The 4 Most Important Parenting Lessons I Learned in 2013

This October marked two years home with our youngest boys, adopted from Uganda in 2011. The first year was pure survival. We spend most of our days just trying to make it, adjusting to our new normal. This year was different.

Over the last twelve months, my husband Joel and I realized we needed to learn how to parent differently if our family was going to do more than simply survive. Our trusted, traditional parenting model simply didn’t work. We a needed fresh approach.

We began reading about parenting children from “hard places”—children like ours who have endured significant early trauma, and don’t respond to  traditional, consequence-based methods. Thanks to the work of Dr. Karyn Purvis, and her Trust-Based Relational (TBRI) model of parenting, we were able to view our children with new, more compassionate eyes. We began to see progress, and finally felt like we had found an approach that made sense. Continue at Megan Hyatt Miller

Faith and Grace

William Graham Tullian Tchividjian (pronounced cha-vi-jin) is the Senior Pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. A Florida native, he is a visiting professor of theology at Reformed Theological Seminary and a grandson of Billy and Ruth Graham. Tullian was the founding pastor of the former New City Church which merged with Coral Ridge in April of 2009. A graduate of Columbia International University (philosophy) and Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando (M.Div.), Tullian is the author of The Kingdom of God: A Primer on the Christian Life (Banner of Truth), Do I Know God? Finding Certainty in Life’s Most Important Relationship, Unfashionable: Making a Difference in the World by Being Different (Multnomah),  Surprised by Grace: God’s Relentless Pursuit of Rebels (Crossway) and Jesus + Nothing = Everything (Crossway). 

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It wasn’t until I went to bed last night that I went onto the T4A website and saw that I had an assigned topic, Surprised by Adoption. I’m going to be talking about a thick topic, the Law and the Gospel. And I’ll explain what that means and why that’s important. Let me read through Romans 7:7-8:4

What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.    Keep Reading>>>

When God saves you, He…

A helpful breakdown of 20 things that God does when He saves you:
He…

1. Regenerates you, moving you from spiritual death to life. (John 3:1-8)
2. Redeems you, buying you out of slavery to sin. (1 Peter 1:18-19)
3. Justifies you, declaring you innocent in His sight. (Romans 5:1-9)
4. Sanctifies you, setting you apart as holy. (1 Cor 1:2,30)
5. Forgives you of all your sins. (Ephesians 1:7)
6. Cleanses you, removing from you the stain of sin. (Hebrews 9:14)
7. Reconciles you to Himself. (2 Corinthians 5:17-19)
8. Seals you with His Spirit as a guarantee of your future hope. (Ephesians 1:13)
9. Indwells you, sending the Holy Spirit to live in you. (Romans 8:9)
10. Adopts you, making you His child. (Romans 8:14-17)
11. Baptizes you into Christ’s body, the Church. (1 Corinthians 12:3)
12. Illuminates your mind so you can understand the Scriptures. (2 Corinthians 4:3-4)
13. Makes you a new creation. (2 Corinthians 5:17)
14. Reveals you as one of His elect. (Ephesians 1:4, Romans 8:29-30)
15. Grants you eternal life. (John 11:25-27, 1 John 5:11-13)
16. Names you an heir with Christ. (Romans 8:17)
17. Grants you an inheritance. (1 Peter 1:3-4)
18. Declares you a saint. (Romans 1:7, Colossians 1:2)
19. Grants you new citizenship, making your home heaven rather than this world. (Philippians 3:20)
20. Makes you a slave of Christ, a slave with the greatest, most glorious Master that any could ask for. (1 Corinthians 7:22-23)

Praise God for the assurance that comes from these great truths.

HT: Peter Cockrell

Basking in the Benefits

FamilyLife and RDM on Infertility, Adoption, Orphan Care