Hoping in the Triumph of God

I love decorating for the holidays. If my husband would allow it, my house quite possibly would be Christmas-ready year round. I was so excited our first married Christmas to decorate our first tree together and get our little apartment all Christmas-y. I would think about how maybe the next holiday season we would have a child and how much fun it would be to decorate together as a family and start our own holiday traditions. Then about 3 years into our infertility struggle, that decorative/festive side of the holidays became very sad for me as I was coming to terms with God’s plan for our family. I really had to pray through those holiday seasons and cling to my faith–specifically John 16:33 was my go to verse “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

Now that I have a child, I do want her to have fond childhood memories of Christmas time traditions—like watching A Charlie Brown Christmas on tv, watching dad get frustrated as he hangs the lights outside, baking sugar cookies and decorating the tree.  But what is more important to me is for her to see how those traditions glorify God and for that to me a part of her core being…so when something in this world appears hopeless, she has the true Hope to cling to (yet, another lesson God showed me through my years of awaiting motherhood). As I was decorating the tree this year (and Grace was desperately trying to climb over my barricade to assist), I began to think of practical ways to make Jesus the center of our holiday traditions….and then I really started to think about how do we raise Grace in the day to day to do that. I came across this John Piper sermon that I thought gave some good points to keep in mind.

Raising Children Who Hope in the Triumph of God (May 8, 1988)

10 Basic Ways to Instill This Vision
• Make all of life God-Saturated. 1 Corinthians 10:31 “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God”
• Pray. We must pray for our children and teach them to pray. We need to pray in the presence of our children, and we need to pray with our children.
• Demonstrate the importance of the bible. Make the bible the most important book in their lives.
• Be living examples of faith. We need to be living examples of faith in very practical ways so that our children will never doubt our word or God’s word that God will always triumph.
• Be happy. We need to be happy lest our children get the impression that the triumph of God would be the triumph for gloom.
• Discipline.
• Be humble and willing to apologize. The willingness to apologize to our children and show humility, to show them that the cross can triumph even over a parent’s mistake.
• Worship together. Children can see their parents praise God and bow in reverence and cherish the preaching of God’s word.
• Uphold standards and everyday holiness. Standards of purity, integrity, truthfulness, self-control, hard work and what that means in practical everyday terms to be on the side of justice and grace that will someday triumph over all evil.
• Love. Learning that in the end everything is in vain without love. In the world, love is the visible expression of faith in the triumph of God.