A Parent's Prayer

As a parent, it seems I always have some pressing concern for my children—those concerns which keep me up at night and follow me around like a shadow all throughout the day. Sometimes, it’s an unanswered question about parenting for which I’m desperate to know what to do. Or I may have a difficult decision to make regarding one of my kids and don’t know which way to turn. It seems I always have worries and cares for them that I long to see resolved like those regarding their health, relationships, education, or their future.

I imagine you have concerns and cares for your children as well. In my book, Like Our Father: How God Parents Us and Why That Matters for Our Parenting, I look to our Father in heaven for wisdom and guidance about all those concerns, questions, and cares we have for our children. I look at the ways he perfectly parents us and what we can learn from him in parenting our own children.

One of the things I encourage readers to do is to bring all their cares to their Father in heaven. At the end of each chapter, I provide a prayer for parents to pray. So what are your concerns for your children today? What questions loom at the front of your mind each day? What burdens do you bear regarding your children? Your Father in heaven invites you to bring all those cares before him in prayer.

A Parent’s Prayer

Father in heaven,

What a privilege it is to come before you in prayer! It means I am your child and you are my Father. I am your beloved and an heir of your kingdom. I am no longer an orphan but have been brought into your family and given a forever home with you. Your word tells me that you know all the cares of my heart before I even do, yet you invite me to bring them to you in prayer. I can’t help but think of my own children coming to me, asking for my help, and how glad I am to help them and provide for their needs.

You are my perfect Father, loving me before time began. You show me what a parent does for his or her children. You provide for all my needs. You set boundaries for me and teach me the way of righteousness. You discipline me for my good. You are patient and kind with me. You are consistent in all your ways toward me. In all these ways and more, you care for me as your child. Help me to learn from you what it looks like to raise my own children. As I parent them, I pray they would see you through my actions and responses. I pray my parenting would show them who you are as their perfect Father.

Forgive me for putting me hope and trust in parenting methods and strategies to make my parenting “work.” While these strategies can be and often are helpful, when I trust in them instead of you, my heart turns from you. I yield my heart to those lesser things, looking for them to make my life better, instead of you—my source of life. Forgive me for not loving my family the way you have loved me. I am easily frustrated and impatient. I am prone to expect things of my children I wouldn’t even expect of myself. Forgive me for forgetting that my children need the same grace I need—the grace you’ve provided through Jesus Christ. Help me to keep the gospel at the forefront of my mind and heart as I parent my children.

The Bible tells me you are the source of all wisdom. I come to you with many questions about raising my children. How do I…? Every day there are decisions to be made. I often feel ill-equipped in my parenting and just don’t know what to do. I need your wisdom to know how to raise my children—what to teach them, how to correct them, the best ways to respond to them, and how to love them well. Father, please help me as I seek to raise them in a way that honors you. Grant me the wisdom only you can give.

I long for my children to know you as their Father. I know you love them more than I ever could; you love them with a perfect love. Help me to trust you and your work in their lives. May they never know a day when they did not know Jesus as their Lord and Savior. May they grow and mature into godly young adults who live for you and your glory. Protect their minds and hearts from evil all their days.

Please hear this prayer for my parenting. I cling to your promise in 2 Peter 1, that you given me “all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence” (v.3). Grant me all I need to parent for your glory.

In Jesus’ name, amen.

*Photo by Bethany Beck on Unsplash

A Free Resource for You

Dear Friends,

With the release of my book, Like Our Father: How God Parents Us and Why that Matters for Our Parenting, my publisher and I wanted to create a fun resource for you and your family.

These conversation cards are a fun way to connect with your family, create memories, and disciple your children. The cards include serious questions, not-so-serious questions, and even silly challenges to do. Order or bake a pizza, sit around the dinner table together, and take turns answering the questions. It’s a simple way to grow together as a family!

To get your Family Conversation Cards, click here, print them out, cut them out, and put them in a bowl on the dining table. Enjoy!

