A few months ago I was having lunch with a friend and we were talking about how difficult it is sometimes to help our young adult children maintain or grow in their faith. Those day to day opportunities when they were living at home, such as prayer at dinnertime, mass on Sundays, just aren’t serving as the natural reminders for them to put God first anymore.
Young adults are managing influences from school and work and often a new social circle (that we mothers, no longer know personally ourselves) and spirituality tends to take a back burner to all the other events going on.
After talking about ways we can try and be a better influence on our adult children’s faith, my friend and I came to admit that our own faith isn’t always what we’d like it to be either…Sometimes without the kids there, the pressure to set such a good example is less and we might sleep in on a Sunday instead of go to church. We can have so much faith in our own faith that we get complacent with our habits too and may need a pick me up to get back on track to put God first.
Well, last year for Lent, one of the things I chose to do was to think back to my days of being a youth minister and create a sort of Catechism if you will to share with my children. I dedicated time to write short letters to them each day sharing lessons in faith around God’s love and how Jesus Christ is “the way, the truth and the life.”
It was meant to help my children be reminded of how important faith is but as a bonus, it also helped me gain strength in my own faith and it served as a wonderful conversation starter with things to talk about that could put our family’s focus back on God together.
These letters were created for believers and non-believers so that their faith might grow in Christ Jesus. I’ve been thinking the letters I wrote to my sons could be an excellent thing to share with you as well to strengthen your faith and hopefully bring your family together to focus on Christ in this season of Lent.
I’d love to challenge everyone to find a way to strengthen your faith this Lenten season and I hope my letters will do just that. Sign up at the top of this page.