvenient as possible to indulge.

Of course, setting reasonable limits on screentime is much more of a challenge these days when almost everybody carries a digital device in their pocket 24/7 – and I’ll try to do a dedicated podcast on that topic soon, but this mother is talking about very young children (all under 10), so she still has almost total control over when and how much and what kind of programs they watch.

Hers is not a question of teaching them to establish their own limits and learn to exercise self-control in their own decisions regarding media usage, but to quit using TV as a babysitter and dial substantially back on the amount of programing she allows without triggering a bunch of meltdowns – in her children or herself.

She’d rather see them reading books or playing outside or doing craft projects than staring at a screen. And for little ones, and for mamas who’ve been letting convenience dictate their parenting decisions instead of thinking through what is best for all the family members involved, she may need to just go cold turkey rather than trying to wean them off screens gradually.

Put all the TVs and tablets in the attic for a few weeks, or lock them in the closet, while providing tempting alternatives. Read some good books as a family. Set up a craft station in the kitchen. Take them to the park or the playground or the neighborhood pool.

It doesn’t have to be forever. Just give those better habits a fighting chance to be formed by removing the biggest distraction. Read a fun book that has a good movie version, like Where the Red Fern Grows, Charlotte’s Web, Wonder, or The Chronicles of Narnia. Once you finish the book, drag the TV out of the closet and watch (and discuss) the movie together. Then lock the TV back up until you finish the next book on your to-read list. Let the kids color or work on their craft projects or build with Lego while you read.

Train the children to help with the chores. I have a great little chart of age-appropriate chores I’ll link in the show notes if you need ideas for ways your littlest ones can help. That way, they won’t be actively making new messes while you’re cleaning up old ones, and the chaos will be taken care of in the process of their learning valuable life skills.

This mama’s next question begins with a statement. She writes…

5. I used to say I wanted a cheaper by the dozen family. LOL That desire kinda waned by the time I got married, but now I’m thinking again, “What if God has so much more [in store for us, but], in our strife and selfishness, we [completely] miss it?”

Well, I can assure you that probably IS the case – not just for you but for all of us. Paul tells us in Ephesians 3:20 that God “is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us….

And Jesus said, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come that they may have life and have it more abundantly.”

That is Christ’s express plan and desire – to give us a more abundant life than we could every imagine. But Satan works overtime to thwart God’s ideal in every way he can. He steals our joy, he steals our peace, he kills our desire to fulfill our divine purpose of bringing glory to God and enjoying Him forever, he demolishes our faith and destroys effectiveness by continually distracting us from the higher calling God has placed on our lives.

And, yes, I think strife and selfishness are two of the devil’s most frequently utilized tools for getting us to settle for less than God’s very best for our life. So do all you can to battle against those spiritual forces of darkness – and against your own flesh – by following instead the selfless example Jesus set for us in the way you love your family sacrificially, unconditionally, and whole-heartedly.

Then, finally, that sweet mama who wrote to me finished her letter with this appeal:

6. [In that you are] a seasoned mama who has found JOY in motherhood, marriage, and the things you love to do besides, I sure would appreciate your encouragement…. Perhaps a simple addendum to the above outpouring would be, how have you grown as a mother and matured [in your] 35+ years of motherhood?

Well, that’s a great question and one we should all ponder from time to time. Rather than comparing ourselves others who are all at different stages on life’s journey, it is far more instructive, if any comparisons are to be made at all, to draw them between our younger selves and present selves and to reflect on how far God has brought us from where we began.

God’s goal for all of us is to conform us to the blessed image of His dear Son, that we might have in us the mind that was in Christ Jesus (as Philippians 2 explains) and that we might accurately reflect His character qualities to a watching world, and that our lives might produce a bumper crop of spiritual fruit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

I’m happy to report that, by God’s sustaining grace, I’ve grown in all these areas during my 37 years of mothering.

The Patience of Job

For instance, people often commend me on my patience. And they usually follow that compliment up with some self-deprecating statement about how they could never be so patient.

Yet that simply isn’t true. God equips each of us with everything we need to do what He calls us to.

But He didn’t just dump a truckload of patience in my lap because He knew I’d need it as the mother of 12. No. That’s not how He operates. Instead, He provided countless opportunities for me to grow into a more patient person while I was mothering all those little ones.

It’s not that some people are naturally patient and others aren’t. In fact, I can remember feeling decidedly impatient in my early years of mothering. I was especially prone to feeling a rush of impatience – along with annoyance and frustration and desperation – at about 1 or 2 o’clock in the morning when a hungry or sick or colicky baby woke me up for the umpteenth time since I crawled into bed exhausted a few hours earlier.

But — again by God’s grace — I spent 25 years either pregnant or breastfeeding or both, and – I’m not even sure when it started to happen, much less when the transformation was complete – but somewhere along the way, the LORD completely changed my heart and perspective. I stopped seeing my responsibilities as a burden (“I have to drag myself out of bed to tend to my cranky baby”) and started viewing them as a privilege (“I get to take care of this precious child.”)

And I can honestly say those feelings of exasperation over being woken up from a sound sleep morphed into a joyful excitement at another opportunity to spend one-on-one time with the youngest member of our family during the wee hours of the night when the house was so quiet and still and everybody else was sound asleep.

I can still picture the soft moonbeams on my baby’s velvet skin as I sat next to the bedroom window in the dead of night, nursing and praying and breathing in that sweet baby scent and admiring those chubby cheeks and tiny fingers and downy lashes. It’s been 13 years since I weaned my youngest, and I still miss those sweet moments and would happily embrace them again if God saw fit to bless me with another little one.

I know that probably sounds sickeningly saccharine to a lot of people, but to me it is a persuasive testimony to the transformative power of God to mold and reshape us when we gladly submit to His work in our lives. Because I know what I was, and I know what I am now, and the difference is like night and day.

Mind you, it’s not that I still feel impatience welling up inside me but have merely grown better at masking it. It’s that those impatient feelings have all but completely disappeared, so that battling against them is no longer a daily necessity.

But that’s enough about patience, lest I try yours by dwelling on that topic any longer.

No Worries

Other ways I’ve grown in 37 years of parenting: I don’t worry as much anymore.

For a short season when I had only two or three children, I was really fearful of the future in respect to them. That situation was doubtlessly exacerbated by the fact our oldest son was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes before his second birthday, and of course, diabetes can cause all sorts of health problems down the line. But worrying about them ahead of time certainly isn’t going to help do anything but destroy your joy in the moment.  So I’m thankful God helped me overcome that tendency.

I’ve already mentioned the fact that I watched a lot more TV as a new mom than I do now. And I think there’s a connection to how much TV I was watching and how prone I was to feeling weighed down with worry and anxiety. That was especially true when I spent the bulk of my time watching the news or daily talk shows – because both those things tend to focus our attention on bad stuff: wildly dysfunctional relationships in the case of talk shows and heinous crimes, horrific tragedies, and catastrophic events in the case of the evening news.

But scripture tells us to focus our attention – not on the doom and gloom – but on the things that are “true, noble, right, pure, lovely, and admirable…. if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”

So getting rid of the TV went a long way toward curing me of my anxiety. That and my own dear mother’s admonishment that, in giving into worry, I was actively disobeying a direct command of scripture, which tells us repeatedly NOT to worry, not to be anxious, but to give all our burdens to God and trust Him to take care of us as He has so faithfully done in the past and has explicitly promised to do.

To anybody still struggling with anxiety, I’d recommend you stop consuming any kind of media that may be contributing or capitalizing on those feelings and instead memorize and meditate on several of those verses my mom directed me to. Verses like

Philippians 4:6 – “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.”Isaiah 41:10 – “Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be afraid, for I am your God. I will strengthen you; I will surely help you; I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.”Matthew 6:25 – “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?”