Blessings,

Christina

Loving Our Children as the Father Loves Us

My oldest attends a school that goes on a week long trip every year to the beach where they study marine biology. Each year before they leave, the school asks each parent to write a letter to their child which the school will hand to the students during the trip. The purpose of the letter is to affirm and encourage their child. The school often shares stories of children who count those letters as their most treasured possession, even sharing about children who have since lost a parent and how much it means to them to have a handwritten record of their parent’s love for them.

I recently wrote my sixth letter to my son as he prepares to go on his last trip with his school. He will graduate this May and as the days pass by until he departs our home for college, I am filled with both joy and sadness. As I penned my letter to him, I couldn’t help but reflect on all that has happened in his life over the last six years. Of the growing pains— both in him and in my own heart as we navigated the often rocky terrain of adolescence. Of God’s wonderful work of grace in his heart. Of his maturity into a young man whom I truly enjoy being around. And of the unique ways God has gifted him.

As I thought of these things, I shared with him my heart and my hopes for him as he embarks on a new chapter in his life. I pointed out the ways I saw God working in his life. I reminded him of how much I love him and how proud I am to be his mom.

Words of love and affirmation are vital; they are life-giving. Anyone who has had someone simply say, “I love you and I’m proud of you” knows just how that feels, how it encourages, how it fuels us. These words speak to our hearts, to the core of who we are. They refresh us as water does for the thirsty. They fill us like a meal does after a day’s work. They comfort us as the sight of home does when we’ve been gone far too long.

When we affirm with our words, we do what our Father does for us. He speaks life giving words over us as well. The Bible itself is God’s love story for his people. It tells us how God chose us to be his own in eternity past (Eph. 1). It tells us how his loves pursues us, no matter how far we wander (Luke 15), how he sent Jesus to die on our behalf (Jn. 3:16), and that he loves us as much as he loves the Son (Jn. 17:23).

But God is not just a God of words; he is also a God of action. Likewise, love is not just a word or a feeling; it is a deed as well. God didn’t just tell us he loved us, he showed us the depths of his love by laying down his life for us. “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers” (1 John 3:16).

As parents, we must speak words of love to our children. We must tell them how special they are to us, that we love them no matter what, that we are proud to be their parents. But it is our actions that prove our love for them. We reveal our love for them in what we do.

Sometimes though, our actions can undermine the words that we say.

When our children were little, we read them a picture book titled, Anyway and Always by Bryan Chapell. It was a sweet story about a young girl who disobeyed and her father taught her that he loves her no matter what, even when she sins. I remember afterward, when our children did something wrong and we had to correct them, we would say that we loved them “anyway and always.”

From my new book, Like Our Father:

“You might think, “But of course I love my children unconditionally!” Yet there are times we may unknowingly add conditions to our love. Our children may perceive and receive our love as conditional. They grow up thinking we love and accept them only when they behave, or when they look a certain way, or when they perform at a certain level. They learn this when we criticize them or point out their flaws. Our children learn to associate love with behavior when they see us treat them differently than or compare them to a sibling who outperforms them in some way. They also see love as conditional when we emphasize externals and when they observe us prioritizing what other people think about us—when we respond in anger because they embarrassed us in some way in front of others. They experience our love as conditional when we shame them for not measuring up.

Instead, our children need to know they are loved no ma er what. Even when they fail. Even when they don’t perform as other children. Even when they misbehave. As parents, we must communicate, both in word and in deed, that we love our children no matter what—anyway and always.” (p. 154).

Consider the Father’s love for us and the lengths he went to in showing us that love. May our love for our children reflect the Father’s love. And may they see the Father’s love through us.

Like Our Father: How God Parents Us and Why that Matters for Our Parenting releases March 2 and is available for preorder now.

Join the Launch Team for Like Our Father

The launch for Like Our Father is right around the corner! It releases March 2 and I need your help to get the word out.

Like Our Father helps readers consider the ways our Father in heaven parents us and how that then shapes our own parenting. (If you missed my previous post about the book, click here.)

I am gathering a launch team to help me spread the word about the book. Never been a part of a launch team? Here’s what you can expect from joining the team:

• You get to read the book before everyone else! The first fifty people who register will receive a hard copy of the book. Everyone gets a digital copy.

