BE A STUDENT

BE A STUDENT

  • Teens, Testimonies

BE A STUDENT

We wrapped up two glorious weeks in Colorado and were up early for our flight. There was so much joy and gratitude pouring out of each of us. That is until we were going through security. It was hectic and very chaotic. The crowd had a subtle push as everyone wanted to get through the security line without further delay. Hudson started getting agitated and was letting everyone around him know it. I would ask him to do something knowing there wasn’t much time to tinker around. He was obeying but with extreme exaggeration. It would have been almost comical if it wasn’t holding up the rest of the people. I became annoyed and upset with his attitude. I made a sharp comment about his attitude which only made things worse. On the train, I was able to take a breath and heard Jesus tell me that I needed to be a student of my son and to allow him to teach me what he needs in this new teen brain season. I apologized for my sharp words that focused more on his outward behavior than his heart. I told him what Jesus showed me because it is always important to me that my children know while I am their mother and to be respected, Jesus is their friend and cares about their hearts, too. I love it when Jesus shows me where I have misunderstood my child’s heart. He is their advocate and I want them to know it. While on the plane, he asked to sit by me which was his way of communicating he wanted to reconnect. I knew he wouldn’t value having a conversation in front of everyone so I wrote him a note. His reply caught me off guard. His frustration was not within himself, but rather stemming from my rushed and chaotic parenting. He is still a child at 14, while capable of much, still a child, and simply needed more time.

PLAYING IN THE KINGDOM

When my kids were little, I would drive 45 minutes south to attend a church in Denver that believed children could play in the Kingdom. I was so undone by the power they carried. They needed some coaching in the ‘how,’ but when it mixed with their childlike faith, INCREDIBLE things began to happen. I never wanted my children to feel like God was a religious burden or that walking out our faith meant putting them in uncomfortable situations. I wanted to teach them that it was a JOY to love those around us and that the Kingdom truly is FUN. I called it ‘Playing in the Kingdom,’ and they came to life. They are older now, and we all still look for ways to play in the Kingdom and love those around us in everyday situations.

ACTS OF SERVICE

A mom mentioned: “When I read about children with the language of acts of service wanting you to help them, I thought of my daughter. An example would be me fixing her hair. Sometimes I don’t have time to help her and ask her to do it herself, and she does get upset actually.”

My response: I know you love her and show it through providing breakfast, clean clothes, and getting her to school, but can you increase doing it in a way that she values and understands? What if sending her to school with her hair done by you filled her tank in a way that empowered and helped her throughout the day to feel safe and secure? Would you want to do it then? She is giving you the keys to her heart. The amazing thing about children is that their hearts are small and fill so fast. A five-minute hair session can literally change her day! How can you create the time to communicate love to her? Can you wake up five minutes earlier? Can you braid it the night before? When you honestly cannot do it, how then can you communicate that you still love her without being able to do her hair?

Let’s slow this down for a moment. A child is asking for help because that is how their tank gets filled, and the parent to whom they are offering their heart begins to get upset and frustrated with them for not doing it themselves. They now walk away with a tank even lower than when they first asked. I KNOW this is not the goal of many parents, but this is what happens when we fail to understand *their* language. We have miscommunication and a breakdown of deposits in their heart. Hear the difference: “No, I already taught you how to tie your shoes. You be a big boy and do it by yourself. Stop fussing and get it done now. No, I will not help you. You are going to make me late. Hurry up,” VS. “Oh, buddy. I love that you want me to help you, and my heart really wants to, but I cannot right now. I need you to tie your shoes. I am so proud of you for the way you have mastered tying your shoes.” Can you hear the difference? One sees the heart and affirms them, while the other only sees the task. It isn’t a yes/no, you do it/I do it response. It is seeing their heart and making sure you are communicating and affirming your love for them.

LOOK WHAT HE SAID

I believe this is what His original design for family was supposed to look and operate like.

From my sweet friend: “I taught my eldest son (14) how to soak and listen for the voice of God about four years ago, and in doing so, he has learned how to pray in the Spirit. He went to bed and got up an hour later and asked if we could talk. He proceeded to tell me he had been soaking and needed to share with me what he heard. All of a sudden he starts prophesying over me going after my heart splinters, my longing for a mother that was never fulfilled and how much that hurt and how I still long for it, and why I struggle with my stepmom is because I wanted that from her, too. It was never fulfilled… then he went on to speak about the hurt in her, and why she could not fulfill it. He started praying something along the lines of ‘You didn’t have anyone to mother you, but God was there, and He mothered you, which is why you can be the mother you are today.’ I have been processing ALL the things he spoke over me over the last few weeks as the Holy Spirit has shown me I have offense in my heart with my stepmom. God used my son to show me. God. Is. So. Faithful! Thank you for teaching us how to partner with the Holy Spirit in our parenting.”

