Here are a few quality items that you may want to consider adding to your kids’ Easter Basket AND the great news is you can buy them all online! We are not receiving any form of payment for recommending these. Scroll down to find your child’s age group. We just really like them and thought you might too…

Kids ages 6-8

• Kids Read Romans: by Kids Read Truth – take a trip through the book of Romans with Mr. Mosse and his students. Your six – week adventure will include a different Bible verse to read each day, plus a fun activity, coloring page or puzzle to go with it. At the end of each week, you’ll uncover a new step on the Romans Road, where you’ll learn about Jesus and play with fun sticker versions of new animal friends.
• ABC Bible Flashcards: Use the flashcards to hide God’s word in your heart! Practice memorizing the verses on the back, then hold up the letter side and quiz yourself or your family to see who remembers the verse for that letter.
• Indescribable:100 devotions about God and Science. It’s impossible to out-imagine God. He orchestrates time, creates light, and speaks things into existence—from the largest stars to the smallest starfish. God is a powerful, purposeful, personal, unparalleled Creator.
• The Jesus Storybook Coloring Book: Filled with inspiring content that has made The Jesus Storybook Bible one of the most beloved children’s Bibles ever created, this book of beautiful, award-winning illustrations from Jago is ready to be colored in any way a child can imagine.
• New Covenant Kids Book Collection: This bundle contains Grace Life Teaching Pastor, Frank Friedmann’s three kids books, including Who Am I?, and If I’m Right, Why Do I Keep Doing Wrong, as well as I Was Wrong, But God Made Me Right! Through these books, children can learn about their identity in Christ, being plugged into Jesus, and what it means to have Christ live in you!

Kids ages 9-12

• Together, a journal for mom and me: Together, a Journal for Mom and Me: A Guided Experience Connecting Moms and Kids to God and Each Other provides an inviting place for moms and kids to talk about both important and everyday stuff. Whether it’s favorite vacations or Bible verses, this unique journal gives families space to learn about each other and presents opportunities for growth in relationship with God together.
• NIrV Adventure Bible: The NIrV Adventure Bible® will get kids excited about reading the Scriptures! Kids will be captivated with the full-color features that make reading the Bible and memorizing their favorite verses engaging and fun. Along the way they will meet all types of people, see all sorts of places, and learn all kinds of things about the Bible. It comes in faux leather blue and pink, and hardback.

Teens ages 13 – 18

• A Journaling or Illustrating Bible: There are lots of great ones out there. Some considered more girly and some more manly. We recommend ESV, NKJV, or NIrV versions. These Bibles give more margin space for writing or word art.

• Life According to Perfect: Come join a story too great to imagine, but a story that’s surprisingly yours. Terrific stories have been written about following and meeting with Jesus. They happen on a high place or in a magical land. But what if the meeting didn’t happen in a distant or magical place, somewhere you had to go? What if it occurred inside of you—every day, at any moment—and you were God’s happiest, most magical place to be? Meet Elliot Samuelson. He’s 12 and lives in the little town of Sarx. He has already learned to cope. He copes with his dad’s expectations. He copes with his mom’s need for a sparkling family image. He copes with his teacher’s rules. He copes with the bully’s threats. He’s a coper.  In fact, everyone in Sarx has from a young age learned how to cope—and that’s the problem. They all know how to cope. But no one knows how to truly live, until Elliot meets a stranger on the edge of town, who shows him a better way. A Perfect way. And Elliot’s life, and the town’s, are never the same. Yours won’t be, either.

• MONEY – They ALL want money in their Easter baskets!

Young Adults: 19 – 25-year-olds

• Trust for Today: 365 Days of Encouragement. Trust is vital in our families, communities, businesses, churches, and daily life, yet many of us struggle with trusting other people and even God Himself. We may have been hurt or had our trust broken in a key area, so we choose to try to do life by ourselves. We may not understand what trust really looks like in our everyday lives. Yet trust is what frees us to enjoy the life God has intended for us.
• Unashamed: FOR GIRLS Take a fresh look at dating for a new generation of young women. This conversation will encourage you as Tracy Levinson shares grace infused insight, wisdom, laughter and liberating truth. unashamed is for young women, and people in their lives who adore them. This list includes moms, dads, brothers, grandparents, boyfriends, and church leaders. Tracy Levinson candidly explores pivotal questions asked by this millennial generation. 
• MONEY – They ALL want money in their Easter baskets!

Sex. The mere mention of the word conjures up feelings that run the full spectrum of our emotional scale. Maybe the only thing more intimidating than the word itself is teaching our kids about it! The Birds and the Bees make it sound so easy and simple but if you are a parent, you know better. Our kids are living in a fast-paced, visual world, and the language, messages, and images about sex today are not veiled in symbolism such as birds and bees, but are in your face, blatant, raw, and shocking! I have had “the talk” with my own kids and am so glad I did…they taught me so much!!! I wanted to believe that in their ignorance, they were innocent but soon realized that in their innocence they were ignorant! That is a recipe for being naïve and susceptible to the lies out there. They had already heard words and seen some things I had hoped they hadn’t but they had been left to their own understanding of it all and needed the truth about it, not so much insulation from it.

How are we to help teach, protect, nurture, and guide our kids as they navigate through the onslaught of social media, images, music, computers, video games, television, culture, and all that is out there in the world, not to mention the onslaught of hormones that are in them? In short, how do we help our kids live pure lives in an impure world? First of all, let me encourage you that the situation is far from hopeless. Listen to these words in Titus:

“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, teaching us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age.” – Titus 2:11-12

Because of God’s grace, we have hope, we are not alone, and we are loved with unquestioned certainty in the midst of uncertain times…and so are our kids! By His doing, we have been made new creations, holy and righteous, we have been given a new heart, desiring exactly what He desires (regardless of how we feel) and we have His indwelling Spirit so that we are never alone or without His power to be able to “do all things through Christ, who strengthens us.” Purity is not something we can achieve, it is the Life of Jesus we have received! We are pure because God made us pure…now the only sensible thing to do is live like who we are. This is the reality that our kids need to know and that we need to know. This is the gospel…the good news that sets us free!

Shame. It is one of the greatest tools that the enemy uses to kill, steal, and destroy (John 10:10). Kill our kindness towards ourselves, steal our ability to experience love and joy, and can destruct relationships like no other. In THIS previous post, I laid out the role shame can play and the truth that shame has NO PLACE to dwell in the heart of a child of God. As we are journeying together through this beautifully messy thing called parenting, I know it is each of our hearts for our children to not only know but experience the love God has for them through the way we love them.

Sometimes when I think about the magnitude of it all, I can find myself nearly begging God for my children to turn out okay – more for their sake than for mine. No one desires for their child to continue to struggle into adulthood or choose to live life contrary to who they are in Christ. I am then reminded and reassured that it’s not all up to me and that my primary act of obedience is to depend on Him and His ways, not my own. To trust what resides within me. Simple in theory, oftentimes oh so challenging in practice. In the book The Cure and Parents, the authors say

“we get to give our kids the best of us– earning permission to influence them, mature them, know them, give guidance to them, protect them, love them, free them, and show them a magnificent God and an authentic life that will hold up for their entire lifetime.” They continued to state, “they get to watch us trusting God. They watch us mature and heal and become freer…they get to enjoy, instead of maneuvering around, the very ones who have loved them most.”

Because I know I am not alone in that, I thought I would share some tangible areas we as parents can walk out fostering love and grace, standing victorious with Christ (and our kiddos) over shame.

Forgiveness

Forgiveness is the pathway for love to freely flow. It is the very cornerstone our relationship with God is built on. It was the exact thing that God did in order for him to fully experience us and us to fully experience Him. Therefore, forgiving ourselves and others is essential in experiencing the depth of God’s promises for ourselves, to be an expression of those promises to others, and to experience the fullness of community with those around us. Forgiveness invites acceptance to love someone right where they are; remembering Whose they are to begin with. I know it can sound like all of this is flowery and pretty, but love is hard and messy a lot of the time. But I have experienced trusting God when it is difficult, confusing, and exhausting and watching it turn into a beautiful thing. Walking in our forgiveness from God and extending that forgiveness to ourselves and others removes the barriers allowing love to flow just as it was designed to.

Belongingness

We have all been there. As a kid wanting a place to belong at lunch in the cafeteria. As an adult, really hoping when we walk into that social event we have at least one person we feel safe with. We are wired deeply to be loved and belong. We are all biologically, cognitively, physically, and spiritually created to love, be loved, and to belong. Love and belongingness is not something we earn. It’s our birthright in Christ Jesus. And if that’s true of our relationship with God, then that is true of our relationship as parent and child. I belong as my boy’s mother and they belong as my sons. Obviously, the experience of this love can for sure be tampered with if anyone in the equation is living in fear, lies, or shame. Even in tough seasons or with personalities that challenge the heck out of us, our kids belong in our home. You belong in your home. You are the chosen parent God so delightfully appointed to parent your child. When we are believing truth about ourselves, and our role as their parent (despite how we feel or the circumstances in front of us) we can communicate those same truths to our children. Speaking truth into their lives a million and one times is so life-giving to them. Especially when the world is speaking the opposite. When we and our kids believe we are loved and belong right where we are, that they are good and wanted despite any poor choices, there is security and trust to battle the lies together.

Vulnerability

Even the word vulnerability kind of feels funny. When we are vulnerable and open with ourselves in the environment of grace with God, it gives us the ability to recognize what lies we may be believing about ourselves, God, others, or our circumstances. Vulnerability is simply being honest with yourself. Peeling the onion layers back in our thoughts and feelings and not letting anything stick that does not align with our identity in Christ. When we practice vulnerability, and stand in truth, we are able to have intimacy in our relationship with God and those who love us. Separating behavior from identity for ourselves and our children is a key function in fostering a safe environment for everyone to be free to be vulnerable. Living this out for our kids to see is essential in helping them build the same practice. Showing vulnerability allows our kids to see God at work in our hearts. Me closely watching God work in someone else’s heart is how I came to know Jesus myself! I was drawn to the realness of her walk. 2 Corinthians 12:9 says “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” Allowing our kids to see and hear our process of trusting God not only invites them to trust us, but to trust God with their life. The hope is that by our kids watching us trust Jesus, they will be compelled to do the same. “For it is the love of Christ that compels us” (2 Corinthians 5:14).

Patience

I oftentimes have to remind myself that my kids are just that…kids. That I surely can’t expect them to handle things well and maturely all of the time or even most of the time. Depending on the age of your children, they are learning emotional regulation, impulse control, and sorting all sorts of thoughts and stimuli simultaneously.

The goal is not to never struggle, but to learn to depend on God in the struggle.

That goes for ourselves as well as our children. This takes TIME. And lots of practice. Heck, I am still learning and growing in how to live out these truths in my own current season. Obviously, the hope is that we see continued growth and maturation, but having realistic expectations for our children goes a long way with our experience of them. As hard as it is, every struggle, teenage outburst, meltdown, or silent treatment is an opportunity for us to meet them in love and grace, speak truth, and walk through the struggle with them. As I tell my boys frequently, “let’s practice our patience” and trust that He makes everything beautiful in its time (Ecclesiastes 3:11).

It is the primary cry of our hearts as parents for our children to come to know, trust, and live as one with Christ. As I mentioned before, it can all seem incredibly overwhelming and daunting at times. I can find myself sometimes more easily thinking of all that could go awry than dreaming of it going well. I am sure I am not alone in feeling sometimes like “ugh, I’m doing all of this and my kids don’t seem to be getting it.” Thankfully our identity is not in our parenting or in our children’s choices. The truth is that we are equipped in Christ Jesus. We have what it takes and you are not going at this alone. Christ in and through you is the only true parenting “tip” in the economy of grace. Know that wherever you are at in your parenting journey, that God has not forgotten you or your children. That if you have trusted Christ in your parenting and your ideas and plans have not played out, that the purpose of the Lord will stand (Proverbs 19:21). If you are a parent in a difficult season with a young child or an adult child, know that the battle has been won and the war is over. Victory has been had. We are not always sure when and how we will get to see the victory play out, but victory still remains true.

In whatever your days hold right now, know that you are not only welcome, but wanted in your community of believers. None of us have it all together and all of us benefit from walking beside each other. Come alongside others and allow others to come alongside you. Perfect love, His love, casts out all fear. And because of that, it is good to be us here with God and with each other- especially in this beautifully chaotic thing called parenting.

