May 19, 2012

Posts |  

Christian Spirituality: Blessed Are The Poor In Spirit

April 20, 2012 By Theresa Froehlich Leave a Comment

The Sermon on the Mount is King Jesus’ inaugural sermon. Don’t think of Jesus as the novice preacher who didn’t know what he was doing. Think of this first sermon as the Preamble to the Constitution, the foundation to everything he was going to say and do as the Messiah. He begins this sermon, which takes up three of the twenty-eight chapters of the Gospel of Matthew, with the first Beatitude: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom in heaven” (Mt. 5:1).

In one short sentence, Jesus lays out the starting point and the indispensable ingredient for kingdom living: poverty in spirit. The world, both outside and inside the church, tells us to seek material wealth and prosperity; to make poverty our goal is very counter-cultural. Ironically, spiritual poverty is the gateway to the kingdom. We must be poor in spirit to get the accurate view of ourselves in order to become part of the kingdom. Unless we are poor in spirit, we’ll still be prideful, self-sufficient, and alienated from God.
Highly respected British preacher, Martin Lloyd Jones, wrote the prized commentary on the Sermon on the Mount. He lifted up the message as the blueprint for kingdom living. “If only all of us were living the Sermon on the Mount, men would know that there is a dynamic in the Christian gospel; they would know that this is a living thing; they would not go looking for anything else.”

If I were a citizen of the Kingdom of God, I must look and live like one. If I am honest, I fall short every day such that my life doesn’t match my words. Several years ago, I had to apologize to our daughter for the hurts I had caused as I was raising her.

We all walk around like a piece of warped board that needs to be straightened. We need to call on the Spirit of God to empower us to make the healing choices, as Rick Warren and John Baker have expounded so well in their book Life’s Healing Choices.

Not all are alcoholics like John Baker was, but all need to become poor in spirit to recognize our moral and spiritual bankruptcy. When we empty our glass that has been filled with all the hurts, hang-ups, and destructive habits, God can fill it with new wine. Then we are truly blessed (makarios) because we have the right relationship with God.

Please leave a comment and feel free to ask a question by clicking on the button “Ask Me A Question” in the sidebar.

All content on this website is copyrighted.

http://www.christianphotos.net

VN:F [1.9.15_1155]
Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)
Filed Under: Spirituality Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Empty Nest Transition: What I Learned From the Management Bestsellers

April 18, 2012 By Theresa Froehlich Leave a Comment

Among the management books that made the New York Times bestsellers list, In Search of Excellence (1988) by Tom Peters and Robert Waterman, Built to Last (1997) and Good to Great (2001) by Jim Collins, have become household words. These management gurus shared many principles that make companies successful and enduring. As I navigate my transition to become an empty nest, I have found a principle from each of these books to be pivotal in my transition.

• A bias for action is the first theme in In Search of Excellence.

• Commitment to innovate is an important quality of the companies in Built to Last.

• Getting the right people on your bus is a clarion call in Good to Great.

The term “empty nest syndrome” was birthed around the 1970’s to describe the sadness, or even depression, parents feel when children leave home. In a study published in 2000 in the Journals of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences (Vol. 55, No. 2), researcher Karen Fingerman finds that the relationship between parent and child improves because the stressors from dealing with adolescence and emerging adulthood are no longer there.

Other psychological studies also highlight the positives of the empty nest. But researcher Helen M. DeVries of Wheaton College acknowledges that the psychological state of the parents is directly linked to the success in launching the young adults into responsible adult living. When the children do not do well, the parents feel guilt, continued responsibility, and lack of freedom to pursue their own life after parenting.

The summary of the Fingerman and DeVries study did not clearly state whether these empty nest parents feel the sadness and loss even while they enjoy their newly found freedom. My own situation would prompt me to answer in the positive. Many empty nest moms that I have interacted with, even those who have been working outside the home, feel the sense of loss as well as confusion. They are not sure where to start to navigate the transition.

What can Tom Peters, Robert Waterman, and Jim Collins can teach us?

