EP 86: Two Key Ways You Can Help Your Kids Flourish

Our oldest son just celebrated his 37th birthday and told us over dinner what he considers the two most important and impactful things his dad and I did for him growing up, so I’m unpacking both those key ways to help your kids flourish in this week’s episode. I hope you’ll listen in.

2 Key Ways to Help Your Kids Flourish

FULL TRANSCRIPT FOR EPISODE 86

Hello, Friend.

Welcome to Episode 86 of Loving Life at Home. Today I want to talk about two of the very best and most important things a parent can do for their children, and that is, first, to faithfully pray for your kids at every age and stage of their lives and, second, to instill in them a love for God’s Word by doing everything you can to hide it in their hearts.

This episode was inspired by my oldest son, Jonathan, who had a birthday last Saturday. Which is to say that the child who first made me a mother is now, suddenly, 37 years old, as incredible as that sounds to his Dad and me.

In some ways, it seems like it was just yesterday we were bringing him home from the hospital. That may be because I have a huge picture framed and hanging on my bedroom wall of my husband holding Jonathan when he was only hours old, and I see that photo every single day, which undoubtedly serves to keep the event – and all the various emotions that accompanied it — fresh in my mind.

But in other ways, I am aware of the fact a whole lot of water has flowed under the bridge since I gave birth to my firstborn. For one thing, I’ve delivered eleven more babies since then. And I’ve gained twenty-four grandchildren, as well — ten of whom belong to that first son.

Learning to Depend More Fully on God

Our family has a group chat group on Signal, so on Saturday, all Jonathan’s siblings were wishing their big brother a happy birthday, and of course Doug and I did the same. And in my message, I commented on the fact that he’s enriched my life in so many ways and really taught me to rely on the LORD to a degree I’d never known before I became a mother.

But then, I thought, well, that same thing is true of my other eleven children too. Each and every one of them has given me a much more vivid understanding of my utter, complete, desperate dependance upon God. Jon may have been the guinnea pig, but it’s not like having a single child suddenly made me an expert or meant I could parent well apart from God’s sustaining grace.

So I added that thought to my message by typing: “Which, come to think of it, could be said of #2-12, as well.”

Or, at least, that’s what I thought I typed. I don’t know about you, but I’m horrible at texting with my thumbs. I have a daughter whose two opposing digits just fly across her screen in a blur anytime she sends a text. It’s really impressive.

I need all ten fingers on a standard keyboard to type that fast, because my thumbs are big and awkward and clumsy and are forever hitting the wrong keys when I try to text. Which is why I normally dictate anything I need to write on my phone. But of course, dictation comes with its own set of problems, since Siri doesn’t know how to spell any of my children’s names and is forever trying to insert apostrophes where they don’t belong in words like were and your. Or she thinks I’m saying something wildly inappropriate and totally unrelated to the question at hand.

But that’s another topic for another day.

The point is, I thought I typed “the same thing could be said of #2-12,” but the message that actually got sent read “the same thing could be said of #11-12.” Which makes it sound like that first baby and the last two were particularly trying. Ha!

But that’s not true. Every child has had his or her challenging days or seasons or attitudes or struggles. And if anything, the last two were the easiest, not because they didn’t have challenges similar to those of their older siblings, but because, by the time they arrived on the scene, I was no longer second-guessing myself on every little thing that came up.

By the time you get to number eleven or twelve, you have a lengthy track record to look back on – not so much of your own abilities and accomplishments as of God’s faithfulness to see you through whatever trials come your way. So you can rest confidently in the knowledge that none of it takes Him by surprise, and He will be there every step of the way granting you wisdom and direction in the very moment you need it most.

Which is huge.

So, that was a much longer introduction than I intended to today’s topic which, as I said before, was inspired by a comment our firstborn made over his birthday lunch on Saturday.

As we were chowing down on barbecue, he turned to me and said, “You know, Mom, the most important things you did for us growing up were that you really worked hard to hide God’s Word in our hearts and you prayed for us daily – and still do. And so does Nana.”  

My husband does as well – he and I do that together first thing, every morning – but I think he was in the bathroom while Jonathan was telling me this, so he didn’t hear it.

A Regular Prayer Warrior

It’s true about Nana, too. Jon was right about that. Nana is my mother, and she is an incredible prayer warrior. She lifts our entire family up – and a lot of other people and concerns — before the Lord every single day by name.

And I don’t just mean she prays, God bless so-and-so and so-and-so as she rattles off an ever-growing list of names. She prays specific prayers over specific needs.

Do you know how powerful that is? And what a huge blessing it is for us?

Just last week, one of my sons took his exit exam for nursing school. This son has diabetes, and he’s always a little nervous that his blood sugar may go haywire in stressful test situations. So he asked me to come sit outside the testing center, just in case, so as to have somebody close by who knew what to do if his blood sugar went too high or too low while he was sitting for the exam.

So, just like I sat outside the testing center 15 months earlier while he took his entrance exam, I went with him again last Friday and sat outside while he took the exit exam.

And during the 3 hours I was outside waiting for my son to finish his test, I prayed for him. Not constantly – I also finished reading a book and did some mending and wrote a few letters and a couple of blog posts and answered texts and emails and stuff like that — but I did pray for him repeatedly, about once every 15 minutes or so.

And I also texted my mom, his Nana, the prayer warrior, to let her know Daniel was taking his test and ask her to pray for him as well, and to also pray for my daughter Abby who had volleyball tryouts the same day, and for me, who needed to make it home from the testing center with Daniel in time to get Abby to the gym.

So Mom answered back immediately and said she’d already prayed for both the test and the tryouts earlier that same morning. So she keeps a running list and refers to it regularly. And she has done that for as long as I can remember.

Do you know what a rich heritage that is?

And it’s a heritage that, with a little self-discipline, each of us can give to our children. It doesn’t cost us anything but the time we spend uttering the prayers. And praying for our kids is so much more effective than worrying or fretting about them!

My Summer Book Club

I’m doing something new this summer. I’ve joined a book club with some women from my church. Our first meeting is tonight, and we’ll be reading and discussing Nancy Leigh DeMoss’s Lies Women Believe.

I’ve had that book on my shelf for years, but I don’t remember ever actually reading it, at least not cover-to-cover. And judging from the fact there are none of my usual highlights or underlines or scribbled notes in the margins, I’m guessing that this will be my first time through the entire book. I have my work cut out for me, because I’m supposed to have finished reading the first two chapters before 7 PM tonight, and I’m just barely getting started.

In the intro, the author notes that in years of traveling across the country – possibly even around the globe – she’s met countless women and many, many of them share a few common struggles. They’re plagued by fear and worry and anxiety and depression. Or they’re weighed down by feelings of guilt or inadequacy or overwhelm. Maybe they’re exhausted, frazzled, burned out, or at the end of their rope. Perhaps they are carrying other heavy burdens that they keep hidden from everyone around them. They just smile and say, “Fine,” anytime anyone asks how they’re doing, and nobody realizes how close to the breaking point they really feel.

As I read through that extensive list of common struggles, I felt very blessed. Aside from occasionally feeling tired or exhausted, I do not have to deal with any of those emotions very often.

Peace in the Midst of a Storm

Instead, I resonate with another kind of woman DeMoss describes. The one whose heart remains at peace and full of confidence and joy, even in the midst of difficult trials – trials like the loss of a child or a cancer diagnosis or myriad other stressful circumstances.

And the author offers hope there, too, because even if you don’t personally toss and turn in bed every night – and I don’t. I fall asleep just as soon as my head hits the pillow – but even if you don’t lie awake obsessing over your own past mistakes or fretting over your own current hardships or experiencing panic attacks over your own fears for the future, you undoubtedly know friends or family members who do.

That is certainly the case for me.

And you’d like to be able to help them get to that same place of peace and joy and confidence in the faithfulness of God that you have in the very depths of your soul.

You want them to be able to assuredly affirm His goodness and implicitly trust that He will work all things – even the hard, heavy, difficult things that we would’ve chosen to avoid if we could – God will work all of that together for our good and His glory.

So in the book (which I’ll link in the show notes), Nancy Leigh DeMoss (now Wolgemuth), promises to point the way – and show her readers how to point the way – to freedom from the cares of this world. She writes:

Well, I haven’t finished her book yet. I’ve barely even begun it. But reflecting on the introduction, I’m pretty sure I can guess what the solution is for ridding oneself of all the heavy burdens of guilt and worry and overwhelm and anxiety and depression and outright lies Satan tries to saddle us with.

