My family has a yearly tradition of reading a chapter a day of the book of Luke, leading up to Christmas. It has been such an enriching experience that helps center our holiday season on what is most important to us. If you’d like to join us in these readings, I’m providing questions to talk through with your kids to help spark conversations and meaningful engagement with what you read. I hope it’s helpful!
My family has a yearly tradition of reading a chapter a day of the book of Luke, leading up to Christmas. It has been such an enriching experience that helps center our holiday season on what is most important to us. If you’d like to join us in these readings, I’m providing questions to talk through with your kids to help spark conversations and meaningful engagement with what you read. I hope it’s helpful!
For years I have wanted to create a little parent discussion guide for those of us who are reading through Luke with our kids during the Christmas season. And then the Christmas season happens and I get totally overwhelmed with just normal life. So this year I am going to try to get this in your hands and we’ll see how it goes.
First, a preface:
I am not a Bible scholar. I’m a mom who has grown up in the church, went to a Christian college, took lots of great Bible classes and has continued to be involved in leading and participating in Bible studies throughout my adult life. I recognize that is not everybody’s experience and sometimes reading the Bible with your kids might feel intimidating. In hopes of helping take some of that intimidation out of it, I’m going to walk you through an approximation of what I’m doing with my kids. If you are looking for advanced degrees in Biblical theology and a bunch of references to the original Greek, that won’t be here. But I fully support you looking for that information! There are lots of great advent devotionals out there. This is one way of doing it, but it’s not the only way.
I also need to acknowledge that I bring my own filter to the process of reading through Luke. You’ll see that in the questions I discuss with my kids throughout. We are a multiracial family formed through adoption and surprise pregnancies after an infertility experience. Those themes will come up and we address them. Your family may have different issues that feel relevant that you’ll want to have discussion about. Go for it! But I am going to include those issues that are especially relevant for my family in the content and questions I’m providing because I know there are other families like mine, and I also think it’s great for all families to be thinking through these issues.
So here we go!
Rebecca Tredway Photography
Before you start each night, think about the environment you’re creating for this experience. Check your heart. Lower your expectations.
I like to ask the kids a couple questions before we even start the chapter. You can tailor these questions to the age and background knowledge your kids have. Here are some examples.
Questions before you read Luke 1:
Do you know why the book is called Luke?
Who was Luke?
How do you think Luke’s perspective might be unique as a doctor and a non-Jew?
(If this isn’t information you know off the top of your head WELCOME TO THE CLUB. Your Bible might have this information on the page before the book of Luke, the Bible app you use likely has this info, or you can find it here.)
A couple years ago I read a little wisdom that if you want to help keep Jesus at the center of your Christmas season, you should read through a chapter a day in Luke. There are 24 chapters, so you will get through the whole book by Christmas. This felt simultaneously like an impossible task with 6 kids, and like a challenge I wanted to try. The first year was. . . rough. The kids were middle school aged down to Kindergarten. Lots of silliness. Resistance. Frustration. And nothing packs on the mom guilt quite like hearing your kids complain about Bible reading or finding yourself yelling at your kids during Bible reading. But we persisted.
Photo by Rebecca Tredway Photography
We have done this for a few years now and I’ve learned some things I’d like to share if you’re up for taking this on:
Set the mood. Get the comfy pajamas on, have treats, turn on the Christmas lights, let people pick a blanket, light a candle or do a fire in the fireplace, help the kids settle in. If the kids think you’re rushing through it, they are going to push you to rush through it. If they think this is something we’re going to settle in and enjoy together, they might just enjoy it more than you think.
Do a candy advent calendar. We stumbled upon this idea last year when Aldi had cheap advent calendars, so I splurged and bought us each one. It was a great way to have the kids count down to Christmas while we were doing our Scripture reading. They were always excited about a little bit of chocolate, sometimes to the point that THEY were the ones pushing for us to sit down and do the reading.
Be flexible. The night of the Middle School band concert might make it tough to cram this in before the little ones need to get to bed. Sometimes you have to do two chapters in a night and that’s okay. Sometimes you need to listen to an audio version while you’re driving across town to an event and that’s okay. Mornings might work better than evenings, or you might need to double up chapters and do it every other day. This time of year can be so busy. Don’t give up on this, even if you have to tweak it to make it work for you.
Yesterday I was driving my six kids to a foster parent training class when one of my children said, “I want to see that Kung Fu Panda movie. The one where he finds his REAL dad.” I felt my stomach tighten and I locked eyes with my oldest child in the rearview mirror and I heard him mumble, “Oh boy” because he knew exactly what speech was coming and what questions the child who said “real dad” would have to answer. I know it’s just a movie and these are just pretend panda relationships, but in our family we have had to intentionally address these language issues. Because we are a family formed by foster care and adoption.
