Raising Kingdom Kids.
For some, it’s the latest buzzword in Christian parenting.
For our family, it’s just what we did.
As Christians, everything we do should be about God’s Kingdom.
Everything.
As parents, everything we instill in our children should reflect God’s glory.
Even if one of them proclaims, “I am an atheist” at the dinner table.
Y’all, I did the unthinkable for a mom of teenagers.
I asked their opinion on something.
I told them to be honest.
I even double-checked to see if they had any additions to the list.
And they replied, “Can we ask our cousins their opinion, too?”
In the words of my teenagers (and their cousins), I am shook.
I asked them what are the things they wished their mamas and their daddies knew about them in this season of their lives.
Continue reading “The Things Teenagers Want Their Christian Mamas to Know”
For people who don’t like to write, this is going to sound a little weird. You see friends, writing is my love language. I know that writing is not one of the original five love languages as penned in Gary Chapman’s bestseller, however, it is definitely mine.
I try not to say anything off the top of my head. My words are often crafted strategically to ensure that they evoke the proper emotion from the reader. If I’m asked to pray in front of a large group or give remarks at an event, I’ve probably written the words before and rehearsed them in such a way that anyone who hears me thinks I’m speaking off the cuff.
Even the prayers and the poems, Toni?
Especially the prayers and the poems.
One of the hardest struggles I’ve had in my parenting has been on the homeschooling journey. Homeschooling itself can be challenging with the lesson plans, the state requirements, and the college readiness factor, but for me the challenge was none of that.
It was in the decision to actually do it.
A decision that I felt the Holy Spirit leading me to for years and I never listened.
Until I had no other choice. Continue reading “Homeschooling 4.0 : Just The Girls”
This time last week I was a wreck. A sleep-deprived, irritable, overwhelmed wreck. My oldest was caught in a flurry of child-like behaviors while simultaneously trying to assert his independence. My two youngest felt like they were losing their best friend. I couldn’t enjoy the final moments of living with him and them. See why I changed the name of the blog from My Life With Him and Them to Hey Twilli?
Our lives were changing. The nest was starting to become empty. The first of my tribe was spending his final days with me at home, the second was caught in the anticipation that she will be in this situation next year, and the third was anxiously preparing for her departure two years after that. I never knew that taking one child to college would open the floodgates to everyone leaving, and yet it did.
My prayer partner warned me. My mother warned me. My cousins warned me. Even my ex-husband warned me.
“I’m fine. We’ll be fine. It’s all fine.” And I truly believed it when I said it.
Then all of a sudden, I wasn’t fine. Continue reading “What It’s Really Like to Take Your Kid to College”