HE SEES ME

I love Monday mornings. I have the house to myself and crank out a ton of work! The Lord said to go to the prayer house and just sit with Him. It took me a moment to lay down my agenda, but here I am. Someone walked up to me and handed me a note containing a prophetic word so spot on, so big, so encouraging, and life-giving that all I can do is sit here in AWE. He sees me. The prophetic is a coffee date with Jesus. Take a risk today and ask Jesus what He wants to say to someone around you.

PRAY FOR MY DAD

I have been camping out in these testimonies of God’s goodness with the next generation and am undone by His power and goodness to them. Two younger ladies came to me asking for prayer. They shared how their relationship with their father was strained, and wanted prayers. I thought they meant for reconciliation and began to pray accordingly, but they interrupted me to say, “No, we want prayer for Jesus to give us the keys to our father’s heart.” Another gal who has battled self-harm for years due to her father’s alcohol consumption and believing the lie she is rejected asks Jesus why he needed alcohol. She heard, “Because he feels rejected by his parents.” She wept as she realized he was battling the same lie she was plagued with and wanted Jesus to give her the keys to his heart. Another gal asked to meet with me and shared some of her dad’s choices over the years that brought the family a lot of pain. When we asked Jesus what her dad’s heart needed, she began to cry as Jesus showed her he felt like a failure and ashamed. She realized she had punished him and how it was causing him further hurt. She asked for forgiveness, and Jesus began to give her the keys to mending that relationship. We ministered to a boy who said, “All these years, I thought my dad was just mean, but Jesus showed me today that he has a heart splinter from his own journey.” This is so powerful as kids move from victim to empowered. Hurt to authority. Walls of self-protection to love. Jesus loves restoring the family and does not look down on a child due to age. They have the same size Holy Spirit as their parents and can be powerful weapons against the plans of the enemy to destroy the family.

OUR JOURNEY

Who moves in the middle of a worldwide crisis? GOD DOES!! Many of you are asking for the back story of our move, and I finally have a moment to share. It is really quite simple. I didn’t have the grace to stay. At the same time we went on lockdown, our landlord asked for the house back so they could move into it. We already had tickets to Colorado for spring break, so instead of canceling them, we moved them up and spent the first several weeks of lockdown in Colorado, giving me lots of time to think, process, and pray. We were due back in Redding on Easter evening, and I could not do it. I would cry every time I thought of returning, and it felt so heavy. It was so strong that we changed our tickets to a later date. The following day I sat with the Lord wanting to process whatever was in my heart, and I so clearly heard Him say, “The grace has lifted” (from our season in Redding). There was never a decision. I never weighed the pros and cons or made an intellectual decision on what was best for our family. If God has given me the grace to endure a season that has cost me something dearly and deeply and lifts that grace, then the decision is simply to follow Him. I told the kids, and within days, we met with our landlord to confirm our move-out date. It happened very fast, mainly due to moving in the middle of Covid, the landlords moving back in, and the kids being on online learning already. We will continue to process our hearts with this massive transition for our family, but one thing I know for certain is that when God leads, it will be good!

GOD SEES MY CHILD

My voice is a broken record as I state over and over and over that if the Father looks at the heart, so should we in our parenting. God told me years ago, “Stop denying my daughter her dog,” and with that, I moved into another home just to get her a dog. I am not a dog lover, and it was a hard thing for me to obey. God has surely been good on His word, and Boo has brought so much healing to her heart over the years. 

IT WORKED!

I cannot get enough of these testimonies of moms learning how to partner with God in their parenting! 

