Thoughts On Raising Boys--Part One--Intro

As a young wife, I asked the Lord to give me sons first.  I dearly wanted "big brothers" for my family, so in 1977, God graciously answered my prayer and gave Peter and me a son, Peter Kye, and again in April of 1980,  He gave us our second son, Tyler.   Two more diverse boys could not have been born into one family. Peter Kye was born with a laid-back, mellow personality.  He was a "lover" and adapted to new people and new surroundings with ease.  Peter Kye's sweet disposition and desire to please, made him a pretty easy baby.  Not so much our red-haired Ty.  He was born ticked-off.  He most assuredly DID NOT like new people or new surroundings and there was NOTHING laid-back or mellow about him in the least.  At six weeks old I wrote in my journal:  "Tyler looks like he can hardly wait to get out of that baby body of his.  He acts as if he has things to do, and I swear, he has this mischievous twinkle in his eyes."   In that moment, I had no idea how right I was.  I was not prepared for how different it would be...from the beginning...when it came to raising these two boys.  

As different as these two were and still are, looking back, Peter and I clearly see and appreciate God's goodness to us in giving us these two very unique "patriarchs" of the Thompson brood.  They both brought an identity and a "flavor" to Thompson family life that has given us all precious memories, much laughter along the way, and legendary antics that have gone down in Thompson folklore.  I wish I could say that Peter and I did it right from the beginning, but that simply would not be true.  We were definitely NOT perfect parents to these boys of ours, but we learned a lot, and both our boys, even inspite of our failings, turned out to be excellent men, husbands, fathers, employees, bosses, and leaders.  

As older and wiser parents and now grandparents, we are honored that God has allowed us to speak to young families about what worked and didn't work, where we succeeded and where we just plain blew it, in an effort to help and encourage them as they raise up their own families.  Peter and I love this redeeming Savior we serve and realize one of His greatest beauties is that He is able to redeem our mistakes, our flaws, and our failings, and for this, we are ever grateful.

Over the next two weeks, we will be bringing to you some thoughts on raising boys into godly young men.  These points are adapted from one of the "Anything Chocolate Parents' Timeout" sessions we had at our church.  We realized the information given during our "Raising Godly Men" session was much like being blasted in the face with a "word" fire hose, so we thought we'd turn the intensity down a bit and give you two or three points at a time here on the blog and allow you a little time to think and process.  

Please remember your questions are always welcome at our e-mail:  parenting@desertvineyard.org.  

Praying for you and your precious families...

Cherri...Peter, Chris and Kathy too