It’s important to me to be specific and intentional with my language when it comes to the relationships involved in foster care and adoption. In adoption we get to use words like adoptive parents, biological parents, birth parents and first parents to help someone understand our relationships. It can be hurtful and offensive when people ask about my child’s REAL mom. Both adoptive parents and biological parents are equally “real” so that word doesn’t do much to accurately express our role in this child’s life. And when people ask, “What do you know about his Dad?” I want to play dumb and say, “My husband?” when I know they’re looking for information on my child’s biological family. But in foster care things are a little bit different.
My foster kids didn’t have birthparents, they had parents. They didn’t have a “biological mother,” they just had a mother. When I talked about her to the foster child, I said, “Your mom loves you so much.” If someone asked me where my foster child was I would say, “She’s on a visit with her mom.” Mother was her legal role and she needed no qualifiers to define her identity in her child’s life.
But I did. I wasn’t that child’s mom. I couldn’t sign forms for her or make educational decisions or even do something as simple as cut her hair without permission from her parents. As much as I loved my foster children as though they were my own, I wasn’t their mom. They had a mom. I was their Foster Mom. As much as I sometimes hated all the assumptions that went with that label, I was the one who needed my relationship to be defined with an extra word. Continue Reading →
I had an experience this last week that’s left me a little unsettled. I don’t like being unsettled.
I took my daughter in for an appointment with a pediatric dentist. We typically all see the same dentist, but she had a particular issue that meant she need to be referred to a specialist. I went into the appointment with an uncertainty about what was about to happen. Was this just a consultation? A meet and greet? Would actual services happen?
As we went through introductions and an examination, the dentist decided she could solve the problem right then. I had not prepped my daughter for this, since we didn’t even know what potential treatment options might be. My daughter was hesitant, but she’s tough. She’s also very interested in all things medical, so she had a lot of questions.
Before I get into the unsettling part, let me explain a bit about our parenting philosophy. We have been parenting kids from trauma backgrounds for the last 20 years through group home work, foster care, and adoption. While this has meant we’ve had to make some very intentional parenting decisions in order to help create trust in kids who have experienced trauma, I have also found these ways of parenting to be beneficial for our biological kids. It is what I believe is best for kids.
(Rebecca Tredway Photography)
Part of that philosophy entails very direct honesty with my kids. We do that through pre-teaching if we know there are going to be difficult experiences (I tell my kids in advance when they are going to get vaccines and we talk through the process) and answering the questions they ask. We do not say, “I’ll tell you when you’re older.” We don’t hedge or hide. We don’t even do Santa because we don’t want our kids to ever feel like we were dishonest with them. We have consistently worked with professionals who have either had that same philosophy or who have taken their cues from us and been direct with our kids.
This experience was different.
My daughter asked if she was going to need a shot. The dentist said they don’t do any shots in their office. She talked about numbing jelly, and then explained what a syringe was, but reiterated several times that she would not be getting a shot and that they didn’t do any shots at their office. I listened to this explanation with some skepticism, but I honestly didn’t know what they were going to be doing and I trusted that she was being truthful. I was then escorted to the waiting room (I’ve typically stayed in the room, but wasn’t given that option). When my daughter came out, one of the first things she said was, “She told me she wasn’t going to give me any shots, but she did! Why would she lie?” My little right-fighter did not appreciate this. And it’s not that she has a problem with shots. She’s had plenty of dental work done and does fine with them. It’s dishonesty she doesn’t like.
Yesterday morning I was listening to a great podcast interview with a very wise, very credentialed woman who was giving parenting advice. She was talking about the importance of resilience and how our kids need to face disappointment in order to learn how to work through difficult issues in the future. I love this advice. It is how I strive to parent my kids– letting them walk into situations that might be tough and working with them as they handle the fallout. A specific example this woman gave was if your child forgets something at home that they need for school, you shouldn’t bring it to them. They need to learn how to handle that level of “failure” in order to avoid making that mistake in the future and so they can understand that leaving your homework at home is not the end of the world. I was enthusiastically nodding along and remembering times I had done just that with my kids and times I endured that in my own childhood.
And then my kid called from school and asked if I’d bring him something he left at home– his water bottle.
I felt the guilt. Should I bring him what he wanted? Would that be setting him up for a lifetime of an inability to deal with the consequences of his actions? Was he going to be too fragile to handle what life would throw at him? Was I giving him the wrong impression that I would drop everything for his comfort?
I found the water bottle, filled it up, jumped in the car and brought it to him.
My son is the definition of resilience. He’s been through painful situations and he’s a fighter. He’s responsible, successful, a hard worker, and I am so proud of who he is becoming. But he has always struggled with asking for help.