And that solution stems from those two things my son told me were so important in his upbringing. They are the same two things that were key to the way my own parents raised me, as well.

As I’ve flipped through the pages of this book that is filled with lies women commonly believe, very few of them resonate with me, because I grew up in a home where my parents didn’t only earnestly and unceasingly pray for me, but they also stressed the importance of God’s Word. They bought me my own copy of the Bible. They regularly took me to a church that faithfully preached the Bible and believed every word of it is true. Just as I believe as well.  They encouraged me to read, and study, and memorize the Bible and hide it in my heart. And they did their best to live and order their lives according to God’s Word and expected me to do the same.

I’ve already done two episodes dedicated to Bible memorization, which I’ll link again in the show notes. I won’t rehash any of those particulars here, except to say I believe memorizing God’s Word is an important part of proving yourself “to doers of the Word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves,” as James discusses in His epistle. He writes in James 1:23-25,

“For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does.”

Isn’t that what you want for yourself and your children? To be blessed in whatever you do?

Psalms 1:3 describes it this way, speaking of a man who knows and meditates on the holy scriptures instead of listening to the lies of the ungodly scorners:

“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.”

Again, that is what I want for my family, and so I’m going to work toward that goal by praying for my children and by doing all I can to hide God’s Word in their hearts, just like my mother did (and does) for me.

Fostering Good Communication

When you think about it, prayer and Bible study are two sides of the communication coin. Prayer is how we talk to God, and the Bible is how He talks to us (through His Word).

We all know that communication is vital to any relationship.

And isn’t relationship the goal? Relationship? Not religion. The world has more than enough “religion” already. The Pharisees were religious, yet Jesus said in Matthew 5:20,

“Unless your righteousness surpasses the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.”

I don’t want my children to be religious. I don’t want them to outwardly conform to a set of rules while inwardly their hearts are black with sin. I don’t want them to fit the description Jesus put on those same teachers of the law in Matthew 23:27 when He said,

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and every kind of impurity.”

So. I’m going to keep pouring God’s Word into my kids and grandkids, and I’m going to keep bringing them before the Lord in prayer.

Free Printable Prayer Guides

If that is a goal you share, I’ll link a few prayer guides in the show notes to help you, including 31 Bible verses you can pray over your child, a new one for every day of the month.

I love praying scripture over my kids, because I feel like when I do that, I’m praying in accordance with the revealed will of God. Praying in the name and through the power of Jesus. Praying in unison with the Holy Spirit, who according to Romans 8:26 intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words, “groanings which cannot be uttered.” Praying in conformity to the heart and mind of God.

This is something my husband and I have done from the very beginning. We started praying for each of our children from the moment we learned I was expecting – we prayed primarily that God would draw them to faith from an early age. But we also prayed for their health and development, and for their mind and disposition.

One of the prayer guides I’ll link in the show notes lists all those petitions we made for our precious babies before they were ever born, along with the scriptural support for each request.

But I also have prayer guides for praying over your children from head to toe and for praying specifically for teens and even for praying over your adult children. So I hope you’ll check them out. You can download any of them for free on my blog, Loving Life at Home.

And for those of you who are currently raising teens and young adults right now, I’ll also include a link to episode 55 of this podcast, which is all about Smoothing Your Child’s Passage to Adulthood, with lots of tips (including fervent prayer) that should help ease that transition, both for parents and child.

A Word of Caution/Clarification

Now, I want end this episode with a word of caution. Just as Nancy Leigh DeMoss noted in the introduction to her book, there are no shortcuts or magic formulas here. Not even Bible memory or earnest prayers are a guarantee that your child will come to a saving knowledge of Christ or live a life that honors him.

Yet faithful, biblically-based parenting is worth our best effort regardless of the outcome.

Deuteronomy 11:18-21 commands us,

“Therefore shall ye lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul, and bind them for a sign upon your hand, that they may be as frontlets between your eyes. And ye shall teach them your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt write them upon the door posts of thine house, and upon thy gates: That your days may be multiplied, and the days of your children, in the land which the LORD sware unto your fathers to give them, as the days of heaven upon the earth.”