I’ll link a couple of episodes in the show notes that expound on this idea – one that is chock full of Bible memory tips and another that discusses specific verses that don’t only combat worry and anxiety, but all manner of defeating thoughts and attitudes, including anger, envy, pride, discontentment, bitterness, etc.

But while we’re still on the topic of anxiety, I want to make it clear: It’s not that I don’t understand that bad things can and may still happen, but I no longer borrow tomorrow’s troubles, because I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that even if something horrible happens, God will not leave or forsake me but will remain by my side every step of the way through whatever trial I must face, giving me divine encouragement, comfort, and strength.

And that is enough to help me rest easy every single night. I do not, as a rule, toss and turn with worry or anxiety or fear. I’m out like a light as soon as my head hits the pillow. And while that has been the case for the vast majority of my mothering years, it was not the situation in the very beginning. Which I hope will give hope to anybody currently struggling with those emotions.

The World Doesn’t Revolve around Me

Another way I’ve grown as a mother in the past 37 years? Less inclined to think that the world does or should revolve around me. I was extremely selfish when I first got married. My husband and I are both firstborns, so selfishness came naturally to both of us. But while I was keenly aware of HIS selfishness during that first year or two of marriage, it took a bit longer to recognize my own selfishness.

But God used marriage and motherhood as a double lens to bring my ugly selfishness into clearer focus and to magnify it to a level that I could no longer ignore. The Holy Spirit used each successive child to chip away at that selfishness even further. The fact that I still struggle with this besetting sin at all after so many years of marriage and so many children should serve as an indication of just how terribly selfish I was to begin with.

I think both marriage and motherhood can be a sanctifying process when we fully submit to the work God wants to do in us through those facets of our life.

My children certainly benefited from my learning to “consider others as more important than [myself]” and to “not merely look out for [my] own personal interests, but also for the interest of others,” as Philippians 2 commands us to do. But God didn’t use motherhood to teach me that lesson as much as he used my marriage. I know I’ve probably told you this story before, but it is so key to the present discussion that I’m going to repeat it here:

When we got married, I got pregnant two weeks into our honeymoon, and I was so exhausted that all I could think of every single day was getting back in bed at the end of the day. And my husband was thinking the same thing, but his idea of what was going to happen once we got back to bed was vastly different from mine.

And I was just so offended that he expected me to still have sex with him when I was so overwhelmingly fatigued from being pregnant that I really thought that he was the one that was in the wrong. But then God majorly began to convict my heart.

I read 1 Corinthians 7 where it talks about a wife not having authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. And that we are to stop depriving one another, stop denying one another in this area of physical intimacy.

And I realized I’m the one that is being selfish here.

And once I made the commitment in my mind — I didn’t tell my husband this because I wanted to be able to back out if I changed my mind, but thank God I didn’t — I decided that I would just stop dreaming up excuses to avoid sex with him and would start cooperating so that when he was in the mood, I would respond. And that was one of the very best decisions I have ever made in my life. That (and the fact that we pray before we have sex) has done so much to keep our marriage solid and strong.

And I would highly recommend that to anybody — that you would let the spouse with the strongest sex drive set the standard as far as frequency goes for sex within marriage. That one little decision has caused us to reap so many wonderful benefits, not just in our marriage, but in our health and our mental clarity and emotional stability.

I ended up doing a lot of research about it and marveling over God’s design for oneness in marriage, for physical oneness in marriage. And a lot of that research I published in my first book, Love Your Husband, Love Yourself. So if you’re interested in learning more about it and changing your view from this is an obligation I would rather avoid to this is a wonderful privilege and what a great design and gift God gave us in this realm of physical intimacy in marriage, then I would highly recommend that you read that book. And I’ll link it in the show notes today.

You Don’t Have to Say Everything You Think

Another way I’ve grown: I’m less prone to think I need to voice an opinion on every situation…. I’ve learned to pray more and to weigh my words before speaking. I try to give less unsolicited advice these days. That’s probably a function of the fact that most of my children are grown now, and so my role in their lives has changed. And I’ve learned, after 38 years of marriage, that my husband is much less likely to welcome or heed my advice when I deliver it in a reactionary way or in a nagging tone than if I prayerfully and privately broach a topic of concern in a calm, quiet, non-accusatory manner.

That’s because, whether we’re talking to spouses or children, we will do a much better job keeping lines of communication open if we listen closely and ask well-chosen questions rather than reacting in an impatient, explosive, or  …..what the other person “should” have done in a sticky situation.

Eyes to See God’s Outpouring of Grace

I’m also much more inclined to see God’s gracious hand at work in everything and less inclined to feel like I’ve done anything to merit His bountiful and undeserved blessings. Or to take pride in the fact He has been merciful to me.

Not so much that I consciously thought, “I earned this or deserve this or brought this about by my own effort,” but God has a way of revealing to us the hidden thoughts and assumptions of our hearts, and that is what He did for me when my daughter Rebekah was born.

She was #7, and up until that point, by the grace of God, I’d been able to breastfeed all my babies for a long time. Most of them nursed until they were a year and a half to two years old. Which was such a blessing. Breastfeeding provides excellent nutrition, secondary immunity, it’s convenient, it’s inexpensive, you don’t have to leave a warm bed and go down to the cold kitchen to heat a bottle before you can feed your baby in the middle of the night. I loved it.

But in my heart of hearts, I mistakenly assumed that any mother could breastfeed if she really wanted to. In my mind, if a mom tried and failed, it probably just meant nursing wasn’t that important to her. Or she lived in an era when breastfeeding wasn’t popular or encouraged. Or before we had LeLeche Leage or hospitals provided good breastfeeding consultants.

But then… I had Rebekah, and I really, really wanted to breastfeed her, but it was a struggle from the get-go. My milk supply was insufficient, she never quite learned to latch properly, I pumped and pumped and kept trying and trying to feed her, but she never seemed satisfied or content.

Long story short, when — at 8 weeks – she still hadn’t gained back up to her birth weight, her doctor told me she was failing to thrive, which is very serious, and advised I start supplementing with formula. Which I did. And once she had her first bottle, I could never coax her to even try nursing again. The poor thing was starving, and all my effort and desire and brave attempts at breastfeeding were not enough to guarantee success in that arena.

Which made me realize (1) how utterly dependent I was – and am – on the grace of God to do anything in life… and (2) what an unmerited blessing it had been that I was able to breastfeed all six of my earlier babies. My eyes were suddenly opened to the fact that I might’ve easily struggled just as much to nourish them as I had to feed #7, but God had mercy on me.

So that event was a huge turning point in my life. Breastfeeding and the soaky-wet diapers and massive poops that come along with healthy, well-nourished babies were all things I never again took for granted. Instead of feeling exasperated or annoyed when one of my later babies had a diaper blow-out, I honestly felt elated. Because I knew that meant everything was working properly (except maybe the diaper). But it assured me my little one was getting enough to eat and baby’s intestines were functioning properly. So much so that I’d praise God every time it happened. “Thank you, Lord, that everything’s working according to Your design.”

God’s Word Is Truth

Another way I’ve matured in 37 years of parenting? I’m now more confident than ever that the Bible has all the answers we need. I do still read parenting books, but I don’t jump on the bandwagon just because some new parenting method seems popular. Instead, I always examine what’s written in the light of scripture and reject anything that doesn’t line up with God’s Word.

And I’ve stopped looking for a fail-proof recipe to ensure parenting success. Yes, what I do as a parent matters. I can’t just wash my hands of the whole affair and say, “Let God deal with them.”

