A note from Janel:
This week, I’m welcoming guest authors Donna Kushner and Amy Schulte, a mother-daughter team who, in Amy’s childhood, served as missionaries in Palestine. Both currently work with refugees in professional and personal capacities. (I personally worked with Donna on a free resource to guide immigrant and refugee families into healing.)
This week on a phone conversation with a friend, she asked what’s become our custom at the end of our calls: What’s one intimate prayer request I can pray for?
It was probably telling that I didn’t really know.
This is one of those posts where I’m not an expert, just a mom. (Um, most of my posts?!)
But maybe these small ideas will help. And if I’m smart, I’ll keep this short, right?
A missionary friend told me once of a person she’d spoken with who, as a child in Africa, was slapped every time she asked a question.
I was moved by the person’s insight: “You don’t just stop asking questions,” they’d mused to my friend.
Reading Time: 2 minutes
My 16-year-old was recently awarded his driver’s permit–okay, yikes–and with it, was pre-registered to vote. We don’t fall down the line politically, which I’m generally okay with. (You may remember we’re a lot different: see When Your Child is Different from What You Expected.)
As my kids grow older…so do their opinions. Sometimes I’m unprepared for the ways my boys and I don’t see eye-to-eye.
But I’m actually more concerned about statistics I’m reading: A shocking 22% of evangelicals believe civility is unproductive in political conversations. Twenty-five percent consider their candidate’s insulting personal remarks toward an opponent to be justifiable.
(Friends, how did we get here?)
It’s one thing to steer clear of Twitter or Facebook for a few months as your feed blows up with political polarization and vehement, loaded, or snarky political statements.
It’s another thing when the political polarization lands in your living room, or on that phone call with your dad.
So recently for FamilyLife.com, I wrote “A House Divided: Navigating Political Polarization“–namely, with family.
It’s can be alienating to find your own mom, your own aunt, your own sister could so enthusiastically endorse a candidate representing so personally painful. Or when a child so casually sets aside a deal-breaking ethical issue.
Grab some ideas to help you navigate. My prayer is that it brings a little more peace to your home in a tough season.
When Anger’s Hot: Raising Self-Controlled Kids in Outrage Culture
Election 2016: How can I talk with my kids about all this?
When Your Teen Yells at You: 8 Win-win Ideas
Reading Time: 4 minutes
The horrific news from Florida has all of us reeling. It’s leaving far more questions than answers in its wake. And it’s possible your kids are contending with some of the same questions we as parents are: “Is my school safe?” (If it helps, Keys for Kids just posted this devotional story to read with your kids.)
A few thoughts as you consider what to say to them.
Reading Time: 2 minutes
Reading Time: 3 minutes
My dad, my mom jokes, has two speeds in life: full-throttle, and asleep.
I know this, because I inherited a lot of it. I am nothing if not intentional (if you’re skeptical, click the ideas page). In fact, before it was honed by some maturity and grace, I’m pretty confident I used to scare people off a bit, plunking down my lunch tray in the college cafeteria and asking people what God’s been teaching them lately. Pass the salt, would you?
But while my intensity may have been a little…choking…what I don’t want to miss in 2016 are relationships that convey more than 140 characters. If I’ve learned anything from the African savannah, it’s that when you’re away from your herd, it’s hard to survive. You may even get picked off.
![Now You're Speaking My [Love] Language](https://www.janelbreitenstein.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/love-languages-text-1.jpg "Now You're Speaking My [Love] Language")
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