LIVE THE SUMMER STORIES

I closed the chapter book with a sigh, and all of my daughters followed suit. “That was a good book Mama! Will we start reading the next book tomorrow?”

“Yes Mama! Let’s read together over the summer!”

“Well for sure we’ll read aloud a bit this summer, but our amount of books and timing may be different because we have new adventures planned for you.”

“What kind of adventures?”

If I’ve done anything with creating environments in my home, I’ve strived to create an atmosphere of the value of stories. We have filled bookcases in almost every room, and we prioritize library visits to enable reading great books aloud together as well as giving space for reading alone. However, I knew on the cusp of summer I needed a shake-up of our reading schedule. We needed to live the stories this summer!

Now I know it can be challenging as a parent to be thinking ahead and planning seasonal activities for our families (not just for the kids, mind you). But be encouraged–you don’t have to micromanage every family detail!  In fact, some of the best escapades have arisen organically in our family and have been recounted often since. The key is to plan at least one expedition, then leave space for the Holy Spirit to direct some spontaneous summer experiences.

‍The Lord calls us to create stories and adventure with Him. As we grow in our faith, we should transform from just living a natural bios life to the spiritual zoe life in God, as CS Lewis put it in Mere Christianity (Lewis, 159). When children dive into zoe life with Jesus, thanks to the example of the adults of faith around them, children learn to love all kinds of adventures, opening their ears to hear about the wonders of God.

As parents, we equip our kids with a faith that helps them to live out their spiritual gifts from God, including power, love, and self-discipline. We see this in scripture when the Apostle Paul writes to Timothy:

I remember your genuine faith, for you share the faith that first filled your grandmother Lois and your mother, Eunice. And I know that same faith continues strong in you. This is why I remind you to fan into flames the spiritual gift God gave you when I laid my hands on you. For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline. 2 Timothy 1:5-7 NLT

So I read this passage and ask myself, “What did Lois and Eunice do each day with Timothy while he was growing up so that he gained a genuine faith? What did they do in the summer season?” I think about this Psalm, and guess that Lois and Eunice must’ve spent their summer days feasting, worshiping, serving, and telling others about God’s love. They told living stories!

‍Let the rich of the earth feast and worship.

    Bow before him, all who are mortal,

    all whose lives will end as dust.

Our children will also serve him.

    Future generations will hear about the wonders of the Lord.

His righteous acts will be told to those not yet born.

    They will hear about everything he has done.

Psalm 22: 29-31 NLT

‍What’s amazing is that God equips us to share about Him in unique ways! Our family’s rhythms of reading stories to learn and then creating our own stories through adventure will not look like another family’s faith journey. We’ve found that our kids clamor to hear stories of God in literature and the Bible, but most of all our daughters want to hear our own stories of God’s faithfulness. As they have matured, they’ve also stepped into living out their own stories with God, and this has developed their faith and zoe  spiritual life.

So think about a summer family adventure you have planned or are assembling even now. Try to think about it from your child’s point of view. Will there be a story to discover? What part of the adventure will grab their attention? How will you balance the mundane with the exciting? (kids need both). How can you share the wonder of God in your summer plans? 

This Epic community is full of stories, and I know this summer will be yet another season where you will be experiencing time with God. I’d encourage you to live the stories in the moment, and then recount them to your family and friends. Who knows? Maybe your kids will write down these stories and future generations will be reading them to their children, who will in turn ask for an adventure and create their own summer stories of the wonder of God!

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Grace and peace,

Annikki

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May Epic Kids Unit Verse:

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