What Are You Building this Summer?

Everything is completed for the school year:  recitals, field trips, projects, gifts for teachers bought and given, lockers and backpacks cleaned out.  Summer lies before you and your children.   Some parents anticipate this time with great joy while others dread it if they are being honest.   Some plan every minute of every day with great precision and others fly by the seat of their pants. For some nothing much changes, just a different schedule with different commitments.   No matter your circumstances, here is a question to contemplate:  At the end of the summer what will have been built into the lives of your children?    That may sound like an odd question. However, in two to three months you will have allowed something to be built into the lives of each one of your children.  What will it be?  We live in a world where we cannot control everything that is being built into our children’s lives.  So choose to intentionally build what matters the most into their lives this summer.  

Between all three of my children, I was privileged to experience 24 summers.  Here are three things I do not regret building during the summer months:

1. Memories.  Recently I had the opportunity to listen to my three adult children discuss memories from their childhood summers. Here are some commonalities:  laughter, pranks on one another, trips, and time with grandparents.  Some memories revolved around camps and sports, but not many.  Their favorite memories came from trips we took as a family. Most of these were not expensive or elaborate.  They were just the five of us experiencing life together. 

2. Character.  Summer is a great time to think through what character trait is lacking in your child.   One summer I realized that one of my children had a poor work ethic.  John, my husband, said this child struggled with LBD (lazy butt disorder)! I asked God to reveal to me a Scripture that I could begin to pray over this child. During the summer I began to pray that verse every morning over this child without their knowledge. Today this child is known for a strong work ethic!  Praying God’s word over your child is a powerful tool.

   
   

3. Relationships. Legalism (focusing on rules and a do-to-list) breeds rebellion but love builds relationships.  Just as our relationship with our Heavenly Father is built by listening to Him and spending one on one time with Him, so is our relationship with our children.  Listen to your child and ask pointed questions.  Share stories from your childhood summers…the good and the bad.   Rules and a to-do list aren’t bad.  However, if that is our main focus all summer, it will not build a love relationship.  I do not regret reading or playing with my children or spending time experiencing something they enjoyed.   I do regret yelling at them for a room not perfectly kept and nagging them to get their chores done. 

   God taught me that sometimes it’s best to just sit with them in their mess instead of lecturing them to clean it up.  I’m so thankful God sat with me in my mess and helped me to clean it up.   Love isn’t a lecturer.  Love is a teacher, an instructor and helper.   (John 14:26) 

   
   

Building is a messy and loud process.  Recently I was invited to a friend’s lake house.  As I sat on their deck I was greeted with loud construction noises, dust flying in the air, and the chatter of construction workers coming from the house next door.  Over the next few days, what I perceived to be a chaotic mess became a beautiful stone pathway that led to the lake.     

Parents choose to build something beautiful this summer.  It may be loud and chaotic at times, but trust the process. Watch to see what God will do this summer in your life and in the lives of your children as you focus on building memories, character and relationships with your children.  

“Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.”  

I Thessalonians 5:11