A Victory!!!!! Something is Working!!! -

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I just keep struggling with things and getting mad about stuff.”

As much as this sounds like something I have said many times over, this time it came from Mikaela! Once I get past the first thoughts to enter my mind, which go something like this, “What the HECK? You’re turning 6, not 16!” I reach into the compartment of my mind where the Lord and I have spent many hours stocking my mommy arsenal in the name of “Helping My Daughter Deal with Being Female.” I pull out an old favorite labeled, “You can’t control you feelings, but you can control what you do with them.” I leave my vacuum in the middle of the floor and begin to walk over to assure this tiny “woman” that I totally understand. Before a word gets past my lips she runs right past me towards her room and turns and says, “Wait just a minute….I’m going to go have some God time.”

YES!! She’s listening! She’s learning. And She’s applying, perhaps in many instances more readily than I am!! It is not about teaching our kids how not to struggle, it’s about teaching them how to cope when they do!

Keep their spirits soft to the notion of our heavenly Father and His desire for intimate involvement in our lives. While I have not officially had a teenager yet (just a nearly 6 year old who acts like one) I was a teenager…with plenty of emotional, hormonal issues! And I believe I can say with some level of certainty (and from experience…Thanks, Mom!) that keeping the things of God continually, daily, and yes, even casually on your lips and in the center of your home will make those “Come to Jesus” moments in the teen years much less awkward, as they will already be in the habit of coming to Jesus and seeing you go to Him as well. He wants to be a friend not an occasional flotation device when the seas of life grow too rough for us.

Save yourself a lot of stress! Don’t waste your energy trying to figure out how to keep your children from ever experiencing pain. Instead, use every day and seize each opportunity to teach them to fight the good fight and walk in the victory of the Lord! Our great military academies do not teach their students how to avoid war…they teach them how to win the battles.

We live in a messed up world ruled by the prince of darkness. (John 12:31) Like it or not, your kids are going to have to fight! Give them the weapons to do it!

“Put on God’s whole armor [the armor of a heavy-armed soldier which God supplies], that you may be able successfully to stand up against [all] the strategies and the deceits of the devil.

For we are not wrestling with flesh and blood [contending only with physical opponents], but against the despotisms, against the powers, against [the master spirits who are] the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spirit forces of wickedness in the heavenly (supernatural) sphere.

Therefore put on God’s complete armor, that you may be able to resist and stand your ground on the evil day [of danger], and, having done all [the crisis demands], to stand [firmly in your place].” Ephesians 6:11-13 (AMP)

“For the weapons of our warfare are not physical [weapons of flesh and blood], but they are mighty before God for the overthrow and destruction of strongholds,” 2 Cor. 10:4 (AMP)