I have a responsibility before Him to raise them well. To teach them His Word. To speak of it often, day and night, at home and away. And I need to point them to Jesus. I’m morally obligated to do all those things because I love God and earnestly want to obey His commands in raising the children He has entrusted to my care.

But I also know my own limitations. And I’m keenly aware of the fact that nothing I do can, in and of itself, draw my children to faith or change their hearts or convict them of wrongdoing or give them victory over sin or grant them success in any endeavor. All those things are entirely dependent on the boundless, undeserved, all-sufficient, sustaining grace of God.

So I do my part, meager and imperfect though it may be, and I fervently pray that God will do for all my children – and grandchildren – what only He can do: Which is to draw them to faith (hopefully from an early age), to keep and preserve them, to grow and mature and sanctify and conform them to the image of Christ, and to equip them to fulfill His calling on their lives, and to bless them as they follow hard after Him.

The Word of God is full of wisdom for every facet of life, but we’ve found it especially helpful in building a happy, healthy marriage. For a fascinating look at how science has confirmed the superiority of God’s design, check out my book Love Your Husband/Love Yourself.

The post EP 91: Changing Course When You’ve Done It All Wrong appeared first on Loving Life at Home.

Praying for Our Troops

I thought about waiting to publish until Veteran’s Day in November, but I’ve gotten so many requests for a military blessing or a prayer for our troops that I decided to share it right away.

My husband, one son, and my dad all served in the US Army. My father-in-law retired from the Air Force. And my uncle and cousins were all in the Navy. So praying for our troops is something my family does on the regular.

Below are six good places to start. If you’d like a free printable copy of this prayer guide, you’ll find a download link at the bottom of this post.

A Prayer for Our TroopsT is for Teamwork

LORD, help our troops work as a team, each person doing his part with excellence and precision. Help them function single-mindedly, united in spirit, intent on one purpose, and doing nothing from selfishness or empty conceit. Teach them to encourage, support, and look out for one another with sympathy and esteem.

Colossians 3:23-24; 1 Corinthians 15:58; Proverbs 22:29; Philippians 2:2-4

R is for Readiness

Prepare our troops for battle, God. Grant them the self-discipline, determination, and perseverance they need to succeed. Make them willing, not only to win, but to prepare to win. Get them ready, both in season and out of season, to do everything required of them to the best of their abilities.

Proverbs 21:31; Ephesians 6:12; Proverbs 12:1; Romans 5:3-4; 1 Corinthians 9:25-27; 2 Timothy 4:2

O is for Officers

LORD, grant the officers in our armed forces wisdom and discernment. Help them lead with integrity, authority, and humility as they train, challenge, and encourage the troops in their charge. Guard them against pride or careless errors. May they command—and earn—the respect of their subordinates.

Proverbs 11:14; Proverbs 24:6; Proverbs 10:9; Proverbs 11:2-3; Proverbs 16:18; Romans 13:1; Titus 2:15; Luke 7:8

O is for Ordnance

Victory comes from You, God, so that’s where our hope rests. Not in chariots & horses (nor drones, helicopters, & artillery). Yet being well-provisioned seems good & desirable. Peace is often achieved through strength, so we ask You to equip our military with both spiritual armor & physical weaponry.

Jeremiah 46:3-4; 1 Corinthians 15:57; 1 John 5:4-5; Proverbs 21:31; Psalm 20:7; Psalm 29:11; Philippians 4:19; Ephesians 6:10-17

P is for Protection

Guard our troops, LORD. Preserve, protect, and keep Your hand of mercy upon them. Be their rock, their shield, and their fortress. Don’t let them stumble or fall into the trap of their enemies. Be a lamp to their feet and a light to their path. Blind the eyes of all who would do them harm.

2 Thessalonians 3:3; Exodus 15:6; Psalm 41:10; Psalm 18:2; Psalm 37:23-24; Proverbs 3:23; Psalm 9:15-16; Psalm 61:3; Psalm 119:105; Romans 11:8

S is for Strength

Energize our troops, God, and give them stamina for the task ahead. Don’t let them grow tired, weary, or faint along the way. Teach them to wait upon Your sustaining and empowering grace. Strengthen them daily with Your mighty hand & grant them restorative sleep each night, free from worry or fear.

Colossians 1:29; Isaiah 40:29-31; Isaiah 12:2; Jeremiah 31:25-26; Isaiah 41:10; Proverbs 3:24-26

Praying for our TroopsDownloadMore Printable Prayer Guides

You will find many more prayer guides you can download individually for free by following this link: Free Printable Prayer Guides.

Or you can save time by investing in a copy of my Pretty Prayer Print Pack and then download a whole bundle of resources in a single click, including all our most popular prayer guides plus prayer lists and diaries, prayer-themed coloring pages, prayer cards, and beautiful printable artwork suitable for framing. Several of the resources in this collection are not available anywhere else.

The post Praying for Our Troops appeared first on Loving Life at Home.

EP 90: What Would Jesus Do?

We don’t have to wonder or make wild guesses about what Jesus would do — the Bible tells us clearly how He lived when He was here on earth, the kind of things He prioritized, and what He expects of anyone who chooses to follow Him.

Show NotesVERSES CITED:Philippians 2 – “Therefore if there is any encouragement in Christ…”Mark 10:45 – “For even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve….”Luke 9:23 – “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself….”Luke 14:27 – “…whoever does not carry their cross & follow me cannot be my disciple.”Eph 4:26-5:1 – “Be angry, & yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger….”Proverbs 3 – “My son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my….”Psalm 119:97-98 – “O how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day….”Psalm 1 – “Blessed is the man who walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly….”RELATED LINKS:EP 28: Bible Memory TipsEP 85 – Memorize Proverb 3 with MeSing the Word Vol 1-2 – word-for-word KJV scripture songs by Fred and Sarah CooperSTAY CONNECTED:Subscribe: Flanders Family Freebies -weekly themed link lists of free resourcesInstagram: @flanders_family – follow for more great contentFamily Blog: Flanders Family Home Life – parenting tips, homeschool help, lprintablesMarriage Blog: Loving Life at Home– encouragement for wives, mothers, believersWhat Would Jesus Do?Full transcript of Episode 90

Hello, friend. Welcome to Episode 90 of Loving Life at Home.

This week, I’d like to discuss what it means to follow Christ’s example, to live a life that closely emulates and reflects His, to ask ourselves, “What would Jesus do?” And then follow through.

The problem is, if you don’t ever open your Bible, if you don’t read and know and have a good understanding of God’s Word, then you don’t really know what Jesus would do.

You can only guess.

I have a very sweet, tender-hearted, and well-meaning friend who earnestly tries to always do what Jesus would do. At least, she does what she thinks Jesus would do. For her, WWJD is a guiding life principle.

But whenever she asks herself that question, she really isn’t considering what the real-life, historical, righteous Son of God would do in a given situation.

What she really means when she asks herself that question is, “What would I do if I were Jesus?”

Like many others in our modern culture, my friend has created a god (with a little g) in her own image, and she worships that instead of worshiping the one true God as He has revealed Himself through His Word.

This popular version of Jesus loves and accepts and approves of and affirms everyone exactly as they are. He doesn’t judge, doesn’t step on any toes, doesn’t question any life decisions, or try to change anybody.

Her Jesus wants everyone to be happy. He never talks about sin or sacrifice. He never convicts, never calls anyone to repentance, never allows anyone to suffer any natural consequences for their poor decisions or persistent rebellion.

Her Jesus says, I”‘m okay, you’re okay,” and never makes waves or rocks the boat.

However, that is not the Jesus that we read about in the Bible, not the Jesus presented in the pages of God’s holy Word.

