Parenting

Even though there is a lot of dialogue around having babies, if a couple cannot have a baby, it doesn't mean there is anything wrong with them — not from a spiritual perspective or their alternative choices to have children.

This new invention, along with many other involved fertility treatments, raises new questions about the ethical implications of these actions. As with pretty much any current event, there are differing perspectives on the morality of surrogacy. We are still grappling with it as believers and seeking God for his wisdom when it comes to our desire to be parents.

It’s not easy to find family-friendly movies nowadays. Finding a family-friendly film that everyone in the house will watch is even more difficult. But if you search hard enough, they’re out there. The quality of family-friendly films has gone up significantly in recent years, including in the faith-based genre. Fortunately, there are quite a few family-family movies on home video this holiday season.

Each time we wake up in the morning is a new chance to seek the Lord and relish in His goodness, no matter our circumstances. The Lord longs to fill you with His joy and His love. Decide this year to rest in the greatness of the Lord on Christmas morning, no matter what.

Christmas time is full of fantastic, wonderful moments. Kids start dreaming about what's wrapped under the Christmas tree. Adults are looking forward to family and friends gathering to eat and share stories. It's also the time where adults and kids both probably talk about Santa's involvement in bringing presents, his peculiar breaking-and-entering habit, the jolliness of his character, and the celebration of a jumbo-belly laugh.If you're like our household with small kids, talking about Santa and his "role" in Christmas can be rather complicated. How much do we say? What do we say? Who was the real Santa Claus? Can Christians believe in and talk about Santa Claus? Can this tradition distract us from celebrating Christ at Christmas?Our family has wrestled with all of these. We've made it through lots of holidays talking about Santa Claus while keeping the focus on Jesus (mostly!), so here are a few humble suggestions when talking with your kids about Santa and Jesus around the holidays.

If we surveyed a thousand single moms, there would be a thousand different answers on the best practices of how to parent your children well. Different strokes for different folks, as they say. That said, we want to provide some clarity and calm to what can sometimes be a difficult journey of parenting alone.

Family is an important concept in the Bible. God instituted family when He created Eve as a helpmeet for Adam. The rest of the Bible speaks of family in its various roles, and most important is the church as God’s family.

The holiday season is always a great time for families to gather and spend quality time together. But once the holidays are over and the cold, dreary winter days become shorter, it is easy to waste days away staring at a TV or computer screen. Winter doesn't have to be a series of boring, non-eventful days, do they? Any day can be a family fun day if parents are creative enough. Fun is what we make it. Here are some fun activities families can do to enjoy the winter:

Advent is an opportunity to focus our homes on Jesus as we countdown to the joyous Christmas day. It's a four-week invitation to pause, reflect, celebrate, and enjoy this season while remembering its glorious meaning. All ages can enjoy the Advent tradition. Let your creativity guide your home as you enjoy the holidays.Each week of Advent has a theme. In the first week, we light a purple candle for hope (or promise); in week two, we light a purple candle for preparation (or waiting or prophecy); in week three, we light a pink or purple candle for joy (or peace), and week four we light a purple or pink candle is for love (or adoration).We can take this tradition and modify it to work in our homes. Our prayers, crafts, discussions, and planned activities can be catered to meet the needs of our homes. Let the themes of each week guide you as you explore what God's Word tells us about who Jesus is and what his life and death accomplished for us all!Here are some creative Advent calendar ideas for your family's Christmas countdown:

If a child walks away from the faith, it will not be because they believed in a man who wore a red suit and lived at the North Pole. It will be because they believe their sin is too great to forgive or because they're too rebellious in their ways. Both Jesus and Santa give us the gift of freedom. But Jesus had to give his life up for it.

Whether it’s Proverbs 31 or the next-door neighbor-mom, somewhere in our arsenal of mom tools, we’ve placed this measuring stick by which we judge our success. Stop it!

No matter how hard we try, families become more focused on dinners, tree decorating, card sending, and gift giving during the Christmas season. There's nothing wrong with these things, but keeping our minds and hearts focused on Christ during this season is important. Each weekend, church families light the Advent candles. This brings us one week closer to Christmas. While this is very exciting, especially for kids, prayer can sometimes get forgotten in all the hustle and bustle.What if we made prayer the focus instead of all the Christmas items on our lists? As a family, you can keep prayer as a priority. While many families enjoy ticking off the days from an Advent calendar until Christmas, you can create an Advent prayer calendar for each day. On the corresponding day, a family member can lead the prayer that day. You can choose to make prayer the focus for your family. Here are three prayers you can pray during prayer time to keep your family closer this Christmas season:

Rest. It’s not a word that we find synonymous with parenting. Parenting brings with it a laundry list of non-restful words. Let’s see if we relate to any of these adjectives: work, labor, exertion, pressure, toil, stress, tension, strain, tenseness...if you relate to any of these words, odds are you’re a parent.Let’s all agree that we love our children. That they are some of the biggest joys in our lives. But let’s also be real. We are tired. We get worn out. We lose our patience, and stress causes us to snap. This, in turn, backfires and hurts our relationship with our kids or any calm atmosphere we’ve hoped to foster in our homes.Lack of rest equals a lack of joy. Period. Exhaustion starts in the body and travels to the mind, but then it comes to lodge itself within the soul. Once there, it can be a long and arduous place to climb out of. This means a good night’s sleep isn’t enough anymore. Our spirit is tired. We need reviving.A crucial part of parenting—which a lot of parenting advice doesn’t cover—is permitting yourself to rest. One could argue that it is a vital part of parenting. Incorporating safeguards into your life so you can feel and be rested means you can also give more to your family, cultivate a more peaceful home, and invest more deeply into your children.But as with all goals, these things take sacrifice. We live in a culture of go, go, go! Committing to everything and anything. The world has deemed it essential for our children to be invested in many extracurricular activities, to have high grades, and to excel and achieve. So, while we expect these levels of success for ourselves, it’s also being passed on to our children. Guess what happens? We sacrifice play, we sacrifice laughter, we sacrifice togetherness, and we sacrifice rest. And what does lack of rest equal? A lack of joy. As we run the hamster wheel to accomplishments and successes, we drain the joy from our lives. True joy. The lasting kind that leaves us refreshed and bonded to our children in ways that extracurricular activities never will.So what can we do to feel more rested as parents and to provide examples of peace and joy for our children? Here are a few ideas, some of which may be hard to swallow:

It’s proven that people are more stressed out at Christmas time than at any other time of the year. But not only is December supposed to be the happiest time of the year, it can also be your healthiest time of the year if you get rid of the stress that tends to overtake you.

One way to celebrate Advent at home as a family is by going through an Advent calendar. Advent calendars come in a wide variety of options. You can choose a basic Advent calendar, a toy Advent calendar, a puzzle Advent calendar, or a chocolate candy Advent calendar.