Author: theministrymama

Making My Sick Kids Feel Special Part 1

It’s our turn! 3 of 4 kids are sick with some type of virus that has caused a sore throat, fevers, and now a cough in that seems to be in their chest. This sickness has been going on all week and we have watched our share of movies and recorded TV shows and I am tired of feeling like that is the only activity kids can do while they’re sick. I came up with a list last night to plan for our day today of things we can do to make my sick kids feel special.

1. Listen to upbeat music! We are a conservative family as far as music goes but there is still godly upbeat music you can listen to and fun kids’ songs that can brighten the rather dull feeling of being stuck on the couch. I made a Pandora channel of kids songs and whenever one came up that was a little rockier than I like or allow we just push thumbs down. We have found some of our new favorite kid songs on that channel too, one about bubble gum stuck on the bottom of my shoe, knock-knock jokes, and a song in Spanish-English about what clothes a cowgirl wears. These songs bring a smile to everyone’s face and brings out laughter (which is the best medicine)!

Patch the Pirate is another great option of children’s music, which we listen to on a regular basis, that gets common Bible truths in their minds with great music and lyrics. They have serious and funny songs on each of their albums.

2. Read Stories. We are reading through the Little House series. Yes, the boys are the older ones but I want to get the quality history of the pioneers in their minds before they decide the books are too girly for boys to read. Farmer Boy was their favorite because it was all about Almanzo and the the food that he liked to eat. My boys love food so their little mouths would water as we read it.

Reading when children are sick can be easier because they may not feel like doing much other than sitting on your lap or lying around. They do not get as disinterested as they do when they feel great and have plenty of things they would rather be doing.

If you hate reading aloud then here are some tips to help you:

A. Kids do not care about whether you are a proficient reader or not! Let your hair down so to speak and get over your fears if you have a problem with reading. Children love to hear your voice and spending the time with you. They will often overlook any other stumbles you have because they love you. The more time you invest in reading aloud then the more you will become more comfortable with sharing stories with your children.

B. Use the 4 P’s. Here are 4 tips I learned in one of my teaching children’s classes that I took in Bible College, they are Pitch, Progress, Punch, and Pause.

Pitch – The level of your voice and the voice you use. Monotone is boring! At the climax of the story make your voice rise and create suspense; in a dark setting or if a character is telling a secret then lower your voice to a whisper. Create voices for each character if you are feeling bold enough to do so. Make your cowboy character have a drawl in his voice and your grandma character’s voice shake at times in the story because she is so old. Create a tune to a song that the characters sing together, Winnie the Pooh books are great at implementing little sing-song type songs that you can do this with.

Progress – Progress is the rate of speed in which you read. As you read about a race car going down the track racing the other cars to the finish line use an elevated tone and a fast pace of reading. It will create suspense in the child, you will be able to see them sitting on the edge of their seat with eyes wide open.Be lively when the scenario is lively, act like life is a drudge when the character is bored. Set the scene with how fast or slow you read the words.

Punch – POW! Using the punch of your voice is the pow factor. Interjecting a word with a little bit of force. Speak quietly and slowly through a scary scene of a book and then when the dog jumps from behind the door give your voice a POW of louder pitch to give the reader a startle. Do not over use this voice trick.

Pause – Take a breather and a planned pause. This gives the reader a time to think. Books are naturally broken into pauses using the chapters. Children often ask “Is that the end of the chapter?” When you say that it is then they usually have a strong desire to know what’s going to happen next and urge you to read the next chapter.

Use pauses whenever you feel necessary to address a situation in the book. I will pause and ask questions like, “Are they being kind to each other?” or “Is he being honest when he says that he did not take the candy?” This will ensure your children are listening and learning lessons that apply to their lives.

Using your voice in an interesting way is a lure to bring your children into the story and hooking them into walking through life in a different place and time.

3. Put a puzzle together on a special tray. This would be for the kid who has to stay in bed but has energy to do something, not the exhausted kid who just needs a nap. Put a puzzle out on a tray and let the child do the puzzle on their lap on the couch or in bed. Stay around in case they need help with the pieces.