The fact is, we don’t have to guess what Jesus would do because Scripture tells us clearly. We know by reading the New Testament that Jesus didn’t look out for number one. He didn’t put Himself first or live for Himself or work only for the weekend or grab all the gusto He could or do what feels good.

We don’t have to guess how He lived or what He did because the Bible spells it out. Passages like Philippians 2 tell us exactly what Jesus prioritized and what He expects us to prioritize as well.

There we read:

"Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves. Do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others."

By the way, if you’re a wife and or a mother, you have an endless string of opportunities to put this verse into practice right within the four walls of your own home, to put others first and to consider their needs as more important and more pressing than your own.

It’s that sort of self-sacrificing love that drives a mother to drag herself out of a warm bed in the middle of the night to feed a hungry newborn when she’d really rather sleep because she considers her baby’s need for food and comfort of higher precedence than her own need for rest.

The point is, contrary to what a lot of health and wealth preachers will tell you, the Christian life is a life of sacrifice and service. “The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many,” as we’re told in Mark 10:45. And Jesus expects us to follow that example.

He stated in Luke 9:23, “If anyone would come after Me [or if anyone would be My disciple], let him deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow Me.” He reiterates this thought in Luke 14:27, where He says, “If you do not carry your cross and follow Me, you cannot be My disciple.”

Statements like that turn worldly philosophies completely on their heads. The Christian way of life is diametrically opposed to the popular mantras of loving yourself and following your heart and living your dreams. But you won’t know any of that if you don’t study and learn and memorize the Bible for yourself.

I got a wonderful message from a listener several weeks ago, which was so encouraging. This 27-year-old mother of three wrote…

I appreciate your recent podcast on Bible memory. You have successfully inspired me enough that I have memorized Ephesians 4:26 through 5:1 in the last week. I had no idea I could do that much that quickly in this season of raising [young children] while also being pregnant! Who knew that my brain was actually going to work that well?

The writer went on, but you get the gist of her excitement. She is thrilled because she invested the time and planted the seed, and she’s already reaping a harvest.

But that’s just the beginning. When we stick with it, studying scripture, committing it to memory, meditating on it continually, the fruit it produces in our lives will keep going and growing and multiplying and producing and reseeding until we can’t even believe the abundance that is produced.

I’ll link those Bible memory episodes in today’s show notes. I’m not sure if she was listening to an older episode I have on Bible memory tips or one of the newer ones I did called “Memorize Proverbs 3 with Me.” So I’ll include both in the show notes.

I thought about calling today’s episode “Memorize Philippians 2 with Me,” but the fact is I don’t have the whole chapter memorized — only the first half. The last part of that chapter is not nearly as meaty as the first 16 verses, in my opinion. The chapter ends with Paul’s promising to send Timothy to Philippi soon and letting them know that Epaphroditus appreciates their prayer and that he’s feeling much better, although he had been sick to death, and that Paul himself hopes to visit the Philippians soon, as well.

So when I started work last month on memorizing this chapter, I left off after verse 16.

Like my listener who was surprised by how quickly she was able to memorize so many verses in Ephesians, I was encouraged by how quickly I got these 16 verses down pat, too. That’s partly because they were already so familiar. I’d even memorized a big portion of this passage in my younger years.

But another thing that makes lengthy scriptures especially easy for me to memorize is setting them to music. So just like I did for Proverbs 3, I wrote a tune for Philippians 2:1-16 as well.

One of the benefits of memorizing this way, besides making it fast and easy, is that the tune will often come unbidden to my mind, and with it will come God’s Word, the verses that go along with that melody. At all hours of the day, and often in the night, as well, and even in my dreams, that tune and those verses will play and replay in my thoughts.

I think that’s probably also the same principle we see at play in Psalm 119.97, where the psalmist –I think David is traditionally believed to have been the author of this particular psalm, although some scholars say we can’t know for sure who wrote it — but as many of the psalms were set to music, or at least chanted, that may account for why the psalmist said, “Oh, how I love your law, I meditate on it all day long. Your commandments make me wiser than my enemies, for they are always with me.”

The only way you can be certain to keep God’s word “always with you” is by hiding it deep in your heart. And when you do, especially when you use music to really lock it in there, then you will likely find yourself meditating on it all day long, even without making a concerted effort to do so.

Then you will be like the blessed man described in Psalm 1, whose “delight is in the law of the Lord. For in that law does he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season, his leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.”

I have all of Psalm 1 memorized to music, also, thanks to some friends of ours, Fred and Sarah Cooper, with whom we used to attend Sunday school. They set this psalm and several other psalms and many other long passages of scripture to music and taught them all to our Sunday school class back at First Baptist Church of Dallas 30 years ago.

For a while — and you may still be able to find it — they had a book of music with all of the sheet music and the words to these full, verbatim passages of scripture for sale. I think it was called Sing the Word, so you can look and see if you can find Sing the Word by the Coopers if you’re interested.

But that was over 30 years ago, and I can still sing every single one of those songs that they taught us, as could many of my children.

So I’m just carrying on that same tradition, the one that the Coopers and King David and the other psalmist and Moses and Miriam and many, many other men and women of God have used for millennia to commit His word to memory in order to be able to take it with them continually and to observe His commandments.

So I think I’ll finish this episode by singing my latest scripture memory song to you, one that I composed myself to help with memorizing Philippians 2:1-16. And it goes like this:

Therefore, if there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose.

Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind, regard one another as more important than yourselves. Do not merely look out for your own personal interest, but also for the interest of others.

Have this attitude in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus, who although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God, a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bondservant and being made in the likeness of men.

Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

For this reason also, God highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who is at work in you both to will and to work for His good pleasure.

Do all things without grumbling or disputing so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I will have reason to glory because I did not run in vain nor toiled in vain." Philippians 2 verses 1 through 16.

Thanks so much for listening today. If you have a question you’d like to hear covered on this podcast, message me on Instagram @flanders_family or contact me through my website, lovinglifeathome.com.

Before you go, if you’ve been encouraged by something you’ve heard on the show, do me a favor and forward the link to a friend or head over to Loving Life at Home on Apple iTunes to subscribe and leave a written review of the show. Your doing so will help others find me so they can listen too.
Until next time, I pray the Lord will bless your efforts to build a loving home life centered on Him.

More Bible Memory Help

Want a month-by-month plan filled with resources to make hiding God’s Word in your heart a habit? Check out my new Grand Investment print packs.

I’ve packed both volumes full of pretty, pertinent printables: copywork and coloring pages, award certificates, and tracking charts, along with links to videos and songs I’ve used both in memorizing Bible passages myself and in encouraging my kids and grandkids to do the same.

The post EP 90: What Would Jesus Do? appeared first on Loving Life at Home.

EP 89: The Art of Making Memories

I read a book last week called The Art of Making Memories. It was fascinating, though nothing like I expected. In this week’s episode, I share what I learned and what I think of this work.

Show NotesVERSES CITED:John 16:21 – “A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world.”Deuteronomy 11:19 – “Teach them to your children, speaking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.”Philippians 4:8 – “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”1 Corinthians 10:31 – “Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”John 10:10 – “…I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”RELATED LINKS: The Art of Making Memories by Meik WikingEpisode 28 – Bible Memory TipsEpisode 85 – Memorize Proverbs 3 with MeM Is for Mama – Abbie Halberstadt’s birth storiesGlad Tidings – the first 25 years of Flanders Family Christmas LettersEpisode 22 – Why We Still Send Christmas Cards & LettersMonthly Holidays & Quirky Celebrations – and free printables and other fun resources for enjoying them to the fullSTAY CONNECTED:Subscribe: Flanders Family Freebies -weekly themed link lists of free resourcesInstagram: @flanders_family – follow for more great contentFamily Blog: Flanders Family Home Life – parenting tips, homeschool help, printablesMarriage Blog: Loving Life at Home– encouragement for wives, mothers, believers The Art of Making MemoriesFull Transcript for Episode 89

Hello, friend. Welcome to episode 89 of Loving Life at Home.

