“Dear God, thank you for making Mrs. Cindi’s house look like it was slimed,” my husband said as he started the blessing before dinner. We all giggled a bit, but we did so with grateful hearts.
Our area has been in a drought for quite some time and a dear friend who lives about 35 minutes from us had been on the verge of evacuating many, many times, all within just a few days.
And then they got the call to evacuate. They had minutes to grab everything and go and pray for the best. As Cindi’s husband drove away from their street to evacuate, he saw a massive fireball racing along another street and assumed that this was the last time he would see their home.
Fortunately, he was wrong. DC-10 airplanes dropped fire retardant on their home and firefighters bulldozed on their property. The fire was stopped, but it came dangerously close.
Throughout the whole mess, as fires blazed not too far from us and we could smell smoke in the air each day, we prayed. We prayed for our friends. We prayed for people we don’t know. We prayed for the firefighters. We prayed for those whose homes were lost and we prayed thanksgiving for those whose homes were not.
And once we could breathe a sigh of relief, we thanked God for having Mrs. Cindi’s house slimed.
Our children are 5, 8 and 10, and we have shared near misses and tragedies with them since they were quite tiny. When our oldest was 4, we hosted friends who were evacuating ahead of Hurricane Katrina. We prayed that the storm would stop. When the destruction began, we prayed for restoration.
About four years ago, friends called asking for prayer as their son was clinging to life. My boys knew their son. My husband and I could barely get the prayer request out at dinner while choking back tears. We shared the news and prayed. And Adam was healed.
Last fall we prayed for another child we know quite well who was diagnosed with Cancer. She is recovering well now, too.
I am so thankful we chose to share each of these situations with our children and involve them in prayer. It is my prayer that as they grow up, they will see that sometimes the only thing you can do to help is pray.
As parents we sometimes want to shield our children from devastation. I think that sometimes, though, sharing the truth and involving them in praying is the best thing you can do.
I don’t share every single detail of everything, and there are some tragedies my husband and I choose to just pray for ourselves. But I am glad we have chosen to show our children the ones we have.
It shows them that we may be in control of some things, but that we submit to our Father and lean on Him for the biggies. We know who really is control. And we know that, even when things don’t go the way we hope, He is still there to carry us, if we let Him.
Prayer and honesty are our best tools for growing our children’s faith, and are own.
What about you?
How do you deal with potential tragedy and tragedy in your family? How much do you share? And how do you help the faith of your children to grow?
This is our final post in the Faith of Our Children series.
Pleas see what my partners in blogging have to share about the tools they use to help grow their children’s faith:
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