The Best Gift

I have a deep almost urgent desire for my children to not just like to read, but to LOVE to read. To devour words as food. To pour over their meaning as a stream runs over a rocky riverbed. To laugh and cry and feel the words of a text.  This desire sits in the pit of my stomach and stirs an ache in my soul so much that I am constantly looking for signs in my children that this skill is a difficulty, so I can catch and correct it early.

Why you ask? Why such a deep sense of urgency?  Of importance?  

Some might say its because of my own love affair with the written word. Some might say because I am a teacher by degree, language arts being a specialization. Some would point to my home school background.  And each assertion would be truth, and up until this morning I would have asserted any of those to be my reasoning as well.

But this morning, the Living God met me in His Holy Word, and His presence overwhelmed me to the point of tears.  

His ultimate blessing of Jesus Christ is doubled by the gift of His Holy Inerrant Word.  Tripled by the blessing of the Holy Spirit, but that's another post for another day=)

If my children cannot read, they cannot devour the holy words of our Lord for themselves.  I ache inside for the illiterate--people of all ages--who are made powerless and ignorant by their inability to read.  The same is true in our own spiritual walks, we are powerless and ignorant when we choose not to delve into all God has to offer in His Word.  Every question is answered within it's pages--every question.  You just have to study and look and pray that the Spirit opens the spiritual ears of your heart.

I NEED my children to read, and read well, because I NEED my children to know and see and hear and feel and taste the power of the One True God within the pages of the Holy Bible--and to do all of these things well.

So what do I do about it?  If I do nothing else right in a day, I read to my children before nap time and before bed time.  It's a non-negotiable routine in our home.  We read all kinds of stories because their bookshelves are loaded with timeless children's classics (secular and non), books of meaning to family and friends, books for fun, books for learning, books about God, books about nothing at all.  They get to choose which books we read, and no matter how bad a day it's been or how neglected I may have made them feel up until this point, they get Mama's undivided attention for these 15-30 minutes a day.

Like Jesus' mother Mary, these are the moments in my heart I will store and ponder and treasure.  Good days, bad days, sunny days, rainy days, weepy days, and days of laughter--all stopped for a moment's time with two little children on either side of me, propped up on a bed full of pillows pouring over the gift of words and imagination and truth and of the bond between a mother and her offspring.  These are the moments.

As mothers, we all have our strengths and different dreams for our children.  Your strength may not be reading like it is mine.  It may not be an all-consuming love.  You may prefer music or movies or conversations or playing together.  All valuable in their own way, but please, I implore you, value the written word as well.  Don't just hear the teacher in me talking, begging on behalf of all the sixth graders I taught who couldn't read much less write a complete thought on a page.  Don't just hear the writer in me that adores each letter of the alphabet and the endless meanings they can bring to mankind.  

Hear me in this advice as a child of God, a sister in Christ, who has learned and continues to learn the power and revelation within the pages of the Bible.  Even if you HATE to read yourself, make the sacrifice for your own children because the gift of God is the best and most eternal gift we can give our children.  And God lives and breathes and moves between the pages of Genesis and Revelation, and when you look up from those words, suddenly He lives and moves and has His being in everything around you, surrounding you completely.  What better gift can you give???

More tips for encouraging reading:

1) Decorate your home with books.  Even if you never read them, just the presence of books on a shelf displays value and importance.

2) Make reading accessible.  Our bathrooms are filled with magazines, which yes, are still considered and promote reading even if they aren't Ivy League reading material although the Harvard Business Revue comes pretty close=)  Every room in our house has access to something to read.

3) Decorate your walls with Scripture, words, meaningful quotations.  You can't help but read them, and one day neither will your children because they are there for you to see.  Think about how many times you've read the decorative plaques, etc. in your parents' or grandparents' homes.  You have them memorized, yet you still read them every time you see them.

4) Read to your children.  Read anything they ask about.  Billboards on the side of the road, traffic signs, road names, instructions, directions, recipes, the side of the cereal box.  If they ask, take the time to read it to them. Read it to them even if they don't ask.  Read it to them even if it seems silly or unimportant or a waste of time. 

5) Read passages straight from the Bible to your children.  I started reading out loud to my children in the womb, but purposefully at the age of 1 year.  It's not a waste of time.  Even if they don't understand now, they will understand later.  Think about how many times you've had to read the same passage of scripture before it sunk in and you really understood what it was saying.  Get your kids an early start on the number of times they've heard that passage=)

6) Have fun!!!  School will come along soon enough and the "have to" of reading will drown out the fun.  Instill the fun now, so that your children know some reading is for work, but there is reading out there that is for pure entertainment.  Life is a balance of what we need/have to do and what we enjoy doing--build the fun now before the not-so-fun begins to take over=)

7) Maybe the most important, make sure your children see you reading yourself.  If all they ever see is their parents watching a television or computer for entertainment, then that is what they will learn to value and look to for entertainment and eventually their entire intake of information.  Read a newspaper in the morning.  Stop and read your mail in front of the kids.  Read a book outside or by the pool while they play.  Even better, let them find you reading God's Word and praying, spending time with the Lord.  That will leave an impression they will not soon forget.  I know I haven't.  Thanks Mama.  Thanks Daddy.