Easter
When the topic of girl friendships comes up, invariably eyes well with tears as moms talks about how rough it is to have middle school friendships. Our hearts ache as we remember our own struggles at that age even as we try to make it a better experience for our daughters. As moms of tween girls, here's a few tips we've taught our daughters (and continue to help them apply) as they navigate middle school drama:
1. Be quick to apologize. We've all inadvertently hurt a loved one's feelings and learning to apologize quickly and sincerely can keep our mistake from becoming a stumbling block in our friendship. Practicing being quick with a sincere apology with siblings and within our family units helps it become a relationship habit. When we spot tension in our tween's friendship, gently inquiring what part of the tension she might need to apologize for and help provide her with the words when necessary, can save a friendship at this age.
2. Don't bring peers into the conflict. A simple misunderstanding or inadvertent offense can become far more difficult to resolve when peers get involved and take sides. Cautioning our tweens about being roped into another's conflict is helpful, but modeling how we handle our friends' conflict and (when appropriate) talking about why we are supportive but do not fan the flames of conflict is where the real learning is.
3. Put yourself in her shoes. When our tween tells us about a friend who is suddenly distant, upset, or hasn't been as good a friend lately, teaching her to pause to consider what else might be happening in her friend's life has been a game changer. Parents deployed or divorcing or having a beloved family member with a serious illness are situations our tween's friends have faced and having an adult help provide perspective on what their friend might be walking through has helped our tweens be supportive and understanding instead of upset or offended.
4. Learn to set healthy boundaries. Teaching our daughters to set healthy boundaries around their bodies and emotions is a skill that will serve her well her entire life. Even in friendships, understanding that it's okay to say no when feeling uncomfortable can help prevent situations that will end in drama and conflict.
5. Give her tools. Helping our daughters develop healthy friendship habits will set them up for successful female friendships their entire life. Our newest book, the 100 Daily Acts of Friendship for Girls is written specifically for girls aged 8-12 as they navigate friendships in upper elementary and middle school. With a scripture, short story,
reflection questions and 50 fun activities to do with you or friends, it's a wonderful way to encourage your daughter, niece, granddaughter, God daughter and her friends to build healthy friendships from an early age.
And our adult friendship devotional, The One Year Daily Acts of Friendship is a perfect compliment to our book for tweens.
We've also written two kindness devotionals, The One Year Daily Acts of Kindness Devotional and 100 Days of Kindness. They tell the story of how our families embarked on a one-year journey of kindness, and include our successes, failures, and the encouragement you need as a family to incorporate kindness into your own life.
We would love to walk alongside you in encouragement, inspiration, and community. You can follow us on Facebook and Instagram as The Ruth Experience or sign up for our monthly newsletter (no spam, ever), here.
Photo credit: Branding with Savannah @savvyphotagebranding
There are days when hope seems to be in short supply.This creates a problem because I've realized that I need hope in every area of my life. I need hope when I imagine my future, or my children turning out all right, or my marriage making it to fifty-plus years. All these things require hope. Hope in something and someone greater than myself. Hope that things will turn out in spite of my screw-ups and do overs.
Yesterday we met as a missional community, a group of believers who gather together to share in our journey of the pursuit of God and what it means to live out our faith, and toward the end everyone shared a request that needed prayer. For parents and kids and work. And all I keep thinking is how do we get through this life, these concerns or problems, without hope?
Hope is is much more than good thoughts or conjured-up positive feelings. Hope is the anchor for our soul (Hebrews 6:19) and the buoy for our faith.
This week, let's pursue hope together.
This year we are trying to keep kindness going all year long with our kids.
Each month we’re including four things we hope to accomplish as part of our regular activities. We keep them posted on our dinner board (so we don’t miss them) and each time we accomplish one of them, we check them off the list!
Each month we’re including four things we hope to accomplish as part of our regular activities. We keep them posted on our dinner board (so we don’t miss them) and each time we accomplish one of them, we check them off the list!
