Yesterday I saw Luke sitting just staring off into the distance.......I asked him what he was thinking about and he said, "I'm trying to think of something bad that's happened this week and I just can't."

In his AWANA book there's a question, Write down something bad that's happened in the last week or two.

"The book even says, in the past two weeks and I just can't think of anything and I'm really trying. Mom, do you know of anything bad that's happened in two weeks?"

Now that gave me pause and a THANKFUL heart.

Luke's day  is filled with LOVE and LEARNING. His bad news would be if he got in trouble and lost his reading time before bed. Yowza that's a big one in our house. That's 'bad news' in our house.

We do shelter our kids from the news media -- as much as we can. And we are not ashamed about it at all. Don't get me wrong ~ it's not like we don't talk about things going on in the world in fact we do ALL the time but we, my husband & I, talk about it. Kids are growing up tooo fast in America. It's scary all the craziness that kids face everyday. Yes scary is the right word. Obviously we can't shelter them from everything but we can and do shelter them from a lot. Why? Why not?

We are greatly encouraged as our oldest son is starting to see, hear and ask about the things my husband and I talk about and things he sees on the news/internet magazines. How blessed we are to be able to have the opportunity to talk with him, with all our children, when they see or hear about something 'bad' that's happening. 

Our oldest was asked in a survey a month or so ago, Where do you hear about World News. Internet, Newspaper, TV, Radio.....Other. He choose 'Other" and then wrote, "I hear about world news at the dinner table."

Now that made me smile ~ with a THANKFUL heart.

Once (well more then once) our daughter was around some girls who were talking about things that my daughter never even considered a thought. Sigh.......but THANKFULLY she came to me and we talked about them. We talked about what she heard but more importantly we PRAYED together about the issue at hand.

When 'bad things' arise we take the time to talk about it, pray about it, learn from it. We don't live in La La Land and we don't want our kids to be completely shocked when they go out into the world. But we do want them to have a SOLID FOUNDATION and we do want them to know how to deal with world issues.

One day, a few years ago I had our kids sit up to the table and I drew a big umbrella on the board. Then I drew all of them under the umbrella. What is an umbrella's job? Right, to shelters us from the bad weather - rain, wind, snow. What is our , me and daddy's, job? Right, to shelter all of you, we are the 'umbrella'. And sometimes when you go out from under the 'umbrella'....."YOU QUICKLY WANT TO GO BACK!" said Isaiah.

"Mommy? Who holds yours and daddy's umbrella??" asked Ashley.
And I said, "God does, Sis. God does."

Now that gave me pause and a THANKFUL heart.

Blessings,  
EMichelle