• You’ll receive a few emails throughout the coming weeks giving you ideas on ways to share about the book with your friends, including images and links you can post on social media.

• If you are on Facebook, you are invited to join a private group where you can interact with other readers, myself, and Moody staff about the book. It’s like a virtual book club! Click here to join.

• On launch day, you’ll post a review to Amazon and Goodreads.

To sign up for the launch team, click here. You’ll provide your contact info so I can contact you about the team. This is also where you’ll provide your address to receive the free copy of the book (for the first 50 to register).

Questions? Let me know. I look forward to having you on the team!!

My New Book: Like Our Father

How many parenting books have you read? I’d venture to guess more than a few. I know I have. As parents, we desire to raise our children well. We want to train them up in the “discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4). We want to love and care for them in the best ways possible. We want to do all we can to help them grow and mature into godly young men and women.

The question is, just how do we do that? “How?” has been the biggest question in my own parenting. From the moment my oldest came into the world, I wanted to know “How?”

How do I best train and discipline my children?

How do I help them navigate hardships?

How do I know what to say and do in specific situations?

Over the years, I kept returning to how my Father in heaven parents me. As I encountered behavioral challenges, I was reminded of my own sinful heart and the ways in which God teaches and trains me to follow after him. When I found myself impatient at having to repeat the same instruction, yet again, I remembered how often the Lord is patient with my own slowness to learn. In all these ways and more, I found myself looking to my Father as my source of parenting wisdom.

I’m so grateful to Moody Publishers for giving me the opportunity to explore this topic in my forthcoming book, Like Our Father: How God Parents Us and Why that Matters for Our Parenting. In this book, I encourage us to turn from asking “How?” and instead ask the question, “Who?” Who is God? Who are we? And, what are the implications of that?

Like Our Father explores the ways in which God parents us. And because we are his image bearers, we get to image him to our children in the ways we parent them. What an opportunity! As parents, we are often the first ones to introduce our children to their Father in heaven. What might it look like to show our children the Father in how we parent them? That’s what I attempt to unpack in the book. I look at how God is consistent with us, how he provides for us, how he teaches us, how he loves us, and more.

Here is what a few readers are saying about Like Our Father:

Christina Fox doesn’t just offer a parenting “how to” manual, but instead paints a beautiful picture of how our Heavenly Father parents us, slowly shaping us into a conduit of his love and grace as we learn to parent our own children in his strength. Lay down the heavy burden of needing to know “how” to be the parent you long to be and soak in the pages of this book which will draw your eyes upward to know and rest in the One who has everything you need.

—Sarah Walton, Co-author of Hope When it Hurts and Together Through the Storms

Our Father, who art in heaven, help me parent these kids! Every parent knows that in order to raise healthy, loved, and spiritually mature children, we need a parenting coach. In Like Our Father, Christina Fox reminds us we already have one—our Heavenly Father! You'll walk away from this book with a fresh awe for the way God has lovingly cared for you and deep wisdom to help you raise your children rooted in His love. This is a parenting book I will read and re-read.

—Erin Davis, writer, Bible study teacher, and mother of four boys

This book surpasses parenting how-to guides, giving us practical wisdom to nurture kids in gospel truth. Christina Fox faithfully points us to the perfect parent: God himself. Get ready to see what it means to imitate our loving Father and proclaim his beloved Son to our children, fully relying on his abundant grace.

—Barbara Reaoch, author, former Director of the Children’s Division at Bible Study Fellowship International

In a world full of prescriptive strategies that don’t go the distance, Like Our Father offers an invitation to discover the “why” of parenting instead of the “how.” Understanding the multidimensional glory of God as Father shapes both parent and child toward the ultimate aim of parenting--being more conformed to His image.

—Karen Hodge, Coordinator of Women’s Ministries for the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) and author of Transformed: Life-taker to Life-giver and Life-giving Leadership

Like Our Father releases March 2. Reserve your copy today! Click here to learn more. Stay tuned to learn how you can help spread the word about the book’s release and join the launch team.