This has become a great way for our kids to stay involved and give ideas and input into our giving every month. The four acts of kindness we complete every month are:
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| Our boys helping out at Place of Hope, a local shelter in our community. |
- Thank you. Each month we write a thank you to someone. We try to think of someone who may not receive thanks for what they do. We’ve thanked our pastor, principals, teachers and family members.
- Bless. Every month we intentionally bless someone. This has come in a lot of different forms—making cookies, writing notes, giving gift cards to sick kids in our children's class—the possibilities are endless!
- Serve. At least once a month we are going to serve someone else. This can be a family member, friend, neighbor or stranger. It can be a special project--like making shoes for Sole Hope, putting together bags of handwarmers and socks for people experiencing homelessness or collecting personal care items for a local women’s shelter. Every month is different—some months it’s a larger project, other months it's something small. Either way, it’s a reminder of how important service to others is as Christians.
- Encourage. The final thing we do each month is encourage someone. This can be in the form of a note, small gift or act of service. Again, this is one where we ask our kids “who do we know that could use some encouragement this month?" The ideas that they come up with are usually pretty great.
We want our children's faith to be so much more than words. We want them to take the words of Jesus literally--have compassion, take regard for the poor, love your enemies--these were not just nice things to say, but actual guidelines Jesus asks us to live out each day. Showing kindness every month by blessing, thanking, serving and encouraging is one small way we are able to follow his words.
Looking for some ideas of things to do? Check out the 25 days of Christmas kindness we do each year, complete with handy photos and links: 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017.
Are you looking for more resources? Have you checked out our books?
We've written two kindness devotionals, The One Year Daily Acts of Kindness and 100 Days of Kindness. They tell the story of how our families embarked on a one-year journey of kindness, and include our successes, failures, and the encouragement you need as a family to incorporate kindness into your own life.
Our newest book, One Good Word a Day, offers simple but deeply spiritual meditations that will help readers linger on one word each day so they can identify and reflect on how Jesus as the Word influences their daily lives.
Looking for encouragement in your friendships? Our adult friendship devotional, The One Year Daily Acts of Friendship, includes a daily scripture, story, and friendship prompt. It's encouraging and slightly challenging (in a good way!) in helping you find, keep, and love your friends.
Our devotional for tweens is a great complement to our devotional for women! 100 Daily Acts of Friendship for Girls is written specifically for girls ages 8-12 as they navigate friendships in upper elementary and middle school. With a scripture, short story, reflection questions and 50 fun activities to do with you or friends, it's a wonderful way to encourage your daughter, niece, granddaughter, God daughter and her friends to build healthy friendships from an early age.
We would love to walk alongside you in encouragement, inspiration, and community. You can follow us on Facebook and Instagram as The Ruth Experience or sign up for our monthly newsletter (no spam, ever), here.
If you already have one of our books and love them, we'd so appreciate it if you leave a review on Amazon.
We're in this together,
Kendra, Julie and Kristin
Welcome to our final week in the reLentless Love series and Make a Difference Monday link-up! If you missed the first six weeks of reLentless Love, we shared about Access to Medical Care, Orphan Care, Single Moms, Human Trafficking, Hunger and Clean Water. Today, we're highlighting the needs of kids in our communities and ways we can all help.We can hardly believe this is our last post in this year's Lent series. We have enjoyed once again being able to highlight needs around the world, spend time in prayer for others, and partner with some great organizations. For our last week we wanted to focus on the needs of kids in our communities and our very own Julie Fisk is highlighting a nationwide organization that is dear to her heart; that has been helping communities, families, and children around the country for many years. Here's her story:
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| Image via Jackie on Flickr |
The Easter Bunny and I have a love/hate relationship.
As a mother of young children, I’ve struggled with how much swimming I should be doing against the cultural tide of Easter as a pastel-colored, candy holiday.
I’ve wrestled with whether I"m potentially diminishing Christ and the work he did on the cross when I allow a few plastic eggs and some fake grass to cross my home’s threshold.
And while every family has to pray through this issue on their own, my husband and I have made peace with the concept of the Easter Bunny and provide a space in our Easter celebration to partake in the cheesy fun of an egg hunt, hidden baskets, and rainbow-hued, hard-boiled eggs.
