“I am a New Parent – what do I do now?”

It has been so great to hear from those of you just starting out on this parenting journey. Your passion to raise your champions is strong. I celebrate each of you!

It was just yesterday for Ron and I to be young parents of babies! Maya and Ada were born in 2002; Carson was born in 2003. I speak in plural as we have no memories of just one little person in our home. So, crazy and chaos are terms I know well! But even then, in my crazy and chaos, I, like you, felt the weight of raising my champions and giving them my very best.

So what can you do now? In the midst of diapers and bottles, how can you begin to share this “life to the full” with the little people in your home? I have 5 simple but powerful ideas for you!

1. Read as much as you can on www.thewholepeach.com. We have been intently asking the questions and reading the experts when it comes to raising “spiritual champions,” and WE DON’T HAVE THE ANSWERS! But, we do have some thoughts and experiences that you could use us as a starting point for your own study, research and exploration. If someone could have told me all this stuff when I was a young parent, I wouldn’t have necessarily agreed with all of it, but it would have saved me some time and provoked me to ask my own questions.

2. Get the Language cards – God, Story and Me cards and give them time to affect your mind and heart. I wrote the God cards first at a very important time in my journey. I was reading The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard, and he was talking about spiritual formation. He said one of the most important things to teach someone was the attributes of God. His actual words that I say often were: “bring before them that which is lovely” – God himself. If we want our children to run to Father God, we must teach them whom they are running toward. Anyways, I realized that my picture of Father was one of a disciplinarian that had a lot of things I needed to do in order to win his acceptance. This was going to be a problem. I didn’t want to teach my kids that idea, and as I began reading the Bible more deeply and circling his attributes as I read them, my picture of God was changing. So, the God cards are first my own journey of getting to know Father all over again as he painted himself in the Bible. Perhaps, like me, you need to allow God to show himself to you. There is so much more to the story.

3. Join us in the Plan as we work through the cards each week. As a parent with an infant, you can do 2 things with the cards. Read the verses over your child and pray them. Imagine your child taking hold of this card as truth and life. ASK FOR IT! Stand in the gap, run up on the watchtower and speak his truth into your child’s future days! For example, we are studying God card #12 – “Eyes and Ears” this week. I believe God sees me and listens to me. When you are hanging out playing, feeding or even as he/she is sleeping, read the verses on the card and then pray.

Psalm 40:1-2 – “I am waiting patiently for the Lord: he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; He set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.”

“Father, I pray these verses over Maya, Ada and Carson. Thank you that you see them and hear them when they call. Thank you that you lift us out of the pit and for the pits of frustration, doubt, hurt, and rebellion, I ask even now that you bring them out. Set their feet on your rock of truth. Give them a vision for your firm places where they can stand. I pray against the enemy’s attempts to keep them in the “mud and mire.” His ways are not our ways, and our ways are your ways, Father God. This family is yours, and we are waiting on you.”

4. You can also engage in the tools found in the Toolbox. You can buy the Seeds CDs and play them as you drive. You can get the Pray cards and begin praying the Bible over your baby. You can begin to incorporate the information in the Eat tool in your kitchen and so on. There are many tools that you can add in the mix.

5. Last, you can join our community and begin learning from those walking with you!

As a young parent, you are just beginning an incredible chapter in your journey. And I will be straight with you. This is the hardest role I have ever had. I am really never off work. These little people never go away and “my time” has become an interesting idea. Luxury is a shower with no interruptions or a few complete sentences with Ron. There is always laundry to do and something to always clean up. Life is undone and “wheels off” as Sebrina would say. But as I was cutting the peanut butter sandwiches for their lunches today, I just smiled and thanked Father for the gift of doing so. And even this morning, it was not without conflict. There were tears and loud voices; there was frustration and sighs. But in the midst, there were moments of giving these little people my love as Father has so graciously given me, the best of what I know and have and providing the opportunities for them to make their own way and have their own story. We are parents, and this is what we do!

It is good to walk together. Praying for each of you!