• Action absorbs anxiety. If we take the attitude of “get on with it”, we’re more likely to move forward. If you don’t take action and start digging around, you’d never know what you might discover.

• Feel free to explore and innovate. We should give ourselves the freedom to explore new activities, interests, and skills. Unless we’re under pressure to take a paid job, this is the opportunity to try on a few things for size.

• Get the right people on your bus. Surround yourself with coaches and companions. Tap into their wisdom. Use them as sounding board. You may not know yourself as well as you think; you may also know much more than you realize. Let them assist you in the discovery journey.

What are some principles that have helped you navigate your empty nest transition? What can you share with others?

Please leave a comment and feel free to ask a question by clicking on the button “Ask Me A Question” in the sidebar.

All content on this website is copyrighted.

http://www.dreamstime.com

VN:F [1.9.15_1155]
Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)
Filed Under: Transition Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Parenting Adult Children: 5 Reasons You Should Stop Being Responsible

April 16, 2012 By Theresa Froehlich Leave a Comment

During the last ten or so years, several books have become available to show parents how to deal with dysfunctional adult children. Some examples are Jane Adams’ When Our Grown Kids Disappoint Us,Allison Bottke’s Setting Boundaries with Adult children and Arlene Harder’s Letting Go of Adult Children: When What You Do Is Never Enough

When our children are not becoming the responsible adults they should be, parents are often at a loss. The barriers to your child’s development might be failing in school, inability to secure or hold employment, drug addiction, or simply failure to make social connections with other young adults. The natural tendency is to fix our children SO they will become responsible, or to “help” them so they will be protected from the negative consequences of their own choices. Regardless whether our intent is to fix or to help, this kind of behavior is known as “enabling” in recovery language.

The result of enabling behavior often turns out to be the opposite of what we hope for because we continue to be responsible for their lives. It sounds counter-intuitive, but what parents should do is to let go because not letting go will have the following consequences:

1. Delaying development. Your help is handicapping your child.

2. Usurping responsibility. As long as you’re working hard, your child doesn’t have to.

3. Stuck perception. “Mom will solve my problems.” Your child will never move into self-agency.

4. Encouraging victim mentality. As long as you’re rescuing your child from the pain and discomfort of life, some of which stem from her own choices, she will remain in the victim mode.

5. Perpetuating an unhealthy relationship of codependency.

You will always feel needed as long as your child is behaving in dysfunctional ways.

What other reasons might be good reasons you should stop being responsible for your child?

Please leave a comment and feel free to ask a question by clicking on the button “Ask Me A Question” in the sidebar.

All content on this website is copyrighted.

http://www.dreamstime.com

VN:F [1.9.15_1155]
Rating: 5.0/5 (1 vote cast)
Filed Under: Parenting Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Christian Discipleship: God Still Affirms Marriage

April 13, 2012 By Theresa Froehlich Leave a Comment

The Bible provides clear teachings on marriage. In Matthew 19:4, Jesus highlights and affirms the Genesis passage when he spoke to the Pharisees, “Haven’t you read that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”

The Bible is also clear that, as broken human beings, we frequently fall short of the ideal of the covenant marriage. Some of the expressions of falling short include fornication, divorce, and adultery. As contemporary culture becomes more tolerant of these various expressions, it has also added more expressions of our brokenness to the list: open marriage, gay marriage, cohabitation, and serial monogamy.

The knowledge that human beings are broken is not new. The knowledge that God had intended marriage to be a permanent covenant relationship is not new either. So what’s new? It’s the attempt for professing Christians to accept expressions of brokenness as expressions of God’s design. Within the last year, I have come across several couples in my home church, a large mainline denomination congregation, who have been cohabitating without being married.

The danger of redefining human brokenness as God’s design is this: we lose sight of God’s purpose for this important covenant relationship, a metaphor for learning about our relationship with God himself. Indeed the people of God is the bride of Christ!