Obedience to this injunction is its own reward. As long as we faithfully fulfill the responsibility with which God has entrusted us in making us parents, the work is 100% worthwhile, even if none of the hopes and dreams we have for our children come to fruition.

When they do—when our children love God and make wise decisions and stick to the narrow path and maintain close relationships with both parents and siblings—that’s a big bonus. But it’s not guaranteed. All we can do point them to Christ and let His love flow through us as we train them up in the way they should go. (like Proverbs 22:6 tells us to do)

More like Jesus. That should be the goal, right? “’Create in me a clean heart, O God!’ (as David prayed in Psalm 51:10) Conform me to the image of Christ. Transform my thoughts and bring them into alignment with Your Word.” That has certainly been the prayer and earnest desire of my heart, though I also routinely entreat God to do it—to teach me whatever lessons I need to learn—“in the easiest and most gentle way possible.”

Rejoicing When We Encounter Trials

Unfortunately, a life of ease and comfort rarely produces in us the most pronounced personal growth or the closest walk with God. The quickest route is not always the most rewarding. Sometimes we reap a benefit from doing things “the hard way,” whether we’re baking from scratch or practicing an artisan skill or training for a marathon or writing a book (instead of expecting AI to do it for us) or doing any number of other activities where the process is as important as outcome.

Of course, such knowledge shouldn’t keep us from dodging difficulties or minimizing problems or avoiding struggles when we can. Doing so makes sense. There’s no virtue in embracing pain purely for pain’s sake or purposefully looking for trouble. 

Yet despite our best efforts to avoid them, we sometimes encounter trials we have to endure. Hardships arise which we cannot escape. When that happens, it’s a comfort to know that God is still in control. That He has a higher purpose. That He is actively working all things together for our good and His glory—even through the darkest night, even in the fiercest battle, despite the bleakest prognosis, amid the most exasperating circumstances. (Romans 8:28)

That is true for us. And it is also true for our children. God is sovereign. He remains in control.

And sometimes He receives the highest glory not by rescuing us from a difficult situation but by sustaining us through it. Think of Paul’s thorn in the flesh. Of Daniel’s night in the lion’s den. Of His friends’ walk through the fiery furnace. Of David’s battle with Goliath. Of Joseph’s being sold into slavery.

God could have spared all these saints the dangers they faced, but if He had, we’d know none of their inspiring stories. By preserving them through their difficulties instead, not only did God gain greater glory, but they got a clearer glimpse of His marvelous power—and we drew deeper encouragement from reading their miraculous testimonies. 

In each of these instances, the process was every bit as important as the final result. And the same is true of parenting. 

When we remain faithful through whatever trials motherhood throws our way, we find God’s grace is more than sufficient to see us through the hardest seasons, the longest struggles, the deepest heartbreaks, the most stressful circumstances. 

One more thing hardships teach us? To put our hope and trust in God (where it belongs).

Not in a particular parenting method.

Not in weekly church attendance.

Not in homeschooling.

Not in family devotions.

Not in our own efforts.

Not even in rote Bible memory or printable prayer guides.

As valuable as many of those things may be, they are powerless in themselves to save our children’s souls. Only God has the power to change hearts, and so we must pin all our hopes on God and God alone, both for our own salvation and sanctification, and for the salvation and sanctification of our children.  

It may be that God chooses to use the Bible memory verses or Sunday school teachers or family devotions or homeschool years as a means of grace to draw your children to Himself, and if so, praise His name for keeping you faithful in those areas. But don’t forget it is He who does the drawing and it is He who deserves all the glory.

Like a farmer, we may till the ground, prepare the soil, plant the seed, water the sprouts, pull the weeds, and do a dozen other things to foster faith in the lives of our little ones, but as 1 Corinthians 3:6 reminds us, God alone can make things grow.

That’s true of crops, and it’s true of faith as well. So keep planting, planting, planting, and keep praying, praying, praying that God will bless the work of your hands and grant the desires of your heart and bring all those deep longings to fruition in the life of your children.

If you do, then regardless of what your children ultimately decide, whether to follow Jesus or to go their own way, at least you will have been obedient to the LORD’s commands, and you can look forward to hearing on that coming day when you stand before Him, “Well done, my good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your master.”