This week, I’d like to talk about the art of making memories, which is actually the title of a book I just finished, a book by Mike Viking. He works for the Happiness Research Institute in Denmark. Although I didn’t realize that when I picked up the book, I thought actually that I was getting a book that might contain some fun ideas for making this summer one that my kids won’t forget. I thought that it would be more of a bucket list of things to do to help build memories.

But actually it was more scientific than that. It was more of a treatise on how memories were made and stored and retrieved and hacks for optimizing that process. It was not written from a Christian perspective, so in one sense I feel like it fell short in some of the areas we’ll discuss, and I’ll give you more detail on that in a little bit. But it was fascinating and presented from a scientific viewpoint. The subtitle is “How to Create and Remember Happy Moments.”

Harness the Power of Novel Experiences

I learned several interesting things reading this book, or more accurately listening to the audiobook. First is that we tend to remember new experiences more vividly, the firsts. This is true in my own life. I remember:

The first time I ever went down a water slide. It wasn’t at one of the extensive water parks like we have today. It was just a little flume in the backwoods of Eureka Springs, but it was a novel experience and my sister and I spent the whole afternoon climbing up the hill and sliding down that one flume over and over and over again.The first time I ever went snow sledding and my dad had snowed a bunch overnight in Dallas and my dad got up early and built a toboggan and took my sister and me and some friends to White Rock Lake to slide down the hills there.The first time I was ever tall enough to ride a roller coaster, although I was actually kind of standing up on tiptoes inside my tennis shoes for my feet more all the way to the bottom of my shoes to make myself tall enough to reach the marker that said that I could ride it with my dad.The first time I ever had surgery. I was only two years old and was having a tonsillectomy, but I know I remember it myself and I don’t just remember what I was told about the event because the most vivid recollection I have from that day was being alone in the hallway outside the operating room and there was a woman on a gurney right beside me who reminded me a little bit of my grandmother. And when they came to wheel me into the OR, she winked at me and said, I’ll let you go first.

So anyway, novel experiences are often easier to remember. So be sure to sprinkle those throughout your life liberally.

Traditions are important too, although the researcher didn’t say so much about this, but I know from past experience that doing certain things over and over again in the same way every year provides a sense of belonging and security and identity and dependability for our children.

So those family traditions are important also. But throw some new elements into the mix as well, even if it just means trying new foods or playing new games or finding new books to read or new places to visit, that kind of thing.

Make Use of the Peak -End Effect

Then one of the other things the author talked about was ending on a high note. This idea of the peak end effect where we tend to recall events in our life according to their highest level of intensity and how they ended rather than an average of the whole experience.

So if you go on vacation, you remember the high point of the vacation, you remember how it ended, not necessarily every single day at the beach or in the mountains or whatever was going on.

And I know that this is true also.

They’ve done some classic research on this phenomenon. One of the studies that the author quoted was some research or a study done on colonoscopy patients where half of the patients were in a group where the doctor did the colonoscopy and finished as quickly as he could.

The other had the patients receive the same colonoscopy that lasted the same length of time. But then they just left the scope in for three extra minutes without moving it around. And that second group of patients rated the experience as less painful than the first and were more willing to undergo the same procedure again in the future.

Another experiment he quoted was they had two groups of people and one submerged their hands in very, very cold water. I think it was 14 degrees Celsius for 30 seconds. And the other put their hand in the same 14 degrees Celsius water for 30 seconds, but then left it there another 15 seconds, I think, at a higher temperature. They gradually warmed it up by a degree.

And the ones that had their hand in cold water the longest, but ended with warmer water than they started with, felt like it was less painful than the others. Whereas they both had it in the same cold water for 30 seconds. The fact that the one group ended in warmer water significantly altered their memory of the situation.

That may be what is at play in the experience of childbirth for women. John 16:21 tells us “A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come. But when her baby is born, she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world.”

Well, I know that has certainly been the case with me. All that pain and anguish that happens in childbirth is quickly forgotten as soon as they give me that sweet little newborn to hold in my own arms.

Now, if they were able to somehow reverse that order, and when I went to the hospital, they would show me the little bundle wrapped in pink or blue and say, “Hey, here’s your new baby. We’re going to go put this one in the nursery for a few hours now while we torture you.” I probably wouldn’t have signed up for that experience 12 times over.

But the fact that the pain comes first and then the joy of holding that sweet little baby would have me looking forward to returning for the next delivery as soon as I left the hospital with the most recent newborn. So it definitely makes a difference how the event ends.

Optimize Spaced Repetition

Something else the author discussed was repetition. He made note of the fact that we lose about 40% of new information within 20 minutes and 70% within 24 hours. And so in order to hold on to new information, we need to have some kind of review. The best way to do that is through spaced repetition, where you review the information again after a few minutes, a few hours, a few days, a few weeks, a month, and so forth.

This is something that I’ve done with my Bible memory. Charlotte Mason recommended a method for practicing memory work, not necessarily Bible memory work, but anything that you’re memorizing, where you reviewed the same thing every day until you got it down. And then you do it every other day, and then once a week, and then once a month.

And so my little Bible memory notebook, I have sections for daily, odd and even days, days one through seven, you know, Sunday through Saturday, and then one through 31 for each of the days of the month. And as I add new passages, the passages get bumped down to less frequent review as I add new passages in.

So the one I learned last month, I’m reviewing every other day right now. And the one I’m working on currently, Philippians 2:1-16, I’m reviewing daily. But I have that one down pretty well now, so I’ll probably bump it to even days and bump my Proverbs 3 to one of the days of the week. And eventually it will get down to where each of those are just being reviewed once a month under days one through 31.

So if you’re interested in that, I talk more about it in my Bible memory tips episode. I’ll link that in the show notes. But I think the importance of spaced repetition is one reason the Bible tells parents to teach their children the word of God and to speak of it as they sit in their house, as they walk along the way, as they rise up and as they lie down. Those are built-in periods of time that you can repeat and review the principles that you’re trying to teach your children out of the word of God.

I think it’s also interesting to note that you do recall more easily the things that you have reviewed. And so if you are one who wants to rehearse in your mind every offense and you review over and over again the things that people have said or done to you that have been hurtful in some way, then that’s what you’re going to remember. But if you focus on the things that others do that lift you up or encourage you, then that’s what you’ll remember.

Again, that’s one reason I think we’re told in Philippians 4:8 that whatever things are true, whatever things are honest, whatever things are just, whatever things arepure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there’s any virtue or if there’s any praise, we need to think on those things. So think on the positive good things in life and remember those and let all the bad stuff go.

Beware of Faulty Memories

The author also had a section on faulty memories and the fact that the more time passes between the occurrence of an event and your recollection of it, the more potential there is that you are going to misremember what happened.

And I was reminded of this fact recently when I was talking to a daughter where she had been present for the birth of her younger sister, 10 years her junior, and she thought that she had gotten to cut the baby’s cord. And I have photographs showing that it was her older brother that cut that little sister’s cord. So she’s been rehearsing that event in her mind in an inaccurate way.

By the way, it was the second time in a week that some of my kids have asked me about their birth or various births out of the 12 in our family. And it makes me realize, oh, I need to recount those stories for them because there’s some misunderstanding about how things happened and why they happened. And so I’m going to take a page out of my sweet friend Abby Halberstadt’s book and do a series on birth stories. And I will probably start that before the end of the summer so that the kids will have it from the source as to how things happened when they were born.