In the Purpose-Driven Marriage article written for the Marriage Partnership, Rick Warren says that a marriage centered on Christ is specifically focused on glorifying God. Our main purpose in marriage should be focused on glorifying God. It should far exceed the goal of fulfilling our needs, wants and preferences and those of our spouse. “Our main purpose in marriage should be to focus on being of the same mind, according to Jesus, so that with one accord and one voice we glorify God.“

The pop culture that doesn’t embrace God’s design as the highest purpose for marriage handles sexual relations with entirely different assumptions . In his Breakpoint blogpost Prenuptial Prudence: The Consequences of Cohabitation, Gary Robinson cited some of the things that network TV ridicules:

• Sex is not our invention.

• The way we behave sexually is an indicator of whether we know God.
• Sex falls under the authority of the Lord Jesus.

• God has a will for sex.

• There are consequences for sexual sin.

• The way we behave sexually isn’t simply an answer to a moral call, but an answer to the call of God.

• Rejecting chastity is rejecting God.

When we have this purpose as the overarching goal, we will be asking very different questions.

• What is God’s will for the kind of person I marry?

• How can my spouse and I build our relationship in such a way that we get a good reputation for God?

• How can my spouse and I honor God even as we honor each other?

• How can we, as husband and wife, build our unity in vision and mission?

• How should we view and relate to our children? How do we parent in such a way that pleases God and brings out their best for the Kingdom of God?

My husband and I have been married since 1983. We have weathered many storms together. Besides the usual challenges of a marriage, we have the additional flavor of an intercultural marriage. We accept God’s design and purpose for our marriage from the time we chose to marry each other. This clarity of purpose also provides clarity of direction. We may have arguments, but we know what we aim for: unity of vision and mission to glorify God.
Hebrews 13:4 says, ”Give honor to marriage, and remain faithful to one another in marriage. God will surely judge people who are immoral and those who commit adultery.”

At times, we Christians create confusion for ourselves by compromising God’s standards and complicating our lives as a result. “Life is simpler than you realize,” says Warren. “[God's purpose] is what matters. This is what’s going to last for eternity.”

Please leave a comment and feel free to ask a question by clicking on the button “Ask Me A Question” in the sidebar.

All content on this website is copyrighted.

http://www.dreamstime.com

VN:F [1.9.15_1155]
Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)
Filed Under: Spirituality Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Transition To Adulthood: How To Help Your Children Do This

April 11, 2012 By Theresa Froehlich Leave a Comment

The transition from adolescence to adulthood is not an easy one in modern America, where there are hardly any gradual milestones to mark the small transitions from childhood to adolescence to adulthood. When asked about rites of passage in America, most people would name getting the driver’s license at age 16.

There is a new pattern in this country, called the “Emerging Adulthood,” a term coined by Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, a psychology professor at Clark University. This term describes the elongated process of maturing from adolescence into adulthood. As a result of this new pattern, our twenty somethings are not achieving the traditional milestones of adulthood: completing school, leaving home, becoming financially independent, marrying and having a child. The 2000 U.S. Census shows a smaller percentage of individuals achieving these milestones, compared to their counterparts in the 1960 Census. Many young adults are moving back in with parents because of economic downturn, loss of a job, or divorce.

Granted that the economic times are less favorable in 2012, there are other factors at work. One of these factors is how Americans view such things as hardships, struggles, material deprivation, and suffering. As a mother, I’d admit that I had expected our two children to breeze through the sequence of those milestones in an orderly manner. When they surprised me with choices that took them a different direction, I had to begin to question my views on such things as hardships, struggles, deprivation, and suffering. Certainly, I would have made my children’s lives more comfortable if I had rescued them from the struggles they have to face by making a living, paying their bills, and learning to curb their material appetites in order to make ends meet. However, if I rescue them every time they’re faced with tough circumstances, they will always be perpetuating their dependency. Interestingly, after having been on their own for several years, they value their self-reliance so much that they would not accept handouts even if we offered it.

Another factor at work is the loss of community. Our twenty somethings intuitively know they will lose their primary community, their family, when they leave home. In the extremely individualistic culture of America, finding community is not easy. Yet the 20’s is the age when our young adults need to walk with others, instead of isolating themselves and believing they could or should solve problems alone.

An urgent priority for our young adults is to recover that sense of community: finding mentors and companions.

A third factor is the kind of message we send to our children about living with less. If we model contentment to our children, they’ll l learn to live within their means even while they set their sights on something better. Two weeks ago when we took our 23-year-old daughter out to lunch, my husband mentioned he had been seriously considering taking the bus to work. Our daughter was blown away by this. In her mind, she is the poor girl trying to make ends meet and her parents are the rich ones. Modeling to her that we can live with less is to impart the value of contentment.

For parents relating to adult children, the question is whether to allow these twenty somethings to take longer to explore or to “cut them off.” Arnett suggests a middle course, believing that “emerging adults develop skills for daily living, gain a better understanding of who they are and what they want from life and begin to build a foundation for their adult lives.” While I agree with the “middle course” approach, the answer to the question depends so much on the evidence of the young adult moving forward. In addition, human beings don’t gain skills and self-understanding by sitting in a comfortable cocoon or incubator. They gain these skills and understandings by wrestling with real life.

Please leave a comment and feel free to ask a question by clicking on the button “Ask Me A Question” in the sidebar.

All content on this website is copyrighted.

http://www.dreamstime.com

VN:F [1.9.15_1155]
Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)
Filed Under: Transition Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Parenting Adult Children: How To Release Them

April 9, 2012 By Theresa Froehlich Leave a Comment

Sometimes your relationship with your adult children just doesn’t turn out the way you have hoped, no matter how much you give to them and love them. When the relationship is dysfunctional, it triggers and nurtures a whole spectrum of negative emotions: disappointments, grief, bitterness, resentment, guilt, shame, and, most of all, fear.

In her book “Letting Go of Our Adult Children: When What You Do For Them Is Not Enough,” therapist Arlene Harder shares her story about her son who became an alcoholic. The relationship caused her a great deal of heartache.

Even though most parents know we are supposed to release our children to self-reliance, Theresa Cotter said the “desire to control may linger out of habit.”
Letting go is quite a lot easier when our children as adults choose a path we have steered them toward all along. However, when they pick a moral or spiritual path that is diametrically opposed to the values we have instilled in them, that’s a different story. Unfortunately, and counter-intuitively, our desire to control is exactly what exacerbates the problem in the relationship.
During the years when our children entered adolescence to the time they reached college age, I had repeatedly attempted to steer our children toward the path I wanted them to get on. The result was quite opposite of what I had envisioned. Both children went off to college, crashed and burned, and totally derailed their lives.

At first I asked: what can I do to fix this? But asking this is to ask the wrong question. When I finally understood the true meaning of the first step of the 12-Step Recovery, I was able to let go.

The first step is to admit that I am powerless. It’s only when I admit this that I am able to let go of the urge to control. This is very counter-intuitive, particularly when your child is in crisis. Yet this is the most necessary action on the part of the parent. Lao Tzi said, “When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.” To let go is to stop trying to change my child. Instead, I begin to change myself from within.

The disappointment of watching my two highly-gifted children spiraling down created in me a great deal of grief, guilt, shame, bitterness, resentment, anger, despair and fear. Yet I have to practice the daily discipline of letting go, releasing my children from my control so they can begin to take control of their lives. It is also the daily discipline of discarding those emotions of guilt, shame, anger, and fear so I could begin to write a new and positive story.

Alexander Graham Bell said, “When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.”

As long as I hold on to the old dream I cherished and the life I had planned for my children, I will be blind to other open doors besides and behind me.
The following is a simple exercise you can do to practice letting go.

• List the things that have caused, and continue to trigger, resentment, bitterness, guilt, shame, and grief.

• Choose one small thing that is easiest for you to let go.

• Acknowledge your role in this, even though you may not have directly caused the problem.

• Name a motivation for letting go. For me, becoming free from such powerful, negative emotions is a strong motivation.

• Declare that you forgive your child; declare also that you forgive yourself.

• Draw a symbol of the negative experience on a piece of paper.