4. Have a puppet show for them highlighting a Bible verse or manners type lesson. We have animal puppets and I sat behind the couch and did a little lesson using a toucan and a monkey. The toucan had a big beak and was telling the monkey’s secrets. I used the puppets to address when we blab what someone else trusts us with then it may hurt them. Later it encouraged Uno (my oldest son) to want to help me do another puppet show for the other children about hurting others. It made the kids laugh and captivated their attention for a 10-15 minutes. More merry heart = More inner medicine!

5. Take a bath and freshen up. It feels great even for your kiddos to clean up after lying around with snot dripping down their faces. The warm water relaxes them even if they just decide to sit there. Adding bubbles may even encourage them to smile and play a bit and get their mind off of their sore bodies.

Clean clothes can also lift the spirits, this is one of my personal solutions for feeling blah. When you make yourself look nice then your attitude and outlook usually come along and make for a better day, and this applies to your sick kids too.

6. Quote scripture and pray with them. Use every opportunity you have to encourage your children with God’s Word and go to God in prayer. God is our Great Physician and can do what we and doctors cannot do for our children.

Find verses that encourage you in times of sickness and distress. One Bible story in particular speaks of Lazarus that was sick and died (minor illnesses do not warrant death, make sure that you encourage your children to know that they are not dying even though they may feel really bad, no drama in minor cases). Jesus had this to say about his sickness in John 11:4, “When Jesus heard that he said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.” God uses sickness  for His own purposes. You could probably think of more encouraging verses to go along with illness than I can, so use them!

In prayer, acknowledge to God and your children that He allows these sick times for a reason. Ask God to help strengthen their bodies (ask and it shall be given unto you). Thank Him for special time together and for any improvements seen during their sick days.

My children almost always love to pray with my husband and I, especially when they are  we go to God on their behalf.

May these ideas spark your creativity when it comes to capturing your children’s hearts when they are sick. Make your home a loving haven where they are happy to become well because of your special care and attention. I will be adding Part 2 soon because I had more ideas than I could put on one post! That’s a good problem to have, don’t you think?

Walk Before Him With All Your Heart

After Solomon dedicated the temple of God he spoke to the congregation of people who had gathered for one of the most special occasions in Jewish history. The temple, 7 years in the making, primarily covered in gold and made of the finest materials was given. It was God’s move in day in the place where He would accept the atonement for sin on the judgment seat of the sacrifices made for people to cover their sins in the Old Testament.

Solomon said something found in I Kings 8:23 that spoke to me about serving the Lord, “And he said, Lord God of Israel, there is no God like thee, in heaven above, or on earth beneath, who keepest covenant and mercy with thy servants that walk before thee with all their hearts.”

It is true, there is no God like God because there is no other God (big G)!

“Who keepest covenant…” How important it is that God keeps His promises because without that character trait then He would be untrustworthy and fault could be found Him, kind of like the faults that are found in us… No imperfection or forgetting with Him, He is going to do what He has promised in His Word that He will do. You should be able to breathe a sigh of relief that you do not have to speculate whether He will come through or not regarding His Word, He will, and that’s settled.

“…covenant and mercy…” Not just covenant, but mercy is included! Mercy is God not giving us what we deserve and the longer that I parent the more I realize how important mercy is. He says in Lamentations 3 that His mercies are new every morning. I’ve tried to start implementing that verse in my parenting, you can have a bad day and deal with the kids all day on character issues or behavioral problems, but start fresh with new mercies every day. One of the best pieces of advice my mother-in-law gave to me was that we need to forgive our children… it was like a light bulb went off above my head because I was just insistent on nipping a specific behavior in the bud that belonged to my oldest son. I need mercy because I am just as intolerable sometimes, God’s children are always in need of getting a little less of what they deserve because boy do we deserve plenty! If we never received any more mercy than what God gave us when we trusted Christ as our Saviour and He saved us from the punishment of hell for our sins, then we should be forever grateful and use that to motivate us to serve Him more faithfully each day.

