Bonus: Fighting For Your Kids with Kate Allen (She's Back!)
Guess who’s back! Kate was the most listened to episode on season 1, so we brought her back in for a bonus episode! We wanted to answer some of the questions we got from that episode, so here we go!
How to have a close relationship with your kids
What y’all did a good job of was I never felt like my faith was forced. We went to church, but other than that you would ask me every once in awhile if I still talked to Jesus. I remember you asked me that in the second grade while we were sitting on the stairs, and I said, “I still talk to him sometimes, but I just got busy so I don’t think about him as much.” We talked about that for a little bit and then moved on. You trusted the Lord was working in my heart, and it wasn’t up to you to constantly be talking to me about God. The way our family dynamic is reeks of the goodness of God. You have so much grace for us. You value the home being a safe place. You never let us talk bad about our family.
How do you not push your kids away by trying to go deep?
Go have fun. That’s how any relationship starts. Build experiences and memories, and then as you do life together, ask them about the tough stuff. I don’t think the answer is being super wise and knowing the answer, it’s just asking the right questions. I think it’s also important that there be a mentor figure or a 20-something in your kid’s life that is guiding them. Every kid who has grown up in a Christian home will have doubts about whether they believe this because they’ve grown up in it. The people that were pushed into my life that were outside of our home were some of the most important relationships to have my faith apart from my parents. The camp was great too, because I got to experience people apart from home and my home church.
Here’s the thing, you can’t be the Holy Spirit. God’s timing for every single person’s life and when they come to know him is perfect. Anything other than that is less than perfect. I can show my friends how I live and tell them about Jesus, but they reject it. And that’s not my burden to bear. God loves them more than I could ever love them and God wants them to be saved more than I ever could.
What about kids that don’t open up to their parents?
Everybody hurts. At some level, everyone wants to be known. Kids are at a place where they don’t talk to people at all. But they still want to be known. Sometimes they need someone other than their mom to talk to. You always said that as long as I was talking to somebody and as long as I know you’d have grace for me no matter what it was, that was okay.
What are you learning about grace and not being so hard on yourself?
I hit a point where I was just so tired of being broken and tired of sanctification. But you reminded me that this is the fight. Any overflow I have to love or help people is overflow from becoming like Christ, and sanctification is becoming more like Christ. The fight is not a distraction, it is the fight and it’ll be there for the rest of my life. It’s been a change of perspective for me. Sanctification is a struggle, but it won’t be forever. There will be a moment when it all fades out and we’re with Jesus and there’s no more wrestling or fighting my sin.
What are you learning about prayer?
Prayer is breaking out of so many boxes in my life. Junior year I had a lot of fear and I was undisciplined and slept through so much of my life and was in survival mode the whole day. There was no space to reach out or help others because I was worried about how to get through the day. Senior year, I don’t have as much fear because I was talking to God about it. As long as I’m depending on him and communicating with him, he’ll show up. He’ll lead me in all the things he’s brought about. My biggest thing right now is prayer is more important than doing. If I am doing without prayer, then that work is in vain.
So this morning I put on my worship music and I read Psalm 73 for a few minutes before I walked out the door. It looks like setting apart time in the busy, because I think he values that. It really does impact whatever I’m going into next. So I left and picked up my friend for cross country and before the other girls got in the car, we just prayed. We prayed over the carpool, the season, our conversations, etc. It’s been a sweet season where he’s taught me to walk into a room and recognize he’s there, and he’s put me in a posture of prayer and I know even subconsciously, you’re going to work through me. Not because I’m steadfast or praying all the time, but just because he’s going to use me.