• Plan a formal ceremony: tear the paper to pieces and drop them in the ocean; burn the paper; nail the paper to the cross.

• Celebrate the new-found freedom. Plan a dinner out. Buy some fresh flowers for your kitchen. Share the experience with a trusted friend.
Have you had to let go of your adult children under difficult circumstances? What were the challenges to letting go? What changes do you need to make?

Please leave a comment and feel free to ask me a question by clicking on the button “Ask Me A Question” in the sidebar.

All content on this website is copyrighted.

VN:F [1.9.15_1155]
Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)
Filed Under: Parenting Tagged With: , , , , ,

Christian Discipleship:Why Diversity Matters To God?

April 6, 2012 By Theresa Froehlich Leave a Comment

As Christians trying to follow Jesus Christ in twenty-first century America, we need to be asking the question: why diversity matters to God?

Ephesians 2:14-17 tells us, “For Christ himself has brought peace to us. He united Jews and Gentiles into one people when, in his own body on the cross, he broke down the wall of hostility that separated us. He did this by ending the system of law with its commandments and regulations. He made peace between Jews and Gentiles by creating in himself one new people from the two groups. Together as one body, Christ reconciled both groups to God by means of his death on the cross, and our hostility toward each other was put to death.” (NLT)

The demographics of the United States are rapidly changing. There will be a time when all non-white minorities combined will become the majority. In addition, the number of babies born to minority parents has begun to outnumber those born to the majority white families. This has serious implications for health care, education, and other public policies. George Barna believes this also has significant impact on how we do church in the next few decades.

However, in spite of these demographic realities, and the fact that America now has Barack Obama as our first black president, most congregations remain as segregated as ever. According to a CNN news release, “only about 5 percent of the nation’s churches are racially integrated, and half of them are in the process of becoming all-black or all-white.”

If Don McGavran, the father of the Church Growth Movement, was still alive, he would have cited this phenomenon as proof for the Homogeneous Unit Principle (HUP) he was promoting. But Don McGavran and Peter Wagner, the Church Growth gurus, have their share of critics.

George Yancey points out the face that McGavran based his HUP on his missionary experience in India, where the caste system makes it sociologically impossible to mingle across caste divides. But this is not the case in twenty-first century America. In his well-researched and groundbreaking book, People of the Dream, Michael Emerson talks about a new and growing generation of Americans who are more likely to have had relationships with someone of a different race. If Emerson is correct, then the younger generation, more so than the older generation, is going to want a religious experience that incorporates ethnic diversity.

Christians should ponder on this question of diversity because our answers will shape our ecclesiology: what we believe about church and how we do church. The apostle Paul writes, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28 NIV)

A few months ago, I gathered together a few people in our home church to form a small group fellowship. Being married to a Caucasian man, and having mingled among internationals for decades, I just naturally reach out to people from a wide variety of ethnic backgrounds. We now have a small group of 10 individuals: Japanese, Koreans, Chinese, Italian Americans, and German Americans. Within the group, there are two interracial couples. We love the diversity and we are always learning from one another.

Crossing the racial divide doesn’t just happen. It requires church leaders to be very intentional about their approaches and strategies for ministry. For the sake of kingdom effectiveness, we must begin to learn how.

Please leave a comment and feel free to ask a question by clicking on the button “Ask Me A Question” in the sidebar.

All content on this website is copyrighted.

VN:F [1.9.15_1155]
Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)
Filed Under: Spirituality Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Mastering Life Transitions: Leveraging Fear

April 4, 2012 By Theresa Froehlich Leave a Comment


Transition time is like the acrobat stunts in a circus. You’re letting go of the old but until you grab the new, you feel you have nothing secure to hold on to. The transition period is frightening, hair-raising, and downright scary.

Built into the human spirit is also the capacity to overcome fear by facing the thing that frightens us. Fear Factor is an American sports stunt/dare reality game show in which individuals do daredevil things to challenge their fears.

