Answering Kids’ Hardest Questions: What Makes Me Special?

This text is a part of the Answering Kids’ Hardest Questions sequence.

We Search God, Not Items

What makes me particular? That is the very air that our youngsters breathe at present. From very younger ages, even when they don’t seem to be verbalizing it to us, youngsters try to determine their place. They’re making an attempt to determine how they stack as much as these round them. What presents do I’ve? I see my siblings. They’re so good at sports activities and I’m not. I can’t do something with a ball. And they also begin questioning themselves, considering Nicely, what am I good at then?

One in every of your kids could also be fantastic in music or they is likely to be humorous, or no matter it is likely to be. Particularly as youngsters, there’s a comparability that begins to occur and there’s an air that they’re respiration that’s asking them, What are you going to make of your self? What particular factor are you going to convey to the world? How are you going to make a distinction on this world? And that’s quite a lot of strain for any of us, however particularly our little youngsters, as a result of they begin to look inside themselves to determine what makes them precious. The issue with that’s it’s not what’s in them that makes them precious, it’s who made them.

To convey down the idea of identification is so necessary for our youngsters from a really younger age to assist them see they have been created within the picture of God and present what that appears like. What does that imply? God’s a inventive God. He’s a God of humor. He’s a God that’s form, that’s compassionate. He’s a God of order. Every of us can have totally different presents or we might have alternatives that God gives for us that he doesn’t present for an additional or vice versa.

To search for our price and our price in what we have now to supply goes to be primarily based on how we really feel, how good we really feel like we did. For instance, I’ve one little one that’s into soccer. He might have a great sport and be ok with himself, however then the following week he might play terribly and he could also be beating himself up and saying how horrible of a participant he’s. You may see it in his entire temper that abruptly he doesn’t really feel precious anymore.

So we would have a dialog like, Sweetie, what’s your identification? Is your identification a soccer participant? Is your identification and your entire function in life to develop into the very best soccer participant there’s? It’s been a great dialog to have.

We will see this in our youngsters in numerous methods. I even have one other little one who struggles to see the place she’s gifted. She will be able to have a look at every sibling and say, Nicely, they’re good at that and so they’re good at that. However what am I good at?

Once more, that is an identification subject. What did God create you for? He created you for his glory. That isn’t essentially going to appear to be a present of singing or being the most well-liked or no matter it’s. A baby’s world is usually fairly small. They will see what’s proper in entrance of them. It’s exhausting to see the massive image. So if we are able to convey that right down to their stage and attempt to clarify of their little world, Sweetie, I do know you wish to really feel necessary. You wish to really feel valued, you wish to really feel seen and particular. You already are, not due to something you’re good at and never due to something that it’s important to convey to the desk, however as a result of God actually created and knit you collectively—each single gene in your physique. And so your function now isn’t to determine who you might be; it’s to determine and know who God is as a result of he created you in his picture.

We might help them perceive what that appears like by studying the Bible and seeing what God has achieved within the lives of his individuals all through centuries. The excellent news in that’s w e can see we’re not excellent. Many individuals who we glance as much as in Scripture had messy lives too. And so if we might help our kids be free from this burden that they’ve to seek out some strategy to show that they’re particular, it really allows them to have the ability to recognize the presents they’ve, relatively than them develop into a burden for them. They don’t need to reside as much as a typical or show to us or these round them that they’ve price of some type. That’s a crushing burden.

Your function now isn’t to determine who you might be, it’s to determine and know who God is as a result of he created you in his picture

Particularly for youths going up into junior excessive and highschool ages, as they’re being flooded with questions of identification, this message is more and more necessary. It’s so necessary to start this dialog early to assist them see that their identification is fastened in Jesus Christ, not in something that they do or can accomplish.

It is going to be so liberating for them if we might help them construct from there as a result of the truth is, generally the presents we have now will be taken. That occurred to me. I used to be an athlete, and I misplaced all of it via an damage. It utterly modified the trajectory of my life.

And so my communication with my youngsters is now, That is nice. Work exhausting at this, develop this, and discover development. God has good for you on this. However don’t let it develop into your identification, as a result of it’s not who you might be and it’s not the rationale that God loves you.

Sarah Walton is the writer of The Long Road Home: A Tale of Two Sons and a Father’s Never-Ending Love​​.

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