Last week I found myself in the middle of the same conversation I’ve had over and over since having children.  The topic…food; specifically what my kids eat.  I have a 16 year old boy which means one thing- a high grocery bill!  A mom of another teenage boy and I were comparing notes on how much they eat.  Let’s just say, it’s a lot.  No one won the comparison contest…we both lose when it comes to the amount of time we spend either buying or making food to fill our bottomless pits.

The food discussions didn’t start when my boys hit puberty.  It was long before that. Think about all the time we as parents spend discussing food and our kids.  Breast fed or bottle fed, when to start solid food, when to give them peanut butter, only to find out that they have a food allergy. It’s an ongoing, never ending topic of conversation among moms. 

Before I continue, I feel the need to interject two things…
One, I wonder if we discuss it so much because it’s a topic where we can safely make comparisons without the risk of feeling like we’ve failed in some way as a parent.  The friendly competition of “my kid eats more than yours” doesn’t really set us up for hard feelings. 
And, two, I proudly admit that I’m very happy my children were “raised” in the era of chicken nuggets and Kraft mac and cheese. Just ten years ago we moms didn’t worry about our veggies being organic or making gluten free brownies as an option for the birthday party.  I’m sorry that moms have that added pressure in childrearing these days.

Back to topic…
Our children don’t live on milk forever; they graduate to solid food, and then to eating us out of house and home.  We spend many waking hours buying and preparing food for them. We agonize over whether or not they are getting enough of what they need. 

As I thought about all the food discussions I find myself in with other moms, the verse in Hebrews about milk and solid food came to mind.
Hebrews 5:13-14 “Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.”

This verse is somewhat of an admonishment for those who were slow to listen and learn the Truth of the Gospel. Some commentaries liken it to the fact that those “living on milk” are “not acquainted” with the Gospel due to simply not making a practice of studying it. 

Think about how this is related to feeding our children. If we gave them only liquid sustenance forever not only would they miss out on the good stuff, they wouldn’t grow.  We’d have some unhappy and unhealthy kids on our hands.

The same is true spiritually.  We have to feed our kids.  It’s our responsibility as parents to make sure our kids are getting what they need to not only sustain them, but to help them grow strong Spiritual muscles. This means teaching our kids at a young age the basic Spiritual disciplines of reading the Bible and prayer, not to mention the “meat” of what it means to have a personal relationship with Jesus.

My boys graduated a long time ago from milk as a source of nutrition, and as I’ve said, now eat until the pantry is bare.  I am blessed to say that despite chicken nuggets and mac and cheese, they are very healthy.

I hope, that in time, I can say with as much certainty that my boys have the strong Spiritual muscles I’ve tried to help them grow.  Wouldn’t we as parents be better served in our conversations to encourage the nutrition of our kids’ spiritual growth as much as we discuss what we made them for dinner?  Even better, wouldn’t we all love to have that conversation without fear of comparisons? 

This Week’s Announcements:
Daddy/Daughter Dance ~ Friday, February 7th, beginning at 6:30pm.  This event is open to dads of all ages and girls age 3years through 5th grade.  The cost is $10 per family.  Registration closes at noon on February 4th so sign up quickly. To register, go to www.signupgenius.com and search under penny@stonebridgemarietta.org

What God is Teaching Us:
Follow the links below to see the past two Sunday’s curriculum: 
This link is no longer available
*Note that there are no lessons attached for 4k-5th grade for Jan. 26 because it was an outreach Sunday.

Funny Things Kids Do and Say…
As I asked the kids if they had anything special to share from the last week, one boy raised his hand and called out, “I got a crushed.”  Not sure what he meant, (did he mean he had a crush on someone, or someone had a crush on him…?)  I waded in…“What do you mean- someone has a crush on you?”  Luckily, this particular child has a great sense of humor and laughed along with the other kids.  He then corrected me and said, “No…I mean my team got crushed in basketball.”   Oh…that makes more sense.