I imagined him there at the school telephone and thought about the steps he had to go through to get there. Talking to a teacher. Admitting he forgot something. Verbalizing his need. Getting permission to make a call. Asking me to help him out. Trusting I would help him if he let me know he needed it. These were big steps for him. He didn’t need a lesson in resilience. He’s had those a thousand times over. What he needed was a lesson in the value of asking for help and letting people around you come through for you.
Parenting is not as simple as we would all love for it to be. My mom has told me a thousand times, “No one has ever written a book on your child.” As much as there are parenting norms, ideals, philosophies, and theories, there isn’t a book on how exactly to raise the specific child in front of me. It takes an incredible amount of discretion and wisdom to handle each parenting moment.
“Quiet Quitting” seems to be the hot phrase of the moment. If you haven’t run into it, it refers to doing the bare minimum for your job– not going above or beyond expectations, setting firm boundaries, protecting your off time. I can see why this is necessary in some jobs, or beneficial if you are in an unhealthy work environment. When I was working with a foster care agency, I loved my job to the point that I never considered anything like “quiet quitting”. I wanted to do as much as I could because I loved the families I was working with. It gave me life and joy. Ideally, I think it’s great when work feels that way. Being in a job where you feel fine doing the bare minimum seems a little sad to me, although I get it.
As I’ve read about this phenomenon, it doesn’t resonate with me when it comes to work. But it definitely did when it came to church involvement.
I think Covid really messed with church programing. Things shut down. Entirely and understandably. As things were beginning to restart, this new version of church was different than what we were used to. In our situation, my husband and I ended up looking at each other one day and realizing for the first time in our entire lives, we were Sunday Morning Only attenders at church. Church had become that thing you do on Sunday and then check it off the list. In essence, we had become Quiet Quitters. This was a far cry from what most of our lives had been like.
Photo by Rebecca Tredway Photography
We did the math, and in a given month we used to have: small group Bible studies, weekly Women’s Bible study, small group leaders meeting, worship team meetings, congregational meal, children’s committee meeting, nursery worker meetings, women’s committee, etc. Our family live revolved around church involvement. And we weren’t upset about that. It was how we demonstrated that our faith is actually important to us, not just something we say is important to us. It’s also the way we both grew up– in church whenever the doors were open with parents, extended family members and a church community who encouraged and valued that involvement.
I’m sure it’s easy to look at that list and think that’s a ridiculous amount of meetings. I know there are people who hate meetings, but in this context, those meetings were excuses to talk to people we loved, grow connections, get on the same page, have voice, hear about the vision of the church, and use our gifts. When those opportunities went away, we were down to two hours on Sundays that were mostly about sitting and listening, not using gifts or sharing life.
If you think the reason people will come to your church is because the sermons are really great, I’d like to remind you that I can listen to the best preachers in the world while wearing my pajamas and folding laundry. It’s amazing. I can also listen to phenomenal music that is specifically tailored to whatever worship mood I’m in from monastic chants to hymns to worship choruses. Again, I can do that in my pajamas, which is always preferred. I’m not going to church on Sundays where I think I will always get the best Sunday morning experience of teaching and worship (and I say this as someone who has been involved in leading worship for the last 20 years).
This is an edit of something I originally wrote back in 2013 after an interaction with my mom’s cousin, Warren. I wanted to share it again (with some tweaks) because I heard from my mom last night that Warren passed away. I want to honor his contribution to my extended family’s idea of adoption. I’m thankful that before we ever considered adoption, there was a concept of adoption in my family that involved the understanding that sometimes a woman isn’t in a position to parent and her child can be a loved and valued member of another family, just the same as someone biologically born into that family.
I believe adoptees. I believe them all. The ones who are hurt. The ones who feel rejected. The ones who say they aren’t curious about their bio family. The ones who wish they hadn’t been adopted. The ones who feel they were always meant to be in the families that raised them. I have learned that each adoptee’s feelings about adoption are created by a very complex interaction of the circumstances of their adoption, the supportiveness and love of their adoptive family, how adoption was explained to them, their beliefs about God’s sovereignty, the facts about their bio family, and their own personality.
It’s not that someone has “right” beliefs about adoption and somebody has “wrong” beliefs about adoption, it’s that each of us has a view of adoption that is nearly impossible to distinguish from our experience of adoption. I realize that I am an advocate for adoption because it has been a really beautiful thing in my life (as an adoptive parent), but I also realize my kids may have very different feelings about it. One may be thankful while another is resentful. I can do my best to love them and help them understand adoption in positive ways, but ultimately their feelings belong to them. I want to be respectful of however they come to feel about their adoptions even if I disagree. Of course, I will always speak truth to them about their adoptions, which I hope will help, but how they feel about that truth isn’t up to me.