“We were sitting on the couch, snuggling together before bed, and my daughter, all of a sudden, looked towards the playroom and said, ‘Mommy, I feel scared.’ I asked her why she felt scared, and she said she was scared of the dark over there. I asked her what she saw, and she said, ‘bad guys.’ I wasn’t sure what to do, so I asked the Holy Spirit to help me, and I felt led to ask Jesus to shine his flashlight on her heart to show her where the fear was coming from. She didn’t even seem like she was listening, but I asked her, ‘What did Jesus show you?’ She said she saw us in the camper, and we were snuggling on the couch, and the bad guys came to life. IT WORKED! She just turned four, and Jesus took her back to a memory over six months ago! I was so excited Jesus spoke to her! I felt led to ask her if we were watching a movie (because fear often enters through our eye gates with movies), and she said yes, but she covered her eyes when the scary part came. I’m not sure what movie we were watching, but we are very careful that we don’t watch anything scary, so I’m guessing that the spirit of fear twisted something, and she felt afraid. We repented and said sorry to Jesus for not protecting our eye gates, and we asked Him to forgive us for watching that movie, and He said, ‘Yes, I forgive you.’ Then we took the fear out of her heart and threw it at Jesus’ feet, and asked Jesus what He wanted to give her. She said peace. We asked Jesus and the angels to come and make the bad guys leave our house, and she said she saw 20 angels! I don’t know if she actually saw 20 angels, but she definitely saw something angelic come and make the bad guys leave because the fear was gone, and I got my joyful little girl back!”

Friends, get your copy of our Heart Splinters book and become empowered how to teach your children how to defeat the works of the enemy and usher them to Jesus! 

Heart Splinters BOOK – Let the Children Fly

EMMA’S OUTFIT

I have favorite stories of my children about how God encountered their hearts. This is my favorite one of Emma’s because we are still seeing the fruit of it a decade later.

When Emma was five, she came to me sobbing that she hated her outfit. I encouraged her to pick out something else. She did, and that, too, produced an ocean of tears. She set off to find something else, but the flood of tears continued. At this point, I was getting a little annoyed and frustrated. We were already super late for Thanksgiving dinner at a friend’s house, and clothes were simply a non-issue in my home up until that point. Why did they matter so much now? By the fifth outfit, I was about to give her a good lecture on, “naked you came, naked you will leave,” and I could feel my blood pressure rising. I heard her tears coming back up the stairs, and suddenly Holy Spirit whispered, “Ask her WHY.” I sat her down and asked why she hated her clothes. She stated immediately that it was because she wasn’t pretty enough (lie). But we had to keep asking questions. WHY did she believe she wasn’t pretty enough? She then revealed the painful splinter: “Because my daddy doesn’t love me.”

Satan had whispered to her that he didn’t like her because she wasn’t pretty enough and that if only she could find the right outfit, she would be pretty enough to be loved. Imagine if the splinter had not been dealt with that day. Fast forward several years to when she is fifteen. Her unresolved need for love drives her to dress for boys’ attention. What about when she is twenty-five and married and causes a great amount of debt due to her obsession with shopping in an attempt to feel good about herself?

The hurts, lies, and offenses are there to steal, kill, and destroy our relationships with God, ourselves, and others. I believe that the enemy was seeking to plant a lie deep in Emma that day that would reap a harvest for a lifetime through the pain with her father. I explained that the voice she heard was not Jesus but His enemy.

Because kids have free will, I always ask, “Would you like to tell that lie to leave?” It empowers rather than controls them. She said she wanted to get rid of the lie, so I led her through a prayer that looked like this: “Jesus, I confess I believed the lie that I am not pretty enough to be loved.” “Jesus, I forgive my dad for not making me feel like a princess.” “Jesus, where were You when I got my feelings hurt?” “Jesus, how do You feel about me?” She sat there with her eyes closed and her head bowed and suddenly got the biggest smile on her face. She looked up and said with excitement, “Mom! I wore this beautiful dress, and my hair was like a ballerina’s. I was dancing with Jesus, and He said I was HIS princess!” While that was indeed a sweet moment, what is so awesome about this story is that God used it all for good when the enemy came to harm and hurt.

To this day, years later, that girl KNOWS she is Jesus’ princess!

MY JOURNEY

I told God, lying on my hospital bed, that I wanted to be a poster child of His power. A week later, I was supernaturally healed of both my kidney and liver failure. Twenty-seven years later, He continues to display His power throughout my life. When I am going through something, I seem to REALLY go through things. I feel, embrace, endure, process, and ponder. I just have this knowing that what God is doing IN me, He will eventually want to do THROUGH me. I sometimes laugh at the depth in which God takes me when He seems to take others faster. Part of it is through my process; He is allowing me to give language for it, along with powerful tools of heaven, knowing that I will share it with others. My life is not my own, but His for His use for His purposes.