Something else that the author talked about in that section on faulty memories or implanted memories. And what a scary thing that is — that you can suggest memories to people of things that never even happened. And they’ve done experiments on that.

And this is not like under hypnosis, which is extremely scary in my mind, but just in regular conversation where they suggested that something happened that didn’t happen and they knew didn’t happen. And later, the people that they had made that suggestion to clung to their memories of that event as if it had happened.

I think in this particular experiment, they had interviewed family members of the people in the experiment and gotten three stories that actually happened plus a fourth that did not happen and interviewed the subjects in the experiment about all four things. And when they couldn’t recall the one, they’d say, oh yes, this is how it happened. How did you feel when that happened? And started asking out questions about something that didn’t happen.

And they ended up being able to give all sorts of details associated with that non-event. So I think that is a warning to be really careful what kind of a counselor you go to and how much stock you put in repressed memories because sometimes the things that they say they are bringing out are not accurate to reality.

Try Using Memory Triggers

Anyway, another section in the book was dedicated to memory triggers and the importance of photo albums. He made a good argument for printing those pictures out and having physical copies also.

I know that they’ve shown that things that you read that is written on paper, you retain a lot better than books that you read in digital format. I know that is certainly the case for me. I do not like reading digital books at all. I would much prefer a hard copy so that I can mark up the margins and underline things that I want to remember out of it.

And the nice thing about reading a physical copy of a book is that the order doesn’t change. You know, depending on what device you’re reading on, the position on the page of certain information is going to shift. If you go from tablet to phone to laptop computer, that text is not going to remain in the same position on each device.

But when you have a print copy of a book, it stays. If it’s in the upper left-hand corner of the page the first time you read it, it is going to stay in the upper left-hand corner of the page when you go back to retrieve it and to find again what it was that you wanted to remember.

So I think with the photographs, you get the same kind of a benefit when you can hold it in your hand and look at it. Although I have caught myself, I don’t know if you’ve ever done this, trying to zoom in on a printed photograph and it is impossible. I will sometimes reach down and spread my fingers on the surface of the photo thinking I’m going to be able to enlarge it and that doesn’t work off of a digital device.

So I guess there are some benefits to havingdigital copies of your photos also.

But one of the drawbacks that the author noted was the potential to lose it, and he had lost photographs that he had taken that were just stored digitally, and I know that that’s been the case for me too.

Not once, but twice, I’ve lost all the photographs that I had on my computer, and they weren’t stored on the cloud, so there’s no retrieving them. I accidentally erased my entire photo album, not realizing it, several years ago, and then a few years after that, I had a big glass of water spilled on my computer that totally fried the hard drive, and I couldn’t retrieve any of those photos, so they’re just gone.

But back when I had SLR cameras, I was able to take a roll of film and have it processed. It was also a lot less overwhelming when you just get 24 or 36 pictures and you’re stuck with whatever came out of the development of the film. You don’t get to pour over 100 copies of the same shot trying to decide which one looks best. You just got the one, and that’s the one that went into all the scrapbooks or the photo albums. But those photo albums do serve as memory triggers and help to retain happy memories and keep them alive in our minds.

But photo albums aren’t the only triggers for happy memories. Smells can take you back to sweet memories as well, and so can certain tastes. When you taste a special recipe from childhood, it can take you back. Sounds, special music will transport you to the time when you first heard it or when that was a big part of the memories associated with that sound or that music.

Write Down the Things You Want to Remember

Journals are another great way to trigger memories. I keep a bullet journal or a microjournal, I guess you could say, where I just write down one or two sentences for every day of what happened on that day, and I’ve done that ever since before I was even married, but it’s been great for clarifying memories when we differ in our recollection of things. We can go back to the calendar from that year and look up the date when a significant event happened or who we celebrated a specific holiday with.

And I have kids who keep a gratitude journal or at least list off three things every day that they are thankful for, and this is something that you could do in your family as well, where you keep a jar and people could write down their happy memories and put them in the jar.

I write Christmas letters every year, and they’re pretty lengthy. I think I did an episode on that if you’re interested in how I go about writing our annual update. I’ll try to link that in the show notes today as well, but one of the things that we do is to reread our old Christmas letters every year to the kids, which is another way of reviewing those moments of our family history, the good times, the significant events, the crazy mistakes, even bad memories or scary things that happened or things that were really hard at the time are good to recall because there’s lessons learned associated with that.

In fact, the author of this book talked also about how embarrassing memories can become really funny memories when you just embrace it and accept the fact that everybody has those moments, and it puts others at ease when you admit yours.

So we have plenty of those embarrassing things that have happened that we’ve put into our Christmas letters as well, and we review those, like I said, every year around Christmas time and use that as a way of recalling and discussing and reminiscing together with the family.

Several Suggestions for Creating Good Memories

Then in the end of the book, the author did end up giving a little listing of different suggestions for making happy memories, which was really more of what I was expecting from the whole book. So I was glad that he included that at the end. He included some quirky holidays, which I actually have a monthly post devoted to special holidays and quirky celebrations on my family blog, which I’ll link in the show notes today also.

But by the end of the book, it seemed apparent to me that the author was really pursuing happiness for happiness’s sake. And I think that that is a mistake. As a Christian, I feel like happiness is the natural byproduct of a life well-lived, a life with purpose, a life of service to others, a life dedicated to glorifying God, whether we eat or drink or whatever we do, as 1 Corinthians 10:31 tells us.

But when you are seeking happiness for the sake of happiness, and that is the destination you’re trying to get to, it’s almost like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.It is elusive. You can’t get to the end of the rainbow. And in this life, I don’t think you’re just going to find happiness by searching for happiness, at least not the deep and lasting and abiding joy that we really want in life.

And so, in that sense, reading this book made me a little bit sad, not only for the person writing it, but also for the people reading it who think that the solution to the void they feel lies in triggering happy memories or experiencing novel things or reviewing the day’s events.

But that deep and lasting and abiding sense of joy and happiness, I don’t think you can find it apart from Christ. He is the source of that.

And so, if happiness eludes you, I would encourage you to look there first and make sure that you have a personal relationship with Jesus and that you are abiding in the vine and taking full advantage of the abundant, joyful life he came to give you.

The post EP 89: The Art of Making Memories appeared first on Loving Life at Home.

EP 88: On Accepting All Your Unchangeables

Each and every one of us has been born with qualities that cannot be altered and into circumstances beyond our control. The question is, how will you approach the unchangeables in your life? Will you learn to accept and live with them (and maybe even appreciate them)?

Or will you allow bitterness and resentment over those unchangeables fester in the depths of your heart? The choice you make will have a profound impact on the purpose and contentment you find in life.

The material for today’s podcast comes from a blog post I wrote back in 2019, which you can read in its entirety by scrolling past today’s show notes.

Show NotesVERSES CITED:1 Peter 5:7 – “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”Psalm 68:5 – “Father to the fatherless, defender of widows— this is God, whose dwelling is holy.”Matthew 25:15 – “And to one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one, to each according to his own ability; and immediately he went on a journey.”1 Thessalonians 5:11 – “Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.”James 3:14-16 – “But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, do not be arrogant and so lie against the truth. This wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, natural, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing.”Genesis 3:19 – “By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”James 4:14 – “You do not even know what will happen tomorrow! What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.”Psalm 90:12 – “Teach us to number our days so that we may apply our hearts to wisdom.”Psalm 139:13-16 – “For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth; Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; and in Your book were all written, the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them.”Romans 8:28 – “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”RELATED LINKS:Serenity Prayer (attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr)Praying for Your Parents (my free printable prayer guide)The Long Winter (book by Laura Ingalls Wilder)“How Can I Accept Myself the Way God Made Me” (impactful teaching I first heard at an IBLP seminar)On Becoming Free Indeed (my review of Jinger Duggar’s book )STAY CONNECTED:Subscribe: Flanders Family Freebies -weekly themed link lists of free resourcesInstagram: @flanders_family – follow for more great contentFamily Blog: Flanders Family Home Life – parenting tips, homeschool help, lprintablesMarriage Blog: Loving Life at Home– encouragement for wives, mothers, believers

The summer I turned ten, I spent an inordinate amount of time obsessing over my appearance.

