Mary DeMuth: On Spiritual Warfare

By Mary Demuth

I shivered and shook when the boys took their turns with me. Under the canopy of evergreens, these brothers stole my heart, my innocence, my self. I was five years old and had no one to protect me. Even after I dared to tell my babysitter what those boys did, she vowed she’d tell my mom, but she never did. The next day the boys visited again, cementing the idea in my head that even my mother didn’t care if I were being molested. (Note: My mom didn’t know, so she couldn’t protect. But as a little kid, I didn’t know this. I believed my babysitter.)

I shook hands with Jesus ten years later under another evergreen tree. He held me close as I grieved the sexual abuse of my childhood. He saw fit to heal me so deeply, change me so utterly that I could actually want marriage.

But the fear came when my children arrived. Particularly when my girls reached age five. I panicked. Freaked out, really. What if they experienced the trauma of sexual abuse that I had endured? Seeing them at the age I was when my innocence was stripped opened more wounds, insecurities.… continue reading

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By Mary DeMuth

Some of you may know that our daughter Julia, who is 14, has suffered from something mysterious for the past month or so. You can read about what happened initially here: From Haiti, to the Hospital, to Delirium.

As I’ve walked through this trial, I’ve come to appreciate the help that’s come our way, and have grown a little weary of other things. So please take this post in the spirit it’s meant in—to educate and encourage any of you who have friends going through a similar health scare.

What helped:

• Prayer in the moment. Instead of a blanket, “I’m praying for you,” what blessed was people stopping what they were doing and offering a prayer on the spot, whether that be via text, email, blog or in person. This meant so much to us and to Julia.
• Food. Folks bringing meals when preparing dinner was the last thing on my to do list, but certainly a necessity. We truly appreciated homemade meals, particularly after eating hospital food.
• Notes. Notes sent to Julia and to us really bolstered our faith and helped us know we weren’t alone.
• Specific help. People who lent cars, provided rides, gathered homework.
… continue reading

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by Mary DeMuth

What is the gospel?

It’s not simply a life management program. It shouldn’t merely be the crutch we fall on when life gets ugly. It should be the legs we walk on, the air we breathe.

When I read the book of Acts, I’m humbled and a little scared too. Why? Because I don’t resemble those folks. I certainly don’t think like them. My inner transformation hasn’t looked so dynamic, so entirely world-changing.

I don’t often suffer for the sake of the gospel. I haven’t counted all things loss. Instead I cling to my possessions, relish my comfort, and spend a great deal of time seeking earthly peace.

The gospel they shared was simple, but it earthquaked the foundations of people’s lives. It called for allegiance, total adherence, but it promised the Holy Spirit, the One who would empower them to live out that kind of commitment.

Unfortunately, the gospel we hear most often in our pulpits or even friend-to-friend, looks nothing like this. It sounds more like platitudes and self-help manuals.

• Meet Jesus and your life will improve.
• Jesus will save your marriage! Your kids! Your life!
• Jesus and His grace will forgive you of all that awful stuff you did.
… continue reading

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By Mary DeMuth

Sitting at the Friday night football game, I enjoyed the colors, the waning sun, the gridiron chaos. Hubby and I sat next to a teacher and her husband. Her friend had a program for the game, so she asked if she could leaf through it.

She did.

And then she gasped. She pointed to a page, then I gasped.

The ad read: “The results to take you from ogling the cheerleaders to dating them.”

On so many levels, this is wrong. It teaches boys that it’s okay to treat girls as objects. It infers that you can’t get a date unless you’re muscular. It reduces men to the least common denominator of sexual impulse and women to a life of creating (or trying to maintain) physical attractiveness to be considered dateable.

The teacher contacted the leadership of the high school, and I haven’t heard back if the ad’s been pulled. I sure hope so.

The truth: We live in an oversexualized culture. What’s a parent of a teen to do?

• Talk to your kids. We showed this ad to our kids and asked them what was wrong with it. What “truths” did it teach? What lie did it sell?
… continue reading

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By Mary DeMuth

This is an excerpt from 150 Quick Questions to Get Your Kids Talking about how the book came about:

My family of five teens spends evenings around the dinner table examining our days. We shared one high and one low, although often those highs and lows turned into two or three of each. I loved learning about my children’s hearts and the feel of their days as we shared a meal together.

It wasn’t until I started conducting research for one of my parenting books that I discovered we practiced the art of examen—an ancient spiritual practice best done at the end of the day. Ivy Beckwith, author of Postmodern Children’s Ministry, expands the idea: “Participants talk together about those things that happened during the day that sapped their zeal and energy, also known as desolations. Then they talk about those things that happened during the day that encouraged them or gave them energy, also known as consolations. At the end of the time we talk to God about all these things, bringing God into the very center of the important events of our lives.”[i]

So we shared our consolations and desolations. We sifted.… continue reading

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What Happened to Chastity?

In the September 2011 issue of Relevant Magazine, there was an article entitled, “(Almost) Everyone’s Doing It.” The first sentences bothered me: “Eighty-two percent of young, unmarried Christians have had sex. Two-thirds have been sexually active in the last year. Even though, according to a recent Gallup poll, 76 percent of evangelicals believe sex outside of marriage is morally wrong.”

Parenting three teens living in this crazy culture, these stats alarmed me. And I’m not naive. I know folks are having sex. But the staggering majority of Jesus-followers? That surprised me.

