Tag: Children of God

The Meaning of Children

There is  a great series about parenting, faith and life going on here.

Sadly I was too overwhelmed to officially attempt to join, but these are my thoughts.

I have known and loved so many children already, and its been a blessing. I cannot remember a time without young children in my life. I am the eldest of four children, my youngest sister is 10 years younger than me. She is about to graduate from college this weekend. At Oberlin I worked at Headstart, at Princeton Seminary I was the Children’s Ministry Coordinator at a local church, and then I started having children of my own.

Three

Three Boys

I like to say…I have all the stuff.

My children have taught me a lot about individuality and acceptance in that each and every one of them is unique and different.

My eldest (7) is a dramatic leader, he love performing, and projects. I like to say he’s like me without the adult super-powers. He is wordy and smart and argues about EVERYTHING. I do mean everything, he verbal processes every single decision.

My middle child (5) is different. He has severe communication problems and not so severe physical coordination issues. He is empathetic, easygoing and overall a complete sweetheart. I think he only can understand 10% of our verbal communication, yet he goes with the flow and throws himself into group activities with joy.

My youngest (3) loves cars, rockets, stars/moon and baseball and basically everything stereotypically boys…took three to get there, but we got one. He likes to entertain himself, and cackles cutely when he is making trouble.

My kids are not perfect, and there is no way to treat each of them equally, they are too different. In fact, parenting skills are obviously NOT the only thing that molds a child. However, I think they are comfortable. They know they are loved for who they are and their skill sets and trouble spots are accepted.

I often think of how God loves and accepts each of us. Of how when we ask people to be exactly the same, we are really saying that God does not have enough love to share it with those who are so different. Its too hard to love different children.

Having three different children, I think that I have enough love for each and every one of them, and my husband (which of course is yet another kind of person) and I don’t love them for being the same or different or perfect.

I love Franklin’s sense of momentous occasions

I love Westley’s way to lead you to what he wants by holding your hand.

I love Ashburn’s cackle of delight when something surprises him.

I love being able to love them.

For more articles be sure to check out some http://miheekimkort.com/2015/05/17/the-meaning-of-children-you-suck/ for the month of May and June

Nakedness

A synopsis of Sunday’s Sermon

Naked Babies are beautiful–I’m pretty sure everyone can agree that naked babies are beautiful. Maybe this was why baptisms used to be done naked because (although a little dangerous) what is cuter than a naked baby?

God made us, as all good mothers, God made space for us and then formed us as a part of her lives…God made us naked babies, beautiful and perfect, and then Jesus offers us the spring of life.

God knows our own mother’s are not perfect, but there is great comfort in knowing that God fills in the gaps–God is the perfect parent, able to be both mother and father to us….

God thinks we’re beautiful…and invites us to baptism, to spirituality to swim fully in the glory of God.

And of course that means nakedness….

Removing all those loads and pieces of clothing that separate us from God. Fully claiming ourselves and our bodies in Christ (for more on this see my post on Skinny Dipping).

And when we get naked, we start to notice that our bodies are imperfect, there are scars, we have fat and wrinkles and everything doesn’t work right….so maybe we can only put our feet in, but whatever we can do to get some spirituality allows us to be loved. How can we participate in the River of Life.

I have a rule–every baby I see is the most beautiful baby in the world …And its true, every baby is a miracle, every baby is beautiful and so I know, for a fact that every baby is the most beautiful baby in the world.

We are God’s Babies. We are the most beautiful people in the universe, and that beauty comes from God! God’s glory and love is in us, and since Christ is in God we are in God’s glory (John 17). And God, as a good mother, doesn’t love us in spite of our faults, but including them. Seeing all our flaws, faults and cracks. God loves us, because we are the most beautiful children in the world–and we need to affirm that to one another. To look at one another and say–you are beautiful, just like naked babies are!