BE A “BRAVE” PARENT!!

Today’s post comes from my friend Amy Schafer.  Amy and I have been friends for years, but have not spoken for years until we stumbled across one another on Facebook.  Today Amy lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (GO DALLAS COWBOYS). Amy and her husband Buck Schafer pastor Grace Life Church (with locactions in Pittsburgh, PA and Norman, OK.)  Amy is the real deal, she lives it out loud and I absolutely love how kingdom minded and focused she is!  And she loves her family more than life.

Get ready…she’s packing heat today!!

Thank you so much Amy, it’s an honor to have you post for EpicParent.

Here’s Amy…

I was counting down the days for the premier of the movie ‘Brave’.    I am all for the strong, confident, daring, & brave girl that would fight for the kingdom, help humanity, stand up for justice, & save the world!:)  I immediately attend opening weekend and watch as the plot unfolds.  Merida (the princess) was going to be courageous and change her fate.  She was going to stand up and change the fate that she was forced into an arranged marriage, which is BRAVE.   But that’s not the only fate she was going to change, she asked for a spell to change…. Her mother.

Her mother!!  Are you serious?  They totally went there with the whole mother/daughter tension thing!  Now, I am right, smack dab in the middle, of raising up a young teenage girl – to be a beautiful daughter of the King that will make a difference in the world!  Queen Elinor is trying to raise a princess to take over the throne who will reign with dignity and grace.  The princess wants to do her own thing, be free, ride into the wind, shoot arrows and be independent.  Mother is pushing too hard and not enjoying the journey.  Daughter is running from responsibility. Both are in error.

So, with all of these thoughts swirling through my mind during the movie, I purposed in my heart to be a BRAVE parent.  BRAVE means to face something with courage.  Here are a few thoughts…

It takes a BRAVE parent….

• to have as much FUN with your kids as you do correcting/teaching them.  Enjoy the journey.  Instead of teaching them to death – love them to life!
• to address disrespect and stand up for honor – knowing that honor attracts, dishonor repels and your children are sons and daughters of the King.
• to understand you are a steward over your child, not a controller.  God has entrusted you to guide, not dominate.
• to know that your gifts, talents, and strengths might not be your daughter’s (or son’s) gifts, talents, and strengths.  It takes a BRAVE parent to trust God as you raise your daughter… in her strengths, her gifts, her calling, her passions, with her personality, to reach her God potential!  Knowing that it’s her uniqueness that will touch people’s lives and change the world.  Proverbs 22:6 tells us, “Train up a child in the way he should go [and in keeping with his individual gift or bent], and when he is old he will not depart from it.”

I encourage you to be a BRAVE parent!  Psalms 31:24 says, “Be BRAVE. Be strong. Don’t give up.”  God is with you as a parent!  Don’t be discouraged, don’t give up, be strong, in due season you will reap a harvest if you faint not… if you’ll be BRAVE!!

Can you list 1 parenting area that you need to be BRAVE in today?

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