Shame – Part 1

Shame. Your cheeks get hot, your stomach drops, you feel like the whole world is looking at you. You are exposed. Ewe. Even the word isn’t super fun to say. Shame in all its glory can be brutal. It is one of the greatest tools that the enemy uses to kill, steal, and destroy (John 10:10). Kill our kindness towards ourselves, steal our ability to experience love and joy, and can destruct relationships like no other. Aren’t you so pumped to be reading about it?! It’s the other “s” word that no one wants to touch with a ten-foot pole.

We have all felt it, acted on it, wrestled with thoughts stemming from it. I oftentimes tell clients that the only thing that grows in the dark is fear and shame. And if we really boil it down shame is rooted in fear. Fear of being seen and others not liking or accepting what is seen. Fear that if anyone really knew what I did/thought/said that they would run for the hills. Or worse stick around and we would pay for it by either our perception of constant judgment and wondering what in the world they are thinking of us OR being treated by others in a way that is fueled by shame. Fear that we, at our core, are not enough, not okay, not loveable. Sounds delightful, right?

As one of the key instruments of the enemy, it can wreak havoc internally. If he can keep someone hidden, festering in the dark, then there is absolutely no freedom in that. And the last thing the enemy wants is us experiencing and living out our freedom in Christ. Shame, remorse, and embarrassment are oftentimes intertwined, confusing, and can be hard to distinguish the role they each play.

We have all been there. Making a grand entrance by loudly tripping through the doorway of a restaurant hoping everyone was too busy enjoying their meal to notice, only to look up and see all eyes on you. Embarrassment. When we feel embarrassed we are experiencing self-consciousness followed by some distress. Remorse, in its healthy function, is feeling icky first then holding what we did/experienced next to who we are and recognizing that it doesn’t fit. Believing that choice/experience isn’t congruent to who we are and therefore it doesn’t sit right. In recognizing it doesn’t fit we are then able to stand in truth and not live in the thoughts and feelings of remorse. Shame happens when we believe it fits and therefore let the choice/experience (and lies that follow suit) say more about us than what God says about us and has done for us. Fear that who we are at our core is not good. Shame would tell me that I can’t even walk through a doorway correctly without making a fool of myself and that I am a constant screw up.

Remember earlier when I said shame was the other “s” word that no one wanted to touch with a ten-foot pole? Christ touched it. He more than touched it. He erased it. Demolished it. Our identity in Him is blameless, shameless, and secure. For we are MORE than conquerors (Romans 8:37)! Shame has NO PLACE to dwell in the heart of a child of God. If this is true, and it for dang sure is, then how come we sometimes experience thoughts and feelings of shame and watch our children wrestle with them too? I like to think we come by it honestly. The very first act Adam and Eve made once choosing to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was to hide themselves. Genesis 3:10 says “And he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” For the first time, they felt shame. They felt fear. Felt exposed, vulnerable, and unacceptable. We, our children included, have all been there. Vulnerable and exposed. When caught up in the lies and waves of emotions we can find ourselves fearful that it is actually true.

The beautiful thing is that being vulnerable and exposed in the environment of love and grace is Gods heart for each and every one of us. To be fully seen and be fully loved. To be known and be free. To be heard and be accepted. As Doug and Janet Newberry say, “it is good to be me here with you.” Good to be me because God says I am good. Good to be me because my environment is one that knows my goodness is rooted firmly in Christ. A place where who I am is based on Whose I am, not what I have done. An environment of love and grace. The very opposite of shame, fear, and darkness is love, vulnerability, and freedom in Christ. Living in the light.

As a parent walking in New Covenant truth you have established and are continuing to foster an environment where it is good to be me here with you. Oftentimes it can get sticky to sort all of this out in ourselves and with our children. In order to combat shame, we want our kids to feel safe to be vulnerable with us. To mess up and know they have a soft place to land. To trust us and have the freedom to learn to trust God. Our reactions and responses to things greatly shapes their ability to do this. Giving them pieces of our story, sharing our current struggles or moments of weakness, apologizing, owning our wrongs, verbalizing that our/their mistakes is not who we are and how our heart wants to act, and asking for forgiveness.

Parenting is a huge refiner of us parents. Never be afraid to allow your children to see you being refined. Grow and lean into God more and more with them. So first we must trust God with our own thoughts and feelings of shame and then lead them to do the same. Perfect love, the very love that dwells within you, drives out all fear (1 John 4:18). Drives out fear and invites freedom. Freedom to know we won’t always get it right and neither will our children, but for the truth that it is good to be me here with God remaining the same.