If the human brain is wired for survival, as scientist John Medina points out in his book Brain Rules, then it has the capacity to solve problems for survival. Explorer Ernest Shackleton demonstrated how creative human beings can be in problem-solving and how resilient the human spirit can be.

My now 22-year-old son was fearful of getting into the swimming pool when he was a toddler. At age 17, he was also fearful of getting into the pool of the adult world. We changed course, took him out of college, and sent him to an expensive life skills course instead. Thrust into the adult world without the presence of mom and dad, he rose to the challenge with the support of the program staff. Today, he is comfortable in his own skin as an independent young man with newly found ego strength. His journey from fear to stability and confidence involved several essentials.

• Name the inertia. What is the fear of change?

• Shift the perspective about fear. Name the limiting belief about fear: fear is not a foe to be pushed away, but a powerful friend to thrust us into action.

• Identify the motivation. Name the loss or negative consequence that would take place if no action is taken to move forward. The pain of the loss becomes the momentum that propels him into action.

• Create an accountability structure to help me focus on the momentum factor. This is the time to bring in my coaches and companions.

Chae Richardson said, “Courage is not living without fear. Courage is being scared to death and doing the right thing anyway.

Please leave a comment and feel free to ask a question by clicking on the button “Ask Me A Question” in the sidebar.

All content on this website is copyrighted.

http://www.dreamstime.com

VN:F [1.9.15_1155]
Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)
Filed Under: Transition Tagged With: , , , ,

Parenting Adult Children: Change To Improve the Relationship

April 2, 2012 By Theresa Froehlich Leave a Comment

Adult children are a mirror of parents’ behaviors while the children were growing up. As I write this blogpost, I feel more like a mother confessing to guilt as I wake up to what I have done in the past.

I am a well-educated woman and a mother of two. By all measures, both my husband and I are loving, kind, and normal parents in the home and responsible citizens in society. However, there was a dynamic in the family that resulted in our children showing some of the same symptoms as adult children of alcoholics. For reasons I become aware of only in hindsight, our children were not getting what they needed from me to become emotionally healthy young adults.

After a rather messy launch of our children a few years ago, I have been reflecting on my own behaviors, making changes in the way I relate to our children who now live independently.

According to Adult Children of Alcoholics World Service Organization, the adult children of addicts show the following symptoms:

1. Adult children guess at what normal is.

2. Adult children have difficulty following through a project from beginning to end.

3. Adult children lie when it would be just as easy to tell the truth.

4. Adult children judge themselves without mercy.

5. Adult children have difficulty having fun.

6. Adult children take themselves very seriously.

7. Adult children have difficulty with intimate relationships.

8. Adult children overreact to changes over which they have no control.

9. Adult children constantly seek approval and affirmation.

10. Adult children feel that they are different from other people.

11. Adult children are either super-responsible or super-irresponsible.

12. Adult children are extremely loyal, even in face of evidence that such loyalty is undeserved.

13. Adult children are impulsive.

Some of you reading this blogpost may say: “I am not an alcoholic or an addict!” I am not either, but I just knew I had to change my way of relating to our children so our relationship could change for the better.

In their book, “Adult Children: Secrets of Dysfunctional Families”, psychologists and authors John C. Friel and Linda D. Friel said, “Just because you don’t drink alcohol does not mean that you are free from addiction. You could have all of the traits of an addict – the denial, the discomfort with intimacy, the need for unreasonable power and control, the inability to let go, the inner torment, the insecurity masked by grandiosity and so on – without being an alcoholic.”

During the last four years, I have consciously changed my attitudes and behaviors and these efforts have paid immense dividends in our relationship. Here I want to share just a few pointers I try to live by.

• Be consistent about initiating contact but keep my contact to no more than one face-to-face meeting a month. This consistency lets my kids know I am still here for them but I am not always in their space. This creates a “new normal” in the relationship so they know what to expect.

• Refrain from giving unsolicited advice. My husband and I ask for permission before giving advice. This is an act of letting go of control and showing respect for the young adults as adult men and women.

• Affirm my children for the choices they make, even if they aren’t choices I would have made myself.

