HAND-MADE

Hello Friends, Today you will be blessed by my dear friend Megan Osborne. She is a delight and a blessing. Ten minutