I'm Thankful I Am Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

Each day until Thanksgiving, Everyday Truth is looking at a different reason to be thankful in a family devotional. Use these devotionals with your kids to help keep your family focused on giving thanks. If you missed the introductory post, check it out here for directions on creating a "Thanksgiving wall." When you're done wiht the devotional head on over to the Everyday Truth Facebook page and join in the discussion of why we're thankful for our families.

Have you ever thought about how your body works? Hold up your hand and look at it. Bend your fingers, then straighten them out again. Make your hand into a fist. Pick something up.

For our hands to work properly, every bone, muscle, ligament and joint has to work together. There are 27 bones in each hand. That's a lot of bones. Our whole body only contains 206 bones, which means about one-quarter of our bones are in our hands.

Do you ever think about making those bones move when you want to do something? When you picked something up, did you have to tell your hand what to do? You didn't, did you? You just thought about picking something up and your hand did it. All those bones, muscles, ligaments and joints worked together to do the task without you having to think about each one. Isn't that amazing?

We don't usually notice how well our bodies work until they don't work. We don't think about breathing until we have a cold, and it's hard to breathe. We don't think about walking unless we break our foot, and it's difficult to walk. We don't think about seeing until we get something in our eye, and we can't see.

God made our bodies to work without us having to take time or energy to make them work. Psalm 139:14 says "I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well." David (the guy who wrote this Psalm) thanked God for making him. He realized that his body was an incredible thing. He says he is "fearfully and wonderfully made." And, you know what? You are, too.

God made you. He made your body so it is able to do all the things you need it to do. Even if your body has limitations, God gave you the tools to compensate for the limits. Did you know blind people usually can hear really well and smell really well? Those two senses help make up for the loss of sight. People who can't walk, usually have very strong arms so they can manuever a wheelchair or crutches. God created our bodies so they can make up in one area what they lack in another.

In Ephesians 2:10, Paul tells us that we are God's "masterpiece." That means we are the best thing He could ever make. Take a few minutes today and thank God for making you His masterpiece. Add the things you're thankful your body can do to your Thanksgiving wall. Pray and thank God that you are "fearfully and wonderfully made."

Unexpected Friends

I had lunch yesterday with a friend of mine. She has a very different life than me. She's single with no kids and is working on her master's degree. She's also my youngest daughter's hockey instructor. We first met her when we went to buy my daughter's first set of hockey gear. I wrote about our first meeting with her in one of my first blog posts, Finding God in the Sporting Goods Store. She's been a blessing to my daughter, but as my daughter got to know her, I realized I wanted to get to know her, too. She's been a staunch supporter of my daughter's hockey dreams, offering advice and encouragement. But hockey aside, she's also smart, funny, vibrant and genuine. Definitely someone I wanted to get to know.

Somewhere over the course of the past year we became friends. We occasionally go out to lunch and regularly text back and forth. She broadens my perspective on the world simply because her life is different from mine.

On my way home from lunch yesterday, I realized I am blessed. While the vast majority of my friendships are with women who are in the same place in life as me, my world is enriched by some amazing friendships with women who are in different ages and stages of life. God has made such a huge variety of people in this world, and our lives are enriched when we get to share them with people who are different from us.

We naturally tend to gravitate toward people who have similar likes and dislikes and who are in situations similar to ours. But, if we avoid relationships with people who are in different places in their lives than we are, we miss out on the joy those people can add to our lives and the joy we can bring to theirs.

We've all heard the saying, "Don't judge a book by its cover," but too often that's what we do when choosing our friends. Too often, we automatically rule out friendships with people who don't seem to share a common interest with us. Sometimes, we'll get a second shot at a relationship with that person, but most of the time we simply miss out on the richness that person can bring to our lives.

The Bible tells us that each of us is "fearfully and wonderfully made" (Psalm 139:14) and even goes so far as to call each of us "God's masterpiece" (Ephesians 2:10). I don't want to miss out on the great variety of temperaments, talents and viewpoints that God has created. But to get to know those people who are different from us generally takes more effort than becoming friends with people with whom we have obvious things in common. Many times, we're not willing to put forth that effort, so we miss out on the masterpiece God made in someone else.

Looking below the surface trappings of our lives to see the people underneath is what God wants us to do. He wants us to see others with His eyes. 1 Samuel 16:7 says "The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” We want to be able to look beyond our obvious commonalities or our obvious differences and see underneath to the masterpiece that God created.

We also want to encourage our kids not to dismiss people they know as possible friends based on surface knowledge of that person. Encourage your kids to look beyond obvious commonalities and search for ways to connect with other kids who may be different from them. We can't expect our kids to be friends with everyone, but we can teach them to look for opportunities to be friends with a variety of people.

When we look beyond the surface picture, we might find that our single next door neighbor has a wicked sense of humor, or your child may find that the shy kid who sits next to him at school is actually a whiz at soccer. It simply takes a minute of our time and a little effort on our part to reach out and befriend those people in our lives who may seem different from us. I've found that those friendships always enrich the lives of both people involved.

So, today, look around your world with new eyes and see if you can identify someone in your life that might make a pretty good friend even if they are at a different place in their life from you. Encourage your children to see the kids around them with new eyes -- to look at all of the kids they know as potential friends. Who knows, you may find a new friend in the sporting goods aisle. I did.

MacGyver Mom

Do you remember MacGyver? I used to love that show. Give the guy a piece of gum, a rubber band and a Swiss army knife and he could break out of jail, save the world and rescue the damsel in distress all in a one-hour episode.

I think most moms are a lot like MacGyver. And I know your kids see you that way. Most moms I know can fix a broken Silly Band, pack a lunch, find a lost shoe and impart important wisdom -- all before 8 o'clock in the morning. Most moms have a mental filing system that files away important information like the fact that you saw your child's favorite toy stuffed under the couch or the fact that your daughter's homework got left on the table. Then, when you are asked, it all comes back, and you can tell your child exactly where it is. I don't know about you, but most of the time I can track down whatever my child is missing, but half the time I can't find my own car keys.

When it comes to training up our kids, those MacGyver-like skills come in handy. One of the goals of this blog is to encourage you and offer you ideas for training your kids in a Godly manner, but it's meant to be a jumping off point for you. If there's an idea here that works with your kids, that's fantastic. But, hopefully, the ideas here are also triggering your own creativity in teaching your children. Each one of you is unique, and you are raising unique kids. Psalms 139:14 says "I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well."

God created you in exactly the right way to be able to train up your child, whom He also created in a fearful and wonderful way. Too often, we look at other parents and their children and wish we were in their shoes. We wish we were as creative or as pretty or our kids were as well behaved or as smart as their kids. But God made you the perfect mom for your child. He gave you all the tools you need to train your child. He gave you the exact amount of patience, love, creativity and humor to be able to parent your child exactly as he or she needs.

So, today, I'd love to hear some MacGyver mom stories. Share with the rest of us a creative way that you have taught a Biblical truth to your kids. If you've taken one of the Everyday Truth ideas and used it with your kids, let us know how it worked and if you made any changes. Share your creativity with the rest of us so we can all add it to our MacGyver mom stores of knowledge.

And if anyone's MacGyver mom skills actually extend to fixing a broken Silly Band, the rest of us would love to know.