This is kind of an offshoot of the “Put Me Back On” message you gave at New Life Haymarket. (See? I *told* you that message had an impact on me and my family!)

My 13-y.o. daughter and I were discussing your message and the message of that ring – how the spouse must not have believed in or trusted her mate if she felt like the most important message she could put in his ring was “Put Me Back On”. My daughter pointed out that if the wife wanted her husband to succeed, she should have put the message “I trust you” or “I believe in you” in his ring. Because if someone believes in you, she says, you start to believe in yourself, and if someone trusts you then you do not want to lose that trust. Her final take on the “Put Me Back On” ring was that she felt sorry for the wearer of the ring.

Too often we/society send a barrage of self-defeating messages to our kids (“you’ll never learn!” “You’re a geek/nerd/loser”, “Why can’t you be like your sister/brother”, etc.) My daughter’ s point was that when you hear negativity all the time, the easiest thing is to sink down to that level and stay there. To not try. To not care about yourself. To not care about anyone.

My daughter is learning that God only wants the best for her and from her. She says that God’s trust and faith in her – in giving her the gift of his son , in sharing his Word, and in loving her despite her flaws and mistakes – makes her want to continue to learn and be a better Christian and a better person. She is amazed as she reads her Bible how it seems to speak right to her!

TU for your encouragement. I will pass your comment on to our volunteers this afternoon.

Great insight! Our teenagers do need to learn from our failures. Shared failures, restoration, and learnings’ empower our children to make great decisions. Authenticity takes humility, but it goes a long way to shape our children’s lives.

I really like your thought on confession (I would call it repentance). I plan to write a blog on this in the very near future. Of course, to teach repentance, we must practice repentance. But do we? Really.

Today in one of the morning workshops, the speakers talked about students using their gifts. As he was speaking, I realized that many students don’t know what their gifts are. Why? Because they are not validated by loving adults. To disciple our children we must constantly validate who they are.

Thank you for your additional insight.

Thanks for your desire to see our students love God and know how much He loves them!