It was our first SUV ever. Shiny black, two bucket seats in the back, fitting seven.
I loved that rugged four-wheeler. It carried a car full of girls to birthdays, me and my kids hiking up mountains, and to the dessert, camping at The Gorge each year for Creationfest.
There was that time close to winter when we brought home an infant. The heater was broke. We prayed and it miraculously started working.
My son learned to drive on that vehicle and used it for years. So did our older daughter.
It was dependable through generations, and has a legacy we still think fondly of, even to this day.
And yet, our Mitsubishi Montero had something unique about it.
It needed premium gasoline or it wouldn’t run smoothly.
Being fruggle-minded, let’s face it, there were some days I would try to save by adding unleaded gas, instead of the high quality it needed.
What we found was, it started pinging, ran rough, and just plain failed to perform, on the average gas cars similar to it were using.
Like our car, I thinks kids can be similar. Filling them with Miley Cyrus and Kim Kardashian’s might just not make them run smoothly when it comes to holiness and character.
When we love someone we don’t give them average, or even what our parents gave us. When we really love our children we give them our absolute, very best..despite what it costs us.
Children are sponges, and they won’t do what you say, but will become what we model by our unspoken messages.
What kind of life are we modeling? Are we saying, “Don’t”, but then living a life-style we wouldn’t hope or wish for them?
Are we pushing pop culture or the latest trends, but then forgetting about characteristic; love, service, sacrifice, and humility?
Are we hoping to raise children who are strong, competent, capable, and independent…but then aiding and abetting, enabling, or teaching them to be entitled, self-centered, a victim, or apathetic?
Kids are more like cars than we think, I am guessing.
What we allow to be put into our kids, will eventually come out of them.
Tweet ThisToday, I want to encourage you. It doesn’t matter what kind of parenting you’ve done, this moment is a new chance to fill our kids up with faith and encouragement. Each day is a chance to start all over again.
Do you remember, Amy Sullivan, my friend who writes the series, Gutsy Girls? Well, guess what? Exciting news….
Today, her new book two got released!
Know who she is writing about this time in her Gutsy series? Corrie and Betsie Ten Boom, the WWII heroins who lived by faith and changed a consecration camp…
What I love is that they lived higher and above the dying culture around them.
Amy is a world-changer, bent on raising a next generation of Gutsy Girls who will do more than follow shallow Hollywood culture.
She wants our daughters to grow up hearing messages of faith and fearlessness, courage and confidence.
She wants to empower daughters just like ours to be the change we need in this world.
Corrie Ten Boom and her sister 
teaches our daughters about persevere, but also how to live with forgiveness and grace.
Because let’s face it, as women we need those characteristics, now more than ever.
I heard in High School, of someone filling another person’s gas tank with sand.
The car wouldn’t start, and was frozen in the school parking lot for days.
And I don’t know where you are on your parenting journey….
But, let’s face it…it’s time we all stop polluting our kids with toxins, and replace negative role models with people of grace and forgiveness, mercy and goodness, offering them a premium diet of food, media, books about character and integrity.
We must never underestimate the power of what we fill our kids with…
And although children still have choice, we can finish our parenting journey knowing our consciousness is clear, we did everything we could to fill our kids with high quality, premium influences.
Will you pop on over to Amazon and check out Amy’s new addition to her books series called, Gutsy Girls? Bright illustrations. Fun, engaging text, created even for younger girls.
You won’t be disappointed!
(To order Amy’s second book in her Gutsy Girl’s series, click HERE)