What began a few years earlier as a smattering of freckles across the bridge of my nose soon melded into one solid brown patch that stretched from ear to ear. So I was thrilled to learn that my similarly speckled cousin knew of a surefire cure: lemon juice.

A New Skin Care Routine

I spent weeks assailing my cheeks with lemon wedges, bent on bleaching that blotch right out of my skin. But this rubbing ritual proved a complete waste of time (not to mention a waste of lemons). My freckles didn’t budge.

Fortunately for my citrus-soaked complexion, I later noticed a different cousin using an eyebrow pencil to draw freckles on her otherwise porcelain skin.

The absurdity of the situation hit home. In that moment, I resolved to lay off the lemon treatment forever. To accept my unchangeables. To be grateful for the way God made me, freckles and all.

I haven’t given those brown blotches much thought since, except to marvel over how they’ve faded on their own as I’ve aged.

As momentous as those freckles seemed to my ten-year-old self, I realize now my early struggles were child’s play. Some people must cope with far more serious physical challenges. Incurable diseases. Debilitating injuries. Vision loss. Infertility. Bad genetics. Mental illness.

It’s all good

The prayer that hung on the wall of my grandmother’s bedroom is a fitting one for this discussion:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.

Reinhold Niebuhr

The key to navigating such trials successfully is to avoid the pitfalls of bitterness, resentment, and self-pity.

Work to improve your situation, certainly. Use every resource God provides. If you can change what ails you through therapy, surgery, diet, medication, or some equally valid treatment plan, then by all means change it.

But for circumstances that can’t be altered, cast your cares upon Jesus, because He cares for you. (1 Peter 5:7).

A big part of finding peace is learning to accept certain unchangeables in our lives. The lesson I learned as a young girl with unwanted freckles applies to far weightier issues, as well.

Some things never change

If we can come to accept such unchangeables. To embrace them. To even, perhaps, feel a measure of gratitude for them (or, at least, for what God is teaching us through them), we will experience a deeper joy for living than we’ve ever known before.

Accepting these unchangeables requires us to make peace with each of the following areas:

Parentage

You don’t get to pick your mom and dad. Nor do you get to decide whether your parents divorce or stay married.

Genetics

Your DNA came pre-loaded, as well. The blueprint for your body was determined from the first moment of conception. It cannot be altered.

Era in History

As much as you may long for “the good old days,” you must live in the historical time period you’ve been given. There’s no changing that fact.

Brain Function

You don’t get to pick your IQ, your mental capacity, or what learning style suits you best. (But you do get to choose how you’ll use what you’ve been given.)

Ethnicity

You must also accept as unchangeable your country of origin. And the color of your skin. And many other things related to your ethnic background.

Birth Order

You have no control over whether or not you have siblings and where you fall out among them.

Family History

You cannot change what your ancestors did in the past. Or what your extended family does in the present.

Mistakes

Although you can certainly learn from mistakes — both those you make yourself and those that others have made that adversely affect you — you cannot go back and undo them. Nor can you avoid all their consequences.

Mishaps

Likewise, while we can take precautions to avoid them, careless accidents still happen. When they do, all the “what ifs” in the world won’t undo their sometimes devastating results.

Aging

Hair color, collagen creams, and plastic surgeons may help mask the signs of aging, but there is no denying the fact that we’re all growing older. Making peace with that fact now may spare you a few worry lines in the future.

Mortality

Our days are numbered. Unless the Lord returns before it happens, we will all eventually die. Accepting the unchangeable fact of our own mortality reminds us to use wisely the time God has given us on this earth.

All these areas together combine to make us the unique individuals we are. The Bible paints a beautiful picture of the care with which God made each one of us:

For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth; Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; and in Your book were all written, the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them. (Psalm 139:13-16)

Isn’t that reassuring? God had a purpose for designing you exactly as He did. But until you’re able to rejoice in His design and to accept the unchangeable features He gave you, you’ll have a hard time discovering His purpose.

Let Us Give Thanks

Gratitude. Acceptance. Submission.

These attitudes prepare our hearts to fulfill God’s plan for our lives. But perfect understanding of His purpose and design will likely not come this side of heaven. He may grant us glimpses, but we are limited in our ability to appreciate the full scope of God’s intentions toward us.

Still, we can be confident that He will “work all things together for the good of those who love Him and have been called according to His purpose.” (Romans 8:28)

[Photo by Milena Santos from Pexels]

The post EP 88: On Accepting All Your Unchangeables appeared first on Loving Life at Home.

A Prayer for Test Takers

A reader wrote me earlier this week to request a special prayer for success on exams. Well, that is one area I have a lot of experience in, as every one of my children have asked me to pray with and for them every time any of them has to take a test. So my new free printable Prayer for Test Takers essentially wrote itself.

I simply put in all the requests I normally pray over my test taking kids — that they’d stay calm and think clearly during the exam, that they’d remember everything they studied, that they’d read the questions correctly and answer what is being asked, that they’d pace themselves well and finish the exam in the time allotted, and that they’d do their best and trust God with the outcome.

download prayer for test takers

The only difference is that I made the lines of the prayer in this printable rhyme. I’m thinking that way, they’ll be easier to remember.

Even though my kids are out of school for the summer, several are studying for CLEP tests. And one is preparing for oral boards. So I’m praying these same things over them yet again — especially on the morning of their exams. I circle up, along with my husband when he’s home and any siblings who might be around, lay my hand on the test taker’s shoulder, and ask the LORD to bless and help and be with them through the exam. And He has always been so faithful to answer!

Unlike many of my other free printable prayer guides, the words of this prayer are not straight out of the Bible. But they do have scriptural support, which you can find in verses like the ones I’ve listed below:

Calm my nerves & keep me focused…

Philippians 4:6-7 – “Be  anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

Isaiah 41:10 – “Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be afraid, for I am your God. I will strengthen you; I will surely help you; I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.

As I take the coming test…

Romans 12:2 – “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

1 Thessalonians 5:21 – “Test all things; hold fast what is good.”

Bring to mind the things I’ve studied…

Ecclesiastes 1:13 – “I applied my mind to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under the heavens. What a heavy burden God has laid on mankind!”

2 Timothy 2:15 – “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”

Help me do my very best…

Colossians 3:23 – “Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men.”

James 1:5 – “If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.”

Help me understand the questions…

Proverbs 4:7 – “The beginning of wisdom is: Acquire wisdom; And with all your acquiring, get understanding.”

Proverbs 2:2-5 – “Make your ear attentive to wisdom, incline your heart to understanding; for if you cry for discernment, lift your voice for understanding; if you seek her as silver and search for her as for hidden treasures; then you will discern the fear of the LORD and discover the knowledge of God.”

Help me only write what’s true…

Proverbs 3:3 – “Do not let kindness and truth leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart.”

Proverbs 12:19 – “Truthful words stand the test of time, but lies are soon exposed.”

Help me finish by the buzzer…

Psalm 90:12 – “So teach us to number our days, That we may present to You a heart of wisdom.”

Colossians 4:5-6 – “Act wisely toward outsiders, redeeming the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.”

