Stand by and be amazed by this 7 Day Fill their Bucket Challenge to pray and connect with your children. Watch how God will not only transform your own heart but will also deeply connect you to your child.
My deepest desire is to be a prayer warrior on behalf of my family and community but I struggle daily with consistently lifting my children up to Jesus with prayers that are more than “Keep them safe. Help them have a good day.”. Since I’m sharing my weaknesses I’ll just tell you this as well even though I’m a parent educator and parenting coach and I’ve shared with 100’s of parents the need to praise our kids–the truth is I struggle with sharing words of affirmation.
So now that all of this is out in the open I want to invite you on this journey with me The 7 Day Fill their Bucket Challenge: Pray and Connect with Your Children
This is why I’m starting this challenge not because I think other people need this but because I desperately need it and I hope you’ll join me so we can encourage each other along the way.
In our 7 Day Fill their Bucket Challenge we will focus on two of the basic needs of humans:
- Spiritual Need- Your child’s spiritual need can only be met through Jesus.
- Emotional Need- Your child’s love and belonging need that we have the privilege of filling as parents and caregivers.
If you need more than 7 days I have the full 31 days of Praying the Psalms for your children on sale now through Valentine’s Day —-> HERE!
Spiritual Need: Prayer our Greatest Privilege
The reality is one of our basic needs as humans is the need for love, belonging and the desire to be seen, known and valued. However, as Christ-followers we know that our deepest need is for a relationship with God which only comes through salvation in Jesus Christ.
As moms, we are going to focus on lifting up our children and family to Him. We’ll pray and connect in ways we haven’t done in the past!
One thing to keep in mind as we move forward in this challenge is to remember who you’re praying to: the Kings of Kings, Our Heavenly Father, Savior, Mighty God, Way Maker, lover of our soul, Redeemer, Comforter, all-knowing and loving God.
Just as children learn to speak by hearing their parents’ voices so we learn to pray by listening to what our Father has to say in his Word. The more his words rest in our hearts, the more readily we will speak them back to him.” – Scott Hubbard
So let’s dive into the Book of Psalms! Remember we can all enjoy God through prayer because every believer no matter how new they are to this amazing relationship with God has the ability, honor, and responsibility to talk with God.
We were made to call on Him!
We are going to speak His words back to God in praise and petition on behalf of our children, our spouse and don’t leave yourself out.
Emotional Need: Love Our Greatest Need
Have you heard of the book “Have you Filled a Bucket Today” by Carol McCloud? It’s one of my favorite concepts to share when I teach parenting classes. This book by Carol talks about “bucket filling”.
She shares how everyone walks around with an invisible bucket that holds our good thoughts and feelings. We have the opportunity to fill and get our buckets filled throughout our day that’s called a bucket filler. But you can also dip into a bucket and take out some good feelings with harsh words or actions and that’s being a bucket dipper.
So even though one of our basic longings is to be seen, loved and valued our kids might go through days even months not feeling any of it because of bucket dippers. They need our words that speak life and light into their dark places.
The second our kids walk out of our doors we have no idea the words, the pressure, the criticism, the discouragement that fills their little world. They are bombarded with all sorts of messages reminding them what they need to do, can’t do, should do, haven’t done, or whether they fit in or not… It can come from well-intentioned people and at other times it’s from not so kind peers, adults and some times it’s even from us or their siblings.
So for the next 7 days, we are going to practice filling their bucket and watching them feel loved, supported, safe, connected with you and our Heavenly Father. So when they do encounter criticism or hatred they can draw TRUTH from their bucket.
Join me! As parents, we have the joy of being bucket fillers this week!
The 7 Day Fill Their Bucket Challenge: Pray & Connect with Your Children
As a mom, there are so many times I feel overwhelmed by the hatred and harshness in this world but today we are going to focus on what we can do.
Moms can I just tell you this one thing I so often take for granted–We’ve got Jesus! This motherhood thing wasn’t made for us to do it alone so let’s go before His throne on behalf of our loved ones. He’s there to listen and to guide you.
With this 7 Day Love Challenge we are going to focus on what we can do, not the “what if’s or I can’ts”.
- We can pray. We can go before the throne of God on behalf of our children and spouse.
- We can fill their hearts with words that breathe life into their souls.
- We can connect. By becoming a student of our kids we connect in the every day simple tasks of life. I’ll have questions to discover what makes them laugh, what they dream about doing, what they are afraid of. Some will be silly at other times they will be deep. You can even tweak these questions and use them with your spouse.
How to join the challenge? I’m keeping it simple so you can make it your own. Get creative, tweak it to make it fit your own family dynamics. Just download the free connection cards (link below) and get started. That’s it! No need to register, or fill anything out. Follow along on my Facebook page if you want.
Start!
You can fill your child’s bucket daily by doing these 3 things: Pray. Ask. Connect. (PAC)
You can do them in any order that suits you but to make a habit stick I’d encourage you to start by doing each one at the same time of the day. Pray first thing in the morning while you’re still in bed, while you’re making them breakfast or driving them to school. Ask the question after school or at dinner time. Connect
My hope with this challenge is two-fold:
- To connect with God by praying the Psalms.
- To connect with our children in a simple way by sharing words of encouragement and asking them the question for that day. In the process, we’ll also be making God connections–Connections between our children and God.
Download below:
FREE Connection Cards & instructions are here —> Blessings –Praying the Psalms Connection Cards
If you want all 31 cards you can go HERE to get the 15 pages with 31 Psalm prayers, 31 questions to get you connecting with your child and 31 biblical affirmations & encouragement. Plus, blank cards to add your own.
Just Pray. Just Connect.
Don’t overthink it. Just pray.
I know life gets busy and overwhelming and if you’re anything like me when this happens the first thing that goes out of my routine is prayer and the little moments to connect with my children. So I hope by doing this together we can walk these next 7 days together encouraging each other to pray.
We will pray a different Psalm each day for our children (our spouse and/or ourselves), plus I’ll have a question to help you connect with your child and a word of encouragement to speak over them.
Stand by and be amazed by love! Watch how God will not only transform your own heart but will also deeply connected you to your child.
Then Christ will make His home in your hearts. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. Ephesians 3:17
