Helping our Teens live with Jesus as saviour and LORD

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I write this blog post while still in the thick of things. We have not gone through these teen years and are not yet on the other side. Our boys are 10 , 12 , 14 and 16 and so, we are very much in it.

I guess I write this blog with a very heavy heart. That young men and women profess Christ as Saviour stands and in our community precious young people are baptized as a public declaration that Jesus is their saviour.

and then......

They struggle on in a world that is increasingly hostile to Jesus and a world that offers them thrill and pleasure .  Being cool and being accepted are still the same age old pulls but the offers of what that looks like hold a heavy price for Teens who call themselves Christ Followers.

Teenagers have  real choices to make. 

* to swear or not to swear as a way of talking ( not the odd  mistake)

* to honour the opposite sex and not hook up at parties or hook up

* to date or not to date

* to drink 

* to drug

* to love others as Christ has loved them or to live a self serving life

* to work hard or to opt out

* to honour their parents or to disregard them

All these choices and many more stand before them continuously.

The answers seem clear to me and the choices certain and yet around us we see the sad reality of young people professing Christ as saviour but failing to live with him as LORD.

Families loosing their children to the choice of living life in the world.

Choosing Jesus over the world is a very, very difficult choice to make , especially when you are 16 but to know Jesus is to choose him. But it is a real choice and one that Jesus himself will honour. Those who honour him in this life, he will honour.

And so , how do we , as parents and friends to these precious young people, offer Jesus as the choice.

Our approach is to offer him in and through his word which is certain and tue and where I know he will speak to their hearts. We offer Jesus by talking , talking, talking Christ into ALL of life and we offer Jesus as he is and as he finds us- messy and human.

We pray!!!

We trust God.

We forgive when they muck up and point them to Jesus.

The gospel is for our teens.

What we do not do is say this, " They are going to do it anyway and so here is the safe way to help them." 

If this blog post does anything at all, I pray it will stir those parents on who have given up. Do not give up!!

Stand up and speak life into your teens world. Help them by loving them and showing them who Jesus is in all his glory so that they too can know him and need not take the wide road that leads to destruction but the narrow road that leads to life.

They may still choose not to profess Jesus but not because you were quiet.

Why would you want anything other for your teen?

All the hooking up and feeling up not only dishonours and breaks the other person but it brings Christs name into disrepute. 

Not only that but the freedom sought and thought of in all this hooking up is not freedom at all. 

It is bondage and breakage for the future.

Saying no is a godly choice and God will strengthen and honour you. Your teen may not be cool at school but he is cool to the king.

Cry that Day, our Beloved Country

What did the young teenagers of Soweto most desire on that day ?

What were their collective heart longing  on THAT  day..

June 16th, 1976!

 I live with a home full of teenagers and pre- teens. I love spending time with them just chatting.  It is interesting sharing this part of our South African experience with them - its joys, frustrations and heartaches. The broken reality in which our children are growing up in modern, post-Apartheid South Africa is a far cry from the devastating experience of young people 40 years ago.

We have enormous obstacles to navigate as a country still divided by wealth, culture and language and indeed colour.  

And yet, if we dare to take an honest look back to those "40 years ago days", we will find a nation at war with itself in a very different way.

There is something particularly evil with a government that rules its people with tyranny.

 It was a very, very different South Africa in 1976. 

http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/june-16-soweto-youth-uprising

On this day, 40 years ago, black teenagers decided to do something that would change their course and indeed the whole course of our country. They decided to stand up and say NO!

Full of courage and unity and hope, they set off on their protest.

They were met with the full force o and brutality of the governments evil who did not hold back in killing again, even killing  children.

Many people joined the protests that spanned the days that followed. Soweto was locked down. No one knows how many people died but 176 is the number given. ( it is thought to be closer to 800)

Today we look back and remember their bravery- for it is a very, very brave thing to stand up in the face of violence and death. 

We look back and say salute that youth of 1976.  I was a little girl of 6 on that day. White South Africans carried on with life as if nothing was happening. We were "shielded" from the hell that was.

But I would hope that we would also look forward 

with a greater vision. 

I pray we would somehow find a common purpose to build a new and better South Africa.

Lets pull up our sleeves and each of us do what we can to build into the youth of today so that we can have a just South Africa  for tomorrow.

The Great Sugar Story

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Welcome to the world in which we all  live!

The world of delicious food and a plethora of choice .

 Just take pizza as an example. 

What kid of topping might you choose? What sort of base? To cheese or not to cheese ? TO bant or not to bant.

Food is good and good food is fun to eat and share with those we love. 

The question on the table here is....

Is the food we eat every day making us sick?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uaWekLrilY

This movie about sugar suggests that it is and all because of the added sugar that goes into 80% of the food we eat. The hidden sugar that we consume on a daily basis adds up to a substantial amount indeed. More than our bodies are designed to cope with.

I have become a sugar detective. Convinced by my doctor who is no quack but a regular GP with regular treating methods, that I should cut out the sugar in my diet, I gave it a go. Not before having purchased a good book to read on the subject and having watched some great TED on it too

Watch this TED https://www.ted.com/talks/jamie_oliver?language=en

or this one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM.

The key reason my doctor was keen for me to get off sugar was that I have had pain and inflamation for about the last 10 years.

The pain I experience was with me constantly, every day and would often wake me up in the night. 

Sugar causes inflamation and so it would make sence that I try remove the sugar part of my diet.

Just to clear, I am no sugar junkie. I do not take sugar in my tea or coffee. I do not eat loads of cake. In fact my only sugar intake was probably the one chocolate I had probably every day and the hidden sugar in the food I ate. 

So --- I cut it out!!

My experience in my body has been profound.  The key 2 things that have changed are these...

1. the pain in my hip has disappeared

2. my craving for sugary, sweet things has gone

The interesting thing is that if I should eat a something with sugar in , which is on the rare occasion, I will wake up in the night that follows in great pain. 

I have kept a careful note of this sugar vs pain response in my body  and without any doubt this is the resuslt. I realise this is anecdotal evidence but it does seem to bear witness to the information being found and shared in the media.

I encourage you to do some investigation and see if the claim that sugar is making us sick might just hold some truth. 

I recall visiting a sugar mill while on holiday in Kwazulu. It was a great excursion and extremely educational. Those who have visited Natal will recall the beautiful rolling hills of sugar cane. Sugar is what makes this place tick. 

The movie Amazing Grace is about slavery and the fight to bring it to an end. The key comodity that people where transporting apart from people was  indeed SUGAR.

Sugar has been with us for a long, long time but perhaps it has had its day.

Find out for yourself!!