And entrust my grade to You…

Proverbs 16:9 – “The mind of man plans his way, But the LORD directs his steps.”

Proverbs 19:21 – “Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the LORD that will stand.”

More Printable Prayer Guides

You will find many more prayer guides you can download individually for free by following this link: Free Printable Prayer Guides.

Or you can save time by investing in a copy of my Pretty Prayer Print Pack and then download a whole bundle of resources in a single click, including all our most popular prayer guides plus prayer lists and diaries, prayer-themed coloring pages, prayer cards, and beautiful printable artwork suitable for framing. Several of the resources in this collection are not available anywhere else.

The post A Prayer for Test Takers appeared first on Loving Life at Home.

EP 87: Lost & Found (3 Life Lessons I Learned from My Father)

Father’s Day is less than a week away, so I thought this would be a wonderful time to share with you a story about my dad. I have a wealth of cherished recollections to choose from, but the core memory that follows is one of my all-time favorites.

I’m sure that, in the midst of the childhood crisis I was experiencing at the time this happened, my dad never dreamed what a lasting and long-reaching effect his response would have in my life, but it did.

I first wrote about the event described in this episode over a decade ago, in July of 2014. If you prefer reading to listening, you can scroll down and peruse that original post in its entirety below today’s show notes.

Show NotesVERSES CITED: 1 John 3:1 – “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!”Romans 8:38 – “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”John 1:12 – “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name.” RELATED LINKS:5 Lessons I Learned by Losing a DiamondFathers Matter (Every Day of the Year)A Letter to My FatherFree Printable Prayer for FathersA Hero in the Making: Like Father, Like SonSTAY CONNECTED:Subscribe: Flanders Family Freebies -weekly themed link lists of free resourcesInstagram: @flanders_family – follow for more great contentFamily Blog: Flanders Family Home Life – parenting tips, homeschool help, lprintablesMarriage Blog: Loving Life at Home– encouragement for wives, mothers, believers3 Life Lessons I Learned from My Dad

It was a stupid thing to do. That much is obvious.

Normally, I would have spent recess swinging or sliding or riding on the merry-go-round. But that day, I sat alone at the edge of the playground. Holding my new ring. Admiring the way it caused the sunlight to dance in my hand.

The ring was a birthday gift from my parents: a tiny diamond (April’s birthstone) set in the center of a small gold flower.

I was seven at the time — too young for anyone to have mistaken it for an engagement ring — but my mother still insisted I wear it on my right hand.

Only that day at recess, I wasn’t wearing it at all. I was playing with it. I was playing a game I called “Digging for Buried Treasure.”

A Careless Thing to Do

First, I’d bury my little ring in the sand, then I’d dig, dig, dig until I found it. Then I’d bury it a little deeper, and dig a little longer until I uncovered it again.

And so the game continued: the ring was lost, then found. Lost, then found. Lost… then the bell rang.

Frantically I searched as my classmates lined up to march back inside the school building. But to no avail.

The teacher called my name. Tapped her foot. Pointed to her watch. Jerked her thumb toward the double doors behind her.

I tried to explain why I couldn’t possibly leave. Not now. Not yet. But she insisted, and I spent the rest of the day distraught and distracted in my little school desk, staring out the window and wondering if I would ever see my beautiful ring again.

When the final bell rang that day, I ran home in tears to tell my mother what had happened.

She listened to my hysterical cries and did her best to calm and comfort me. “Just wait until your Daddy gets home,” she soothed. “He’ll know what to do.”

Father Knows Best

And he did.

With eyes full of compassion, he tenderly took my hand and led me back to the school yard.

As we walked together, he didn’t scold. He didn’t lecture. He didn’t tell me how foolish I had been or how easily I could have avoided this situation or how it would serve me right if I never got the ring back.

No, he didn’t grouse or grumble or complain.

Instead, he acted as if he’d been waiting all day for a chance to come home and dig in the sand with his little girl. All I sensed was love and sympathy and a stubborn determination to find what was lost.

The playground sprawled across a good two acres, much of which was covered in 4-5 inches of sand. Daddy asked me to point out the general vicinity where I’d been playing, then told me to hunt there. But instead of digging beside me, he strolled to the nearest entrance and began combing through the sand with his fingers.

Slowly, systematically, he worked his way toward me, all along the retaining wall, sifting the sand as he went.

After about twenty minutes of digging, he uncovered a cut stone, but it was too big to be mine, so he kept searching.

Another ten, twenty, thirty minutes passed. The sun was sinking low on the horizon. But Daddy kept looking. Patient. Persistent. Unperturbed.

Then, just as it was growing too dark to search any longer, the last grains of sand fell through his fingers to reveal my beloved ring!

Lost & Found

My father had the most beautiful smile — pearly white teeth with a small gap between the top two. The light was too dim and my eyes too flooded with tears for me to see his smile that night. But I could hear it in his voice as soon as he called my name. And I knew.

He had found what was lost.

He had accomplished what he’d set out to do. And my heart was filled to bursting with gratitude for that Daddy of mine.

My father wasn’t perfect. Like all parents, he sometimes made mistakes. His patience occasionally wore thin. There were plenty of times that I got the lecture (or other appropriate discipline) I so well deserved — dished out with love, to be sure, but without such obvious compassion.

But on that balmy night of yore, he was as perfect as a Daddy can get.

I cannot tell you how often I’ve reflected on that scene from my childhood, for my father’s pivotal response affected me in many unforeseen and far-reaching ways:

1 – It affected the way I approach my problems:

My father’s calculated response impressed on me how important it is to remain calm and collected, even (and especially) during times of upset and stress. My frantic and random pawing at the ground earlier in the day had been completely ineffectual. Daddy’s slow, methodical approach took time, but yielded the exact result I was hoping and praying for. Daddy showed me that cool heads prevail, a lesson I’ve carried with me into adulthood.

2 – It affected the way I parent my children:

I don’t remember everything Daddy ever said to me growing up, but I remember how he made me feel: Loved. Esteemed. Cherished. And I’ve done my best to communicate those same things to my own children. Sometimes I fail. Sometimes I fall short. But the example my father — and my mother — set for me has made it much easier to be a good parent myself. I can model what they did with full confidence that 98% of it was right and good.

3 – It affected the way I perceive my Heavenly Father:

They say that children tend to view God in the same way they view their dad. Perhaps that is true. My earthly father was wise, benevolent, and completely trustworthy, so it has never been difficult for me to trust implicitly in the wisdom, goodness, and faithfulness of my Heavenly Father. My dad’s loving response to my lost ring has given me confidence to boldly approach the Throne of Grace with other burdens and requests, great and small (including another diamond I lost forty years later). And that’s a rich heritage, indeed.

Unfailing Love

It was an incredible blessing to have the father I had. I know that’s not been the case for a lot of people. Many children growing up today do not even know their father, much less enjoy such a close relationship with him. Others have had negligent or abusive dads. That grieves my heart. It makes life much more difficult for them, but it does not leave them without hope.

Having a good father may make it easier to understand and accept the goodness of God, but God is good regardless. You can choose to believe what the Bible says about God, even if it varies widely from what you’ve experienced in your home.

God loves you. He cares for you. He is patiently seeking — even now — that which is lost.

As I’m typing these words, I’m praying again, boldly making my request known unto God. (Philippians 4:6)

But this time, dear Reader, I’m praying for you. I’m praying that you will see God for the loving Father He is, and that you will bask in that love, fully assured that He is good and wise and worthy of your complete confidence and trust.

“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” (1 John 3:1)

“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38)

“But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name.” (John 1:12)

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The post EP 87: Lost & Found (3 Life Lessons I Learned from My Father) appeared first on Loving Life at Home.