Then, the passage states, “with thy servants.” It’s pretty obvious that not everyone is a servant of Christ. Not everyone allows their salvation experience to place a servant’s attitude within their heart. We can see people in church services every week that never lift a finger to even pick up a small piece of trash off the floor or they look at you with a deer in the headlights look when you ask them to help. “Who, me?” Likewise, those called to God’s work can often be in the position of service but not serve. God convicted me recently that I had not been willing to do any and all work for Him. He pointed out specific things that I had said aloud that I did NOT want to do or did not want to do anymore. There’s a difference between delegating certain responsibilities to others so that you can focus on the tasks that only you can do and drawing a line in the sand and being unwilling to do specific jobs that may need to be done. When we draw the line in the sand and create a list of things we will not do for the Lord, perhaps we’ve taken His place on the throne of our hearts and pride has replace the humility we once knew when we said, “wherever you lead I’ll go…”

Which leads to the next point, (pun intended) the last part of the verse that says, “…thy servants that walk before thee with all thy heart:” Can we walk before God with less than “ALL” of our hearts? Perhaps we can, Solomon eventually left God with all of his heart and let his hundreds of wives steal his heart from God. It’s amazing that God works with us in the moment of our heart’s tenderness or hardness to Him because even though God knew Solomon would raise altars to other gods because of his wives, God still hears the temple dedication and appears to him for the second time later in the next chapters. God knows we can walk before Him with less than all of our heart, we’re reminded of those things in Matthew 22:37 when Christ said, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.” Have you stopped giving Him your all when you meet Him each day in prayer time and devotions? He knows, He sees.

We have a duty to keep up the fire of servitude within our hearts, in Paul’s letter to Timothy he urges him to stir up the gift of God within himself. He told Timothy to ask God for a new gift from the Lord, he tells him to stir up what’s already there. If stripped of our ministry title(s) and position in the church where do we stand before God? You know, like who you really are when you’re standing alone in your closet… Have we been a willing servant or the servant only willing to do certain tasks for Him? Have we been walking before Him with all our hearts? Surely if God is pointing something out to you that you will forsake those things that keep you from walking with your whole heart toward God and lift up your arms to our wonderful covenant and merciful God and make things right with Him. John said it (3 John 1:4), but I believe that God also does, “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.”

Walk before Him with all your heart my friends: He keeps His promises, He’s merciful, and there’s no god like God in this entire universe! We serve a wonderful God! Stir up the gift that is within thee and light a fire among those you work with so God’s work will be revived and you can make an eternal difference.

How God Has Provided: Washing Machines and Dryers

Last week I came to the end of my rope, as I was walking out the door and our washing machine had overflowed again! That thing was just like my 5th child, you know how when you want to leave to go somewhere there’s always some kind of crisis or obstacle to overcome with your children. For me it’s been, poopy diapers, they can’t find their Bible, they dropped their money for the offering, or I can’t find my keys…. then the 5th child left water all over the laundry room that I had to stop and vacuum with the carpet cleaner and needless to say we were late to our destination.

The washing machine would fill itself with water and instead of shutting itself off it would just keep going as water poured out onto the floor. During the rinse cycle though it would refill itself and would not overflow, so it beats me why that it would only do it during filling up. My process of dealing with it was let it fill up push the button, wait 5 minutes, then come back and pull the button and it would work fine from there on out. I would just fold laundry in the time in between and I was not having to go to the laundromat, so there was no reason to complain. I had been thanking the Lord for it even though it had been problematic.

Since then my husband replaced it with a new one! Yeah for him! God really caused me to remember how he has provided washing machines and dryers for us through our entire marriage. At our first apartment the washer and dryer was provided, at our 2nd my grandparents bought us a brand new dent and ding washer and gave us their old dryer. When we first moved here a man in our church replaced our “non working” dryer because when we had plugged it in it worked for a minute or two and then quit. When the new dryer came in then we plugged it in and it did not work! Come to find out our breaker had blown and the guy decided to give us the dryer anyway to save us some money in electricity. We were so embarrassed that we did not realize it had only been the breaker, but it was God again providing our needs. Then, the washer’s transmission went out and his uncle that lives in town, knew of one we could have. It was the infamous washer we just replaced. We have had it for about 2 years and replaced parts on it previously. God has provided us some extra money so we could purchase this new one and I am hoping that He will let it run for a very long time.

Something like our appliances are a gift from the Lord and we should not take for granted the blessings He has provided, whether it’s making your broken washing machine go for a little longer, or making your dishsoap last for over a year (that happened to me too)! God may not provide new things for us as quickly as we would like but He may make what we do have last a little longer than it should. Perhaps that is why we should be content with what we have. So what if you have an old TV or are sporting a lemon that is on is last leg, thank God for what He’s provided!

Psalm 68:19 Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits, even the God of our salvation. Selah.