In exchange for allowing eggs and chocolates to be a part of the celebration, my husband and I are very intentional about our approach to Easter.
The Easter books found on my children's bookshelves talk of Jesus, not of bunnies.
We have age-appropriate conversations about the cross - what it means, what it did, why it matters so very much to our lives today.
And, as unpopular as it might be, my children know that the Easter Bunny isn’t real and that daddy is the one who is figuratively hopping around the back yard, hiding eggs in tree branches. (Although we do what we can to make sure they do not share that information with their classmates, as that is a decision for other families to make).
Because if I do not show my children how to carefully discern those things in our culture that are merely fun from those things that hold sacred significance, then I leave them vulnerable to the whisperings of others.
There will come a time when others will tell my children that Jesus is a myth, a fable, a story just like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, and I need them to understand the difference between a fun activity and authentic faith.
If you are looking for ways to incorporate more Jesus and less bunny into your own Easter celebrations, check out the following ideas:
I'll be the first to admit I like tradition. I like etiquette and good behavior. I want my kids to respect their elders, be well mannered and understand societal norms. I tend to like the status quo; change is hard for me. My mother did a wonderful job of creating holiday traditions for my sisters and I
growing up, and I have sweet memories of those years.
Easter was one of my favorite traditions, mainly because I loved the pretty clothes my mother would buy us. Each year we'd get dressed up for church in our Sunday best and go to service. It was a wonderful day with close friends and family celebrating what Jesus had done for us. And this tradition continued into adulthood. Every year, I would get myself something new for Easter, and as I had children, I continued this tradition with them. New outfits, coloring eggs, Easter presents: as a mom, I loved to do it all.
And then something changed. I began to read authors who challenged me to look beyond myself, my family, my own little world. I began to read about world hunger, human trafficking, the homeless, the abused. And something inside me broke. My eyes were opened to the countless times in scripture God asks his people to care for the poor, the orphaned, the widowed. I began to wonder how I missed it. How I could have grown up in church and missed something so integral to my desire to follow Jesus wholeheartedly.
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| Jasmine and Lizzie excited to show the Easter baskets they helped pack. |
And I realized I had a choice. I could continue on in my own world, taking care of those closest to me with little discomfort to myself, or I could begin to reach out to those around me who may be very different from me.
Outside my circle.
And that's what I've decided to do. As an individual. As a family. And with others around us, as church community. We no longer have an Easter service, but we will be in service to the least of these. In honor and memory of what Jesus did for us. We celebrate his resurrection by being good news to those in our community who just might actually need some. In practical ways. By offering food, a listening ear, supplies and Easter treats to local shelters in our area.
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| Care bags for Place of Hope, a homeless shelter in St. Cloud |
And as I would go around with my children, helping them pack bags for homeless adults and children in shelters, I would remind them why. This is how we remember Jesus. This is how we show others his love. This is how we are good news. We give without expecting return. It's the way of the kingdom. It's the way of Jesus. It's the way of Love.
And even though there's certainly nothing wrong with the traditions of my youth, our family has adopted this new tradition that works for us. A new way to celebrate Jesus' death and resurrection.
"Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me." Matthew 25:40
Are you looking for more resources for kindness and generosity? We've written several books!
We've written two kindness devotionals, The One Year Daily Acts of Kindness Devotional and 100 Days of Kindness. They tell the story of how our families embarked on a one-year journey of kindness, and include our successes, failures, and the encouragement you need as a family to incorporate kindness into your own life.
We've also written two books on friendship. The 100 Daily Acts of Friendship for Girls is written specifically for girls aged 8-12 as they navigate friendships in upper elementary and middle school. With a scripture, short story, reflection questions and 50 fun activities to do with you or friends, it's a wonderful way to encourage your daughter, niece, granddaughter, God daughter and her friends to build healthy friendships from an early age.
And our adult friendship devotional, The One Year Daily Acts of Friendship is a perfect compliment to our book for tweens.
If you already have one of our books and love them, we'd so appreciate it if you leave a review on Amazon. God redeemed it all in the most incredible ways.
Kendra, Julie, and Kristin
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