Exhort: to incite by argument or advice : urge strongly : to give warnings or advice : make urgent appeals.

If you were to start a new series on your blog that you would hope to use to encourage yourself and others, I would exhort you to start with a simple word or idea – I do not recommend starting with teaching a 4 year old and a 2 year old about exhortation.

… let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds (Hebrews 10:24). As parents, we are continually exhorting our children – encouraging, urging forward, teaching our little ones how to love and do good deeds.  Even if we don’t think we are exhorting, we are – I think it’s a natural part of teaching those we love.  We love them, and we want them to love and to do well and to do good things, so we exhort!

Teaching our little ones to be exhorters themselves can be difficult.  I think Elias has a gift of encouragement – he is always telling people how well they are doing and exclaiming over their abilities/attempts/activities.  But I think the natural self, even if gifted with encouragement, has a hard time exhorting.  I mentioned last time how Elias encourages Donovan towards trouble instead of away… wanting to do “fun” things that are not allowed (jumping on beds, throwing balls in the house, etc.), so he delights in Donovan’s lack of self control as he does those things Elias knows he shouldn’t.  Tattling is also a part of this…  when a child comes to “tattle” on another, he is missing his chance to exhort the other to do good.

We have punished Elias for egging his little brother on and for tattling, but we have not exhorted him to exhort Donovan on to good deeds.  That has been our first step.  I think I will also be making a chart (see Amanda’s posts here and here) to help him see when he has the chance to exhort to good deeds or disobedience.

And after starting off with a quiet bang, we quickly fizzled out on exhortation crafts.  That’s OK, though.  Mulling over it for a while and continuing to talk to the boys about it has helped me to come up with something that I think is really fun, and we’ll add to it with each character trait we study…

Introducing “God Wants Me To Be… a book about Christian character traits,” by Elias and Donovan!

I cut out a LOT of pictures of people from magazines, and with each trait we work on, we will copy the trait, definition, and Bible verse into our book, and the boys will select what picture(s) they think illustrate the character trait.

Here is a picture of a little girl telling her friend how to love and do good deeds!

At the end of The List we will have a book of 51 verses that tell us how God wants us to be.  These are similar to the other verse “posters” we’ve made in the past, and I’ve wanted to bind them all up into a “book,” too – perhaps we’ll have a couple of volumes of verses that the boys will be able to look back upon for years to come.

What do you think about your role as exhorter?  How do you help your children encourage others?

With Valentine’s Day approaching, I have been trying to choose books about love for my daughter, Juliet, and I to read together each night. I want her to know how deeply and unconditionally I love her and also how God’s love for her far surpasses my own great love.

As I looked at our shelves the other night, The Runaway Bunnyby Margaret Wise Brown jumped out at me. “That’s perfect!” I thought to myself. We’ve read this book a million times before, but we’ve never had a conversation about how God loves us as unwaveringly and as fiercely as the mother bunny loves her little bunny.

If you’ve never read the book, it begins like this:

“Once there was a little bunny who wanted to run away. So he said to his mother, “I am running away.” “If you run away,” said his mother, “I will run after you. For you are my little bunny.”

“If you run after me,” said the little bunny, “I will become a fish in a trout stream and I will swim away from you.” If you become a fish in a trout stream,” said his mother, “I will become a fisherman and I will fish for you.”

The story continues in this way with the little bunny coming up with another and yet another thing to turn into and his mother responding with how she will chase after him and find him NO MATTER WHAT. It’s a beautiful story of unconditional love.

As I thought about the picture of love presented in this book, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the love stories of the Bible such as the book of Hosea, the story of the prodigal son, and the greatest love story of all: Jesus coming to earth and becoming human just because He loved us so much. No matter how far we ran from him, and no matter what we became, He was willing to leave heaven behind and give up His life because we are His children and He loves us.

I thought to myself, “This is going to be great! We’re going to read a great book together AND have a meaningful spiritual conversation!”

It didn’t exactly turn out that way. Here’s what happened:

As we began reading the story together, Juliet asked me, “Mommy, why is that bunny running away? and I said, “Why do you think he is running away?” and she said, “To join the circus!” (Towards the end of the book, the bunny tells his mother he will join the circus.)

I took this moment to tell her that I was like the mother bunny and that if she ever ran away, I would always go after her because she was my little bunny. She just sort of nodded and then we continued reading.

A few pages later, Juliet suddenly jumped up, and exclaimed, “I’m the little bunny!” and ran away. I put the book down and proceeded to chase her down the hall and tackle her in my room.

I again reminded her that I would always catch her because she was my little bunny. She smiled, giggled, and then announced, “I’m a butterfly, I’m going to fly away from you!” and ran down the hall. I responded with, “I’m a net and I will catch you!”

We played this spontaneous little game over and over again—she was a little bird; I was a nest. She was a lady bug; I was a little girl with a bug-catcher. She was a roley poley, and I was a pile of dirt. Again and again, she ran away from me, and again and again I caught her.

Then we sat down, finished reading the book, and got ready for bed. As I tucked her in, I said, “God is like the mother bunny, too. No matter what you do, no matter how far you run away from Him, He will always come after you because you are His little bunny and He loves you.”

And she said, “Hey. You have hair in your nose.”

So maybe we didn’t get the meaningful spiritual conversation in, (we did have a discussion about the benefits and purposes of nose hair) but we did make some memories and invented a fun, new game! Even though she wasn’t really ready to talk about God’s love for her, I think the seed was planted.

And like that mother bunny, I’ll keep chasing her down and telling her tirelessly about God’s love, over and over again. And the best part is, I don’t have to do it on my own. He won’t stop His pursuit of her either.

Vanessa is a regular contributor to Impress Your Kids. She is a stay-at-home mom to an energetic three-year-old, Juliet. They spend their days together reading books, attempting crafts, and occasionally beating tree trunks with large sticks. You can read more about their adventures at Silly Eagle Books.

Amanda really spoke to me with her post about making time to craft and play with your kids….  Unfortunately, it has taken me almost a month since her post to make the time!  Sickness, birthdays, more snow, and everyday living took over here for a while.  I wasn’t picking times or topics – I did pick some brains, though, and I sure did pick up!  Spring cleaning got started with the putting away of Christmas decorations and hasn’t stopped.

Look at what I found while picking up!  My fridge – hey, it’s white!  Buried under the family pictures, children’s drawings, delivery menus, and football schedules were some wonderful resources that I forgot I had (Wise Words for Moms found here).

How could I have forgotten this sheet of paper?  It was just given to us during our parenting class last fall….

I remember thinking that it would be awesome if my sons had all of these “Christian Character Traits,” but wow, that seems like a lot of work!

Ehem.  Remembering again why I am here with my sons, the paper was moved to the front of a clean(er) fridge, and has been staring at me for a couple of weeks until a light bulb went off in my head.  Here is my topic!  Granted, it’s huge… and intimidating, but so is parenting, if you really think about it {{shudder}}.

The List is 51 character traits with simple definitions and Bible references to help… It’s in alphabetical order, but I’m going to jump around a bit.  I hope to get really creative (hey – that’s one of the traits!), and sometimes I might do two traits together (“neat” and “orderly” seem like they go hand in hand to me!).

We start with “Exhorter – Definition: Urge others towards love and good deeds.” Hebrews 10:24 (NIrV) says, “Let us consider how we can stir up one another to love. Let us help one another to do good works.”

In our house right now, we have a lot of exhorting going on… to jump on beds, throw toys in the house, disobey in whatever way a 4 year old big brother wants his 2 year old little brother to get in trouble…

So I drew a simple picture for each of the boys – one boy running to do “something” while the other speaks LOVE to him.

While we colored, we did a bit of role playing (Elias and I did… Donovan colored away while I prayed that this is soaking into his heart, too)… “What is your brother going to do?” “Run away!”  “What are you telling him in this picture?” “Go away, Donovan!”  “Well, look at the ‘words’ coming out of your mouth? Are you saying nice things or mean things to him?” “…nice things.”  “Great! What kind of nice things are you saying?” “I love you, Donovan!”  “Wow, that is nice!  Now, Donovan is pulling all of Mommy’s books off of the bookcase… now what nice things can you say to him to help him do good things?” “Donovan, don’t do that – you’ll get in trouble!”

We colored and talked some more… we hadn’t done any role playing yet with Elias, but I think it did work really well.  I also substituted some words in and out to help explain what “exhort” means.  The Bible versions I used (NASB and NIrV) use the words “stimulate,” “stir,” and “help” – I also used “urge,” “encourage,” “tell…” all interchangeably.

So this is a start.  Not the most creative start, but sometimes we just need a start of some kind…

Love is defined as unselfish, loyal, and benevolent concern for the good of another.  God’s love is so great that He gave His only Son to bring us into fellowship with Him.  God’s love not only encompasses the world, but embraces each of us personally and intimately.  The story of the cross is the best example of God’s love for sinful people.  There is nothing lovable about us, but God still loved us so much that He sent Jesus to die for us.

Romans 5:8

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

1 John 4:7-10

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.  The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.  By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

1 John 4:19

We love him, because he first loved us.

Some simple pipe-cleaner heart ornaments, and a re-reading of God Gave Us Love – how full is God’s love for us!

Thank you, Lord, for loving us so much you sent your Son for us!

I’m lovin’ our LOVE and Compassion fruit this week…or rather, two weeks. I’m not sure what happened, but it’s taken us a while to get through this one! Here are a few more ideas we’ve done or are still up my sleeve:

CRAFTS

Cherry Tree Craft I think this is probably an idea for a George Washington theme in preschool, but I think it’s so cute! Kids love fingerpainting and this one is especially fun. This would also be a great gift to send to your Compassion kids!

GAMES

Hi Ho Cherry-OYou think I’m joking. I’m not. Lydia and I played this the other night and she kept squealing, “CHERRY! LOVE!” I couldn’t get a lesson out of the game but we still had fun and I love that her first thought at seeing a cherry was LOVE!

BOOKS

Who Do You Love?by Margaret Wang. This is one of our favorite books. It’s a touchy-feely book about different bears and the family members that love them!

Who Do You Love?by Mandy Stanley. Every page asks a different animal who it loves. It’s a fun book that ends with “Who do YOU love?” So, we get to talk about the different people we love.

ACTIVITY

Bowl Full of Cherries. You could do this in so many ways! Grab a big bowl of cherries (oh, I wish they were in season right now!) and every time your child shows love to someone (however big or small), let them eat a cherry! You could also do this same idea with cherry stickers on a picture of a bowl. Let your child put a cherry sticker on the picture every time they show love to someone. You could keep it up all week and see your bowl fill to the brim with cherries and love!

RECIPES

Cherry Recipes & Ideas from Wondertime Magazine! There are also some fun cherry facts and even a paint-with-cherries art idea!

COMPASSION

Letter Writing Ideas from the Compassion Blog There are over 600 comments on this post! There are so many great ideas on the type of mailable gifts to send to your sponsored child and great letter-writing tips. Please visit this post to read some for yourself. Here are a few of my favorite ideas:

• glow in the dark peel-&-stick stars
• a scripture in their language (try BibleGateway.com)
• bracelets (remember those friendship bracelts we made as kids? make a matching one for you and your sponsored child!)
• sticker books (my favorite are the Dover Little Activity Books because they have sticker paper dolls of kids from numerous countries!

I hope you’ve had some fun ideas about LOVE but also about showing LOVE to those around you. This Thanksgiving and Christmas season, I encourage you and your kids to take some time out and begin a new relationship with a child from another country. Sponsor a child through Compassion and show them Jesus’ love today!

The leaves are changing and it is really and truly fall! I told you how excited Lydia is about all the leaves falling and I thought it would be cool to share this with our Compassion kids. I’m not sure of the foliage in Burkina Faso, but I know my family in California misses the trees in Georgia, so I thought our Compassion kids would enjoy having an autumn leaf from Georgia!

I was going to do the old wax paper and leaf thing…but honestly, a hot iron with my 3 year old? It just didn’t sound fun. And I didn’t know how long they would last. So, instead we grabbed our favorite leaves and took them to Office Max. They laminated them, we cut them out and tied them with a ribbon. I think it was only $1 per laminating sheet and he got all of them onto two sheets. So $2 is pretty good for a gift!

How pretty are they?! I like them so much I want to decorate our house with them! I can’t wait to send them to our kids and I’m pretty sure we’ll be laminating flowers in the spring!

Please consider sponsoring a child through Compassion! You’ll be introducing God’s LOVE to a special boy or girl this holiday season!

Don’t forget to check out the rest of our LOVE & Compassion activities!

Whenever we send a letter to one of our Compassion kids, I try to get Lydia involved. She usually draws or colors a picture but lately I’ve been feeling kind of bad about that. Imagine being a 7 year old girl in Burkina Faso. And getting so excited to receive a letter (and hopefully gift) from your sponsor, only to discover some scribble scrabble from a 3 year old! Lately I’ve tried to do more crafts that are actually cute–even if a 3 year old did make it.

Since we’re focusing on LOVE and using CHERRIES to help us remember this Fruit of the Spirit, we decided to make CHERRY CARDS. I found a cute cherry coloring sheet online (and I…uh, totally forgot where I found it) and decided that fingerprint stamping would be so fun with this because we can make FINGERPRINT HEARTS!

I busted out the stamp pads (Lydia’s fave!) and showed her how to do it, “Point your finger towards one corner of the paper and press down. Now point to the other top corner and press down. See? You have a heart.”

it looks like a heart, right?

Apparently, she did NOT see because this is how our cherries ended up:

And yet, even without the hearts, they turned out super cute. Especially after I cut them out and attached them to the front of a folded piece of construction paper. We wrote JESUS LOVES ALIZETA and JESUS LOVES DAVID on the inside and Lydia decorated it with stickers.

They were so cute I stuck them right in the envelope and didn’t even take a picture of them. I think Alizeta and David will like them a lot better than the Princess coloring page Lydia was working on a few days ago. Plus, I like the idea of her fingerprints being in their house. It’s a close connection!

More fingerprint art:

Fingerprint Fun (a huge list of animals and objects you can make with your fingerprints!)

I Can Finger Paint an Usborne Playtime Book (I have this one and it has ADORABLE finger painting ideas!)

More flat crafts even your youngest kids can make AND older kids will like:

Sparkly Craft Foam Frame (this was our Christmas gift last year!)

First Name Initials (I just thought of this–how cute to make a fun initial for your kids? We’d have to do D for David and A for Alizeta!)

Felt Finger Puppets (these are African animals, which would be awesome for our kids. This version is a little too hard for Lydia, but we could glue instead of sew and it would be super fun!)

Want to sponsor a child of your own? Visit Compassion right now!

It’s time for our new Fruit of the Spirit: LOVE! I chose cherries to symbolize love because they…uhm, are red, they kinda sorta look like hearts and they are usually seen in pairs. That and my only other options from the fruit basket were lemons and limes. Not very love-ly.

The reason we chose LOVE this week is because of something that happened in our family. We sponsor two kids through Compassion. We give $38 a month to basically take care of this child’s entire life. This 38 measly dollars gives the kids schooling, health benefits, food and most importantly the opportunity to know Jesus.

We picked a little girl named Alizeta from Burkina Faso when Lydia was about 2 years old. Lydia was so excited she tried to stick dollar bills into my laptop for Alizeta! She talks about Alizeta all the time. When Asa was born, we decided to support a little boy. His name is Rasmane. Rasmane is also from Burkina Faso–in fact, he is in the same Compassion center (Compassion works with pre-existing schools/churches) as Alizeta. We did this on purpose. Compassion gives sponsors the opportunity to meet their sponsored kid. We are committed to bringing Lydia and Asa to Burkina Faso to meet Alizeta and Rasmane one day. How cool would it be to meet them after supporting them for 10 years?! I cannot wait.

We try to write to Alizeta and Rasmane regularly. And we always send little gifts with our letters. Lydia loves to draw pictures and pick out stickers to mail to them. Here’s a picture of Rasmane and Alizeta with their families. Rasmane is clutching the jeans (isn’t he hilarious?!) and Alizeta is holding the doll (she IS the doll!).

Well, this week we found out Rasmane’s parents pulled him out of the program because of religious issues. I was so sad when I found out the news. I literally had tears in my eyes. But it also kinda encouraged me, too. Compassion—the church and/or school that Rasmane was a part of (and maybe even our letters) were pointing Rasmane to Jesus. If Compassion was only giving food and clothes, Rasmane’s parents wouldn’t have cared. I’ll miss Rasmane but it makes me feel good that we are really helping lead kids to Jesus—halfway across the world! We love Rasmane and will continue to pray for him—that this time involved with Compassion will make an eternal difference.

Lydia and I read several verses about LOVE (1 John 4:7-8, 12; Proverbs 17:17 or John 3:16) but ended up with this one as THE verse (I think it pretty much covers ALL the love verses out there…)

Jesus replied: ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Matthew 22:37-39

This week all of our LOVE activities will be about showing LOVE to our Compassion kids. We’ve written letters, colored pictures and I’ve got a few more fun things prepared, too. I hope Lydia will understand that LOVE is about doing and giving having compassion for others.

My next few FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT: LOVE posts will focus on great tips on writing letters, gifts you can send to your kids and how to make your sponsored child “real” to your own child.

What? You don’t sponsor a child? Well, please! DO SO NOW!

photo: amandabhslater