The Love Dare for Parents Quotes

“Every child is a one of a kind mini-masterpiece. No known duplicates exist. They each have distinctive fingerprints, heart rhythms, eye patterns, and blood constitution. Even identical twins can be physically alike and yet light years apart in how they are mentally wired and gifted. Our children do not just grow up different; they show up different. Though circumstances and training will greatly affect their lives, the originality that is already ingrained into each of our children reflects brilliant preplanning. Every birthmark is a trademark. Every special feature is a signature of divine design.”
― Stephen Kendrick, The Love Dare for Parents

“Children are also given to us to help us personally mature as parents. They teach us how to stop being so selfish and to give sacrificially. They pull us out of our comfort zones and stretch our abilities. They repeat our words and test our integrity. They expose our pride and deepen our humility. They help us learn to love more willingly. They enter this world as if to say, “Here I am, a mirror to reveal you, ready clay for you to mold. I am given to bear your name and reflect your likeness. I am more valuable than anything you own, and I could become your greatest investment in the world.”
― Stephen Kendrick, The Love Dare for Parents

“Truth guides what you say while love guides how, why, and when you say it. When love is the fertile soil, truth becomes a more fruitful seed.”
― Stephen Kendrick, The Love Dare for Parents

“Every day, with each new dare, always bear in mind this one pervasive, reorienting truth: you are handling a divine opportunity to experience and represent the love of God. Our children are not playthings to be merely photographed or conveniences to make our lives complete. They're not barriers to our freedom or monuments to our greatness. They may please us and make us proud. They may fail us and disappoint us. But our children are ultimately not about us. They are about the One who gave them to us and about the love He has for them.”
― Stephen Kendrick, The Love Dare for Parents

“Fathers should display more kindness than other men their children are around. This is what their kids are longing to experience (Proverbs 19:22). Mothers should have words of kindness flowing from their lips (Proverbs 31:26).”
― Stephen Kendrick, The Love Dare for Parents

“Surprise your children today by doing some unexpected act of kindness. As they take note of your gesture, ask them to do something kind for someone else that is also unexpected.”
― Stephen Kendrick, The Love Dare for Parents

“Patience is how love diffuses something negative; kindness is how love initiates something positive.”
― Stephen Kendrick, The Love Dare for Parents

“Ask your children to read Psalm 139 with you. Then ask what they learned about where God is and what He knows about each of us. Explain how God created them, loves them, always sees them, and will judge them one day for how they lived their lives. Finish by praying verses 23–24 together.”
― Stephen Kendrick, The Love Dare for Parents

“Selfishness is like a disease that suffocates our capacity to love. While love asks us to deny ourselves for the sake of another, selfishness demands we put ourselves first at their expense. When we choose to be self-centered, we become less kind and content—more needy, sensitive, and demanding. More unsatisfiable. Moodiness and impatience, laziness and irresponsibility, are only selfishness in disguise.”
― Stephen Kendrick, The Love Dare for Parents

“Children are God's homework assignment to parents. We are commissioned to love, teach and train them up for successful adulthood.”
― Stephen Kendrick, The Love Dare for Parents

“When Moses was on the mountaintop, he discovered why God kept putting up with His rebellious, complaining children: God was “compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness” (Exodus 34:6). He let His overflowing love control His anger. Whenever He did choose to be angry and firm, it was only after multiple, extended demonstrations of His compassion and patience. Today, God is still gracious and patient with us as His children. So when we are unlovable and selfish, distracted and disobedient, we need to remember His enduring love for us and let His example of love overflow onto us and our children.”
― Stephen Kendrick, The Love Dare for Parents