• Occasionally I tell my children I miss them, but I don’t look to them to meet my daily or weekly social needs. It’s particularly important that parents don’t use their children as dumping ground for our feelings of grief about becoming empty nest parents. They need to feel the freedom to move forward and find their feet in life without feeling guilty.

• Be intentional about managing parental anxiety. My worries and anxieties will cause my children to feel that I don’t have confidence in them. I need to be careful about the message I send to them.

• Work hard at staying calm and cool, no matter what, when speaking to your children. Three weeks ago, I received a phone call that caused me to worry about my daughter. I took time to sit down and pray before I called my son to find out more information. In the end, I found out that she was safe. If I had sounded and acted distressed when I talked to my son, the fear in him and me would have snowballed.

• Learn to be vulnerable and transparent about my emotions. I started to share with our children how I feel lonely sometimes. Last week when I was walking across a very icy and slippery parking lot, I asked my daughter to hold my arm because I was concerned about falling. It was important for her to see me as a vulnerable human being so she feels like we’re on level ground.

What might be some changes you can make to improve your relationship with your adult children?

Please leave a comment and feel free to ask a question by clicking on the button “Ask Me A Question” in the sidebar.

All content on this website is copyrighted.

http://www.dreamstime.com

VN:F [1.9.15_1155]
Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)
Filed Under: Parenting Tagged With: , , , , ,

Christian Discipleship: What Sets Christian Memoirs Apart?

March 30, 2012 By Theresa Froehlich Leave a Comment

Every human being has a life story to tell, but not everyone writes a biography.

There was a time when biographies were written about significant people, like Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln and Albert Einstein, whose lives shaped world history in notable ways. The times are now changing so that the bookstores are well supplied with memoirs of celebrities and less known individuals. Many of these memoirs are written to satisfy the readers’ appetite for intimate details of the lives of celebrities.

During the past year, I have been pondering on writing my memoirs, mainly motivated by my desire to help my children get to know their mother better. This prompts me to wonder what sets Christian memoirs apart from others. I concluded that Christian memoirs should serve one purpose: to showcase the power of God to change lives. In his Divinity magazine article “Telling Lives: The Power of the Christian Memoir,” Duke University theologian and professor Richard Lischer said, the “decisions and actions of the narrator are shaped by an awareness of God’s presence in the warp and woof of a life.”

Augustine of Hippo, the fourth century bishop who wrote the Confessions to give the Christ-followers in posterity a window into his life own life in Christ. He wrote it as an act of worship, and his memoirs have been a tool for mentoring Christians throughout the centuries.

About 35 years ago, Chuck Colson had a life-changing conversion to Jesus Christ after he went to prison for the Watergate scandal. When his book Born Again came off the press, one of my non-Christian co-workers accused Colson of being a religious scammer. At the time, I was a new Christian and I didn’t know how to defend Colson. I knew that the fruit of Colson’s life will be the test of his testimony.

Billy Graham, the great evangelist who has preached to millions, is 93 and has just completed his memoirs On Life, Faith, and Finishing Well. He will continue to reach millions through his final memoirs even after he goes home to be with God.

Recently, my friend Dr. Chun-wai Chan has released his memoirs From Orphan to Physician, a biography he wrote for the sake of his children. The book has made impact on many since it was released. He has received letters from readers who have decided not to commit suicide, to change career, and to improve their marriages, as a result of reading his book.

I get excited thinking about the people whose lives are changed for the better because of reading these Christian memoirs. I am neither a Hollywood star nor a well-known theologian, but I believe that my story is His story. My highest and most satisfying ambition is to see God using the pages I write to transform the lives of individuals so they come to know his grace and love.

What’s your story? How might God use your life story? Are you keep records of your story by journaling?

Please leave a comment and feel free to ask a question by clicking on the button “Ask Me A Story” in the sidebar.

All content on this website is copyrighted.

http://www.dreamstime.com

VN:F [1.9.15_1155]
Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)
Filed Under: Spirituality Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,
« Older Posts
Newer Posts »
newsletter software