I spend a lot of time in the online adoption community, especially adoptee-lead groups. I have learned a tremendous amount in those spaces. They have shaped the way I talk about adoption, the way I understand the potential struggles of my kids, and they help me have realistic expectations. They are an invaluable resource and I’m thankful for the opportunity I have to learn from adoptees– an opportunity that didn’t exist for the generations parenting adoptees before now.
My mom (center, in the wagon) and some of her siblings and cousins, including Warren (tallest boy)
But sometimes I have to take a break.
I know I need to take that break when I start looking at my kids as time bombs. I imagine it won’t be much longer until they hate me, or hate adoption or disown us in favor of people who look like them or share their DNA. I feel a sense of fear and think about proactively detaching myself so I won’t be as hurt when they inevitably reject me. Objectively, I know that response doesn’t help anyone. I need to continue to invest in my kids and I love them so very deeply, there’s no way I won’t be hurt if they do eventually reject me. And I want to make that outcome as unlikely as possible. I have to, want to, get to love them, even when that comes with risks.
Part of taking that break for me is also connecting with adult adoptees who are actually involved in my life and the lives of my kids. These are the people who have been honest with me about their reality– the good and the hard. The bottomline from each of them is that they are deeply connected to their adoptive families. They are not the worst case scenarios I imagine. I can see how their families worked to create that connection and I learn so much when we talk about their experiences.
Yesterday I was able to visit with a relative of mine. He’s my mom’s cousin and joined her extended family through adoption as an infant. He’s in his 70s and his adoption was handled much like all adoptions were handled back then—nobody talked about it. In fact, he wasn’t told of his adoption for quite a long time while all the extended family members knew and just didn’t discuss it in front of him. Not AT ALL how anyone would recommend you handle things in today’s adoption world.
So yesterday I introduced him to my children for the first time. I wasn’t sure if he’d be comfortable talking about his own experience of adoption since he is from a generation where those things are kept private, but he didn’t shy away from it a bit. When he met Josh (my six-year-old) he said to him, “Did you know we’re very special people? We’re the same in a special way. We’re both adopted. And we were both adopted into the best family in the world. This really is the greatest family. And do you know why else we’re special? Because somebody wanted us.”
Sometimes I think I am the pinky toe in the Body of Christ. I don’t mean that in a disparaging way. I think pinky toes are pretty important.
Have you ever been walking through your house in the dark after getting a late night snack (just me?) and you bang your pinky toe into the wall? In those moments I have often thought how much easier it would be if I didn’t have a pinky toe. One less thing to smash into a wall. But I think my little toe is actually warning me. There’s a wall here. Take heed and scooch over a bit. Banging your head into a wall is a much more serious situation than hitting your pinky toe.
I can see myself serving this function in organizations I’ve been part of. I see problems. In fact, I actually love to see problems. It means there are opportunities for growth and change. I don’t perceive problems as inherently negative. I think they are unavoidable and part of life. But what I desperately want to do is send a message that maybe we need to scooch over a bit. I want to find solutions and work together to avoid things getting worse.
What I have come to know very well is not everybody is interested in getting that message. They would rather cut off their pinky toe.
My husband tells me that not everyone is like me. Some people get really nervous if someone points out a problem. They see problems as failures or they take it very personally. They do not want to talk about the problem and look for solutions because they feel more comfortable if everybody pretends to not see the problems. While they might be able to acknowledge the reality that problems are unavoidable in a fallen world, they seem to operate under a functional belief system that problems can be eliminated if we all agree not to look at them.
The problem with that philosophy is that I haven’t seen a lot of problems that get better if you ignore them. And if your business is people (like in a church, social services, ministry setting, or even within a family), ignoring problems means ignoring the people who are hurt by those problems. That is not okay with my conscience.
If pointing out a problem makes YOU the problem, then you may be in the wrong place.
Maybe it’s a place other people can function in. Maybe everyone else seems to be fine. But for the person who sees problems and wants to help solve them, it is soul-crushing to exist in environments where there’s an agreed upon belief that the problems don’t exist.
Rebecca Tredway Photography
If you have been living in that world, I’d love to give you a hug or some pie or whatever speaks comfort to you. I have lived in that world and it was painful. It made me develop some untrue beliefs about myself: that I was a complainer, that I wasn’t a team player, that I needed to be in control. That’s not who I am, but when you’re trying to politely and diplomatically let someone know that they’re headed for a wall, sometimes that will sound like complaining to the one who doesn’t want to hear it. It will sound like not being a team player to the one who wants you to get back in line. It will sound like a need for control to the person who doesn’t want to have to listen to anyone else’s feedback. Other people can be fine in that environment. But it wasn’t a good place for me. The Pinky Toes need to be in spaces where they can be heard, even if they still occasionally get smashed into a wall. I don’t need to be in charge or obeyed, I just need to know someone cares and can hear my heart. I need to know I won’t be dismissed.