It seems we’ve completely disengaged ourselves from Scripture, which is quite clear. And we’ve let what our culture thinks about sex (oh, it’s no big deal) color the way we’ve chosen to live. Instead of submitting our lives to the Lordship of Jesus, we’ve submitted ourselves to our desires, and let them have free reign. We do what is right in our own eyes.

So what’s the big deal? Why is sex outside of marriage wrong? Here are some reasons:

1. God in His infinite mercy designed sex inside the covenant of marriage. When two people have sex, not only do their bodies become one, but they unite in spirit too.
… continue reading

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Adapted from Building the Christian Family You Never Had (WaterBrook, 2006), by Mary DeMuth

           Some of us grew up in stable, Christ-loving homes. Others did not. What happens when people from difficult upbringings want to raise their children in a Christian home? How do we pioneer a new path for our children?

           Pioneer Parents are parents who don’t want to duplicate the homes they were raised in. They share many common traits, the most common being fear. They ask themselves questions like:

• Will the hurtful words my parents said to me fly out of my mouth in a moment of anger?
• Will I repeat my parents’ mistakes?
• How will I parent if I’ve had no positive, godly example?
• Why, when I read Christian parenting books, do I feel like the author can’t relate to me?
• How do I protect my children from possible negative influence of my parents without harming their relationship?
  

As a Pioneer Parent, these questions have swirled around in my paranoid head ever since I birthed my first child. Thirteen years later, sometimes they still haunt me. How do we break free from harmful parenting patterns? How do we build a Christian foundation in our homes if we’ve had no example?… continue reading

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By Mary DeMuth

In a world of Halo, iphones, and IM, how do parents strategically engage their tuned-out kids? How can we create the kinds of homes that are irresistible to our children, enticing enough to make them tune out from games, media and texting and tune in to the rhythms of family life? Five ways.

One: Offer ‘em Something Better
The most enticing thing to a kid is community—real, authentic, God-breathed community. To create this, learn to do the following:

• Say you’re sorry when you’re wrong and ask forgiveness.
• Strive to become the person you want your child to become. Practice reconciliation, open communication, and serving each other.
• Listen, really listen to your kids. Give them eye-time. Don’t uh-huh their concerns, but strive to ask great questions to draw them out. Be willing to share your own struggles with your kids.
• Plan meal times together.
• Have an unplug day—no phones, TV, gaming systems, and return to old fashioned board games, taking walks outside, and reading together.
• Resist DVDs in the minivan. Try books on tape instead—a wonderful way to engage your child’s mind. Discuss the book afterward.
• Welcome others into your home. Be the house all the kids want to congregate in.
… continue reading

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When we were in the throes of diapers and sleepless nights, I thought parenting was hard. When we came alongside our kids and their activities in elementary school, I thought the frenetic pace would not end. When we moved overseas and tried to parent a teen and two elementary aged kids, I thought my brain and heart and will would explode.

And now we’re in the terrible (yet beautiful) teens and I’m once again convinced that parenting is hard.

It’s hard because each child is different. What “works” for one damages the other. How we talk to each must be modified, prayed over, and approached with sensitivity. Each child has different obstacles, stresses and challenges. And sometimes I’m just so tired to shape shift to the needs of my kids.

Parenting is hard because we don’t get a break from it. It’s that 24/7 job that never ends, that requires countless acts of selflessness and patience. I’m thankful for that because left to myself, I’d wane in the land of selfishness. Having to bend my will to others and choose to serve my kids is so good for my soul. Nonetheless sometimes it can be tiring.

Parenting is hard because we don’t automatically know the answers.… continue reading

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What do you do when your kids stray or disappoint you or head in a direction you wouldn’t have wanted? What if one fails a class? Or many? Or walks contrary to the way she’s been raised? We read Christmas letters full of seemingly perfect kids with awesome feats, and we think, I’m just trying to survive the teen years.

I’ve walked through this during several seasons of parenting. While I’d never uplift my parenting as perfect, I have learned a few things, particularly in retrospect, the first being the need for me to divorce my reputation from my kid’s behavior. Whether they act out or not, I am still wildly loved by Jesus. While I should always be striving to grow as a parent, I can’t take on the mantle of believing that their negative behavior affects my standing before God or others.

So what’s a parent to do when a teen disappoints? 10 things.

1. Pray for your teen. This should be your first response, to lay your burden, your fears, your stress about your child at Jesus’ feet. Ask God what He wants to do in your child’s life in this situation.
2. Don’t rescue your child from the consequences of his sin.
… continue reading

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Sometimes when we encounter behavioral problems in our kids, we start forming opinions:

• It’s hormones.
• It’s Junior High’s fault.
• My child is walking through a selfish phase.
• She is trying to spread her wings by asserting her independence.
• She wants to rebel.

While many of these reasons could be in play for our kids’ recent tirades, remember that there can also be another reason: Spiritual Warfare.

If your child is stepping out in a new area of service, or standing against something painful at school, or choosing not to hang with disruptive friends, it could be that the recent drama in your house is spiritual warfare. Simply put: the enemy of our souls is hell-bent on our destruction. Remember, he came to steal, kill and destroy. He likes nothing better than to have our kids take money from our purses (stealing), drink to blaring excess (killing), or cut themselves (destroying).

Of course you’ll need to address the issues at hand with truth and grace. But also, don’t forget to fight on your knees for the sake of your children. Ask God to bring your child joy, discernment, and power. Pray with your child about what is bothering him/her, and pray with faith believing that Jesus will meet the deepest needs of your child.… continue reading

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