As for me & my house...

Quite a few years ago now...

Being a Christian, living my life with Christ has been the best gift of my whole life.

When I accepted The Lord’s invitation to a new, transforming life with Him as number one, I experienced peace, finding the true meaning of life.  I began a new life of being transformed daily to be more like Jesus…this is always ongoing by the way, and there still is plenty of me lingering!  I have a joy and peace which although the world tries to destroy, remains and I have found my purpose.  It even changed my parenting which has filled our home with God’s awesome love…Yet life can still be very tough.

Some people have told me they view me as a passionate, calm and patient woman...and while I know this is God working through me because I am not naturally so inclined…I do still have a big trigger which is my children.

You see, persecution or attack when it is directed solely at me, although stressful, does not trigger as great a response compared to when it is directed at my children.  I think many of you parents would instantly know what I mean! 

My boys have been experiencing some Christian persecution from peers for quite a while now and I want to share this with you, because it is my desire through this blog to share my experiences and reflections with you as a Christian woman…not to write academic papers or try to show how clever I am.

From the very beginning of being born again, I took The Lord’s caution to always speak the truth very seriously and this impacted the way I have raised my boys, for they were all very young (under the age of 3) when I re-committed my life to Christ.  I decided that if something was fiction I would tell them so, and always feed them age-appropriate truth, hoping that when they were grown they’d know that they could trust me, and would continue to discuss their lives with me.

I decided I would explain my decisions to them and live my life as a committed Christian as an example to them.  For example I have chosen to not do sport on Sundays, and explained to my boys that this is because as a family I want to put The Lord first, and worshipping Him as a family and as the body of Christ is important (where 2 or 3 are gathered in my Name I am there) – furthermore a child friendly service has always been important too, along with me explaining things (to pass on our faith) like being quite for reverence, what to focus upon while being quiet and so on…

I have chosen to be committed to The Lord (like the verse says…As for me & my house we will serve The Lord) and trust Him with my sons - He has not disappointed and this is ongoing.

My boys are aged 9, 10 & 12 at the moment and as I said, for quite some time have been verbalising their ‘difference’ to most other kids and of their persecution for being so.  As I am naturally a protective parent, I have found this difficult at times…We have had many, many talks discussing the Christian response and we have prayed.  Sometimes I have not known what to do, other than pray and trust The Lord.  I believe I must focus on keeping close to The Lord in my own life, relying upon Him for strength (as sometimes I get very tired as a single parent) and loving my boys.

Last night my middle son chose to read his Bible to me and told me how he loved the Bible.  He laid beside me on my bed and read out loud some of a psalm to me, it was wonderful.

He then began to talk to me again about ‘the kids at school’ and ‘being different’ and of how he is choosing to believe, even though it’s tough without being able to see God and spoke about heaven.  He told me that he knows Jesus is ‘the way, the truth and the life’ and felt sad that other kids didn’t know this.  I asked him if he knew which gospel this verse was from, he didn’t, so it prompted me to look it up in John.

It just so happened that while I was looking for it, I first saw Jesus’ words on the world’s hatred of Christian people in John, so I decided to read these words Jesus spoke to his disciples to my son.  I read to him:

            ¹⁸ “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. ¹⁹ If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.” John 15: 18-19 (NKJV)

Of course I explained the verse and we talked about how as God’s children we are different from others, and although we love as Jesus loves, sadly the world doesn’t really want our love, for the world crucified sinless, perfect Jesus…

I then flipped back and my eyes went to John 14: 1-3…now I know this is a famous passage usually shared with people who are dying, but I share it also with my son.  I told him that Jesus said for us not to have troubled hearts, for he ascended into heaven and promised to prepare a place for us as God’s children and that He never breaks a promise.  Well, can you imagine my ten year-old’s response when he heard the word ‘mansion’ as translated in the NKJV…He was so excited and began to talk about how he’d like a light-sabre and elevators in his mansion so that he could have lots of people visit and stay!

I called my other two sons in and we shared the passages all together which was a wonderful blessing from The Lord.

I have found that it is not easy being a Christian and this is the same for our children…I told my boys that yes, I could have many, many more friends if I wasn’t dedicated to The Lord, but that The Lord is THE WAY, THE TRUTH & THE LIFE (the only true way for forgiveness, reconciliation, peace and eternal life with God) which is so worth more than anything the world may try to tempt us with – I also have reminded them that although our true friends may be few, God always provides us with His children for support!

As for me and my house…We will serve The Lord (Joshua 24:15)

In love, Melanie :)