One Word

You’d think my wife and I would remember the day…the year that we did this.  But that happens some times in moments you don’t realize will be so pivotal in your life.  But we do know that it was when our son was in early-elementary school.  My wife and I are type ‘A’ personalities and we will overthink and over plan making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  So you can imagine how we raise our son.

Whatever year it was in his life, I remember being kind of overwhelmed with information on how to raise him.  He’s similar to my wife and me, but also different.  We realized that time was getting by us, and we were worried that we’d “mess up” or something.  There just wasn’t enough time or energy for us to apply all that we knew.

So I was praying and asking God for guidance and wisdom on how to raise him.  How do we apply all these principles from all the amazing authors, bloggers, and websites that were circling in our heads?  Then God spoke…He gave me a word. And it wasn’t a “Christian” word; it wasn’t a verse of scripture.  It was a word that anyone with even a slight grasp of any language would know.

Intentionality.

That’s it.  He told me to be intentional.  Intentional about everything.  Every meal, every word, every trip to the taco shop, every Slurpee, every soccer & basketball game, every car ride to/from school, every trip.  I told my wife and we prayed about it.  Then we implemented it.

It was kind of simple.  We just kept that word in the front of our mind and as often as we could remember…when we did something, my wife and I would look at each other and say the word.  It was amazing.  It changed everything; they were all learning moments for our boy.  Those moments were made special because we intentionally made them special.

The next year, we found the word together a week or so into the new year.

Perspective.

That year, our boy had quite a few issues with his feet and it could have been overwhelming.  But as we looked around, we saw many other families with worse situations.  Lost jobs, lost health, lost lives, and broken marriages.  As we would make our way to another appointment at the hospital, we could keep our perspective that we still were doing well overall.

Purposeful. 

The third year, we were given the word purposeful.  While this word is similar to the first, we felt it had a slight change in connotation as we focused more on what God would have us do as a family.  

Honestly, though, by this time it didn’t seem to have an much impact as the previous words.   In fact, as I wrote this, we couldn’t remember the word until it came to me during a conversation about this subject with another brother.  It still helped us to remain focused raising our son and our marriage.

After the third year, we ended up stopping.  Those first two years our family life was so changed for the good that we just didn’t feel the need to continue.  But we purposefully kept our perceptive and remained intentional about everything.

Is that where you are?  Do you have information overload?  I know it’s gotten tougher with COVID19 and the social unrest around our country and world.  So, take some time, talk to your spouse about it; if you’re a single parent…talk to your Father; He’s waiting to talk to you.  If your kids are older, bring them in on the conversation.  Pick a word.  It doesn’t have to be a hyper-spiritual word.  Keep it simple

Raising your kids can be as simple as a word.

Ed C.
San Diego, California