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Singleness and Vocation and Comfort
By Keri Wolfmueller Dear Sisters, I have a question that I hope you can help me with. I know that marriage is a good gift from God, and so are children. But what does that mean for those of us who haven’t gotten married yet and might not? Hi Sister! Thanks for trusting us with your question, that’s a special place to be. First, know you will be in our prayers. We will pray that God will grant you His comfort, peace, joy, wisdom, and contentment with whatever your future may hold. I feel like everything I’m going to say you know. You are a student of the Scriptures. So,…
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Never Done
By Vanessa Rasanen It is currently 4:30am. I have been up since 2:45 when our youngest woke up and refused to go back to sleep. To be fair, my husband initially got up with him at 2 (!) and tried to settle him back down, but as he has a 12 hour shift at the ER today, it seemed best that I tag him out and let him head back to bed. For 45 minutes I rocked and cuddled our little man before finally giving up, brewing some coffee, and settling onto the couch to let him play. And in my head I’m replaying the words I said to friends…
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I’m Failing to Parent in the Pew
By Vanessa Rasanen That Sunday was pretty much like any other, except my husband actually had the day off work and was able to join us for church. I don’t know if having him there with us caused me to drop my guard or what, but shortly after the Lord’s Supper had concluded and our pastors were returning the chalice and such to the altar, I looked up to see our almost three year old little girl smiling at me from the other side of the chancel railing. Somehow she had slipped away from me and her Godmother while my husband was out in the narthex disciplining the five year…
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I Do Not Care If My Children Are Happy
By Allison Hull and Vanessa Rasanen “As long as my children are happy, I’m happy.” We hear this often, don’t we? Whether it’s from secular folks who argue that it shouldn’t matter who our kids grow up to be, what they do, or how they act, or if it’s our own parents insisting they only want us to be happy, this emphasis on the pursuit of happiness is ingrained in our society. Everyone just wants everyone else to be happy, especially the children. We are constantly inundated with calls to “live and let live” and told “You do you; I’ll do me”. If we question this “whatever makes you happy” brand of parenting, we get…
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Tips to Help Kids Through A Move
By Emily Cook The craziest thing happened today. It was a mini-miracle in my own living room, during our family devotion time. It almost made my heart stop. My son, with hands folded and head bowed, said in his prayer, “Thank you God for calling us here.” It’s happened with each of us, but I wasn’t sure it would happen with him. It’s been seven months since The Big Move. The changes were huge and sudden, and the Big Feelings came like waves pushing all of us around at different times, in different ways. Denial, Anger, Excitement, Fear, Sadness, Bargaining, Pouting, Acceptance. And finally, gratitude. I wrote this to him later…
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How do I help my son to stop hitting others?
Note: This question has been adapted from a different venue and used here with permission. Dear Sisters of Katie Luther, I have a 9 year old that wont stop hitting people! He doesn’t do it all the time. He only does it when people won’t stop what they are doing to him, after he repeatedly asks them to stop. Instead of walking away he hits. He also feels that when he tells a teachers they don’t do anything. Dear Sister, I’m going to start at the end of your question first. A sad truth of life in this sinful world is that there will always be someone trying to provoke…
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Making Time for Catechesis In A Busy Schedule
By Vanessa Rasanen You don’t have to be a working mom and wife to have a hectic schedule, nor do you need to be a parent for catechesis to be important. But when your schedule is nuts, finding just five minutes seems daunting. Even the shortest of devotionals or the simplest of catechism routines can often take much longer than expected when you consider having to wrangle squirmy kids while hunting down the materials that got buried under this week’s mail or laundry or dishes or all of the above. Then the world distracts to no end — even if we manage to sit down with our Bible or our Small…
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How Do I Handle My Guilt Over Choosing Public Schools?
By Mary Abrahamson “Dear Sisters of Katie Luther, We have made the difficult choice of having our children in public school rather than the local Lutheran school. Though we catechize regularly in our home, we feel inundated with warnings not to trust our children to secular teaching. Despite all the time, energy, and prayer we put into this decision, I am still wracked with incredible guilt. Help?” Dear sister, my most basic answer for almost any maternal guilt is this: think long term. Your primary vocation is to educate your children unto Salvation. This does not happen overnight, nor is there any one way that is more sanctified than others. There are…
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To the Mother of Little Boys
By Allison Hull Coming back from my parent’s house I’ve come to realize that the life of a mom with boys is infinitely different from others. Now that I have 4 and my littlest is getting more of a personality I feel like I’ve surpassed Expert level and am in Mastery level with a few insights to give. So this is my Top 10 Guide to Living with a Multitude of Boys, or rather My DON’TS. Flashing and streaking are an everyday occurrence. You will always have at least one younger child who is “Porky Pigging it”. Reasons range from it just being easier to go to the…
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My Dirty Secret
By Allison Hull “Wow, the table looks really nice, Mom! Who’s coming over?” “I don’t want to clean my room! Are kids or just adults coming to the house?” My husband and I joke about these comments that have been made but in reality, I only do big cleaning projects when company is coming over. It’s my secret fear, that someone will see how we really live and judge us. Of course, it was super easy when we lived in an apartment with only a baby around. He even helped when he got older. I pondered why all these moms complained when it was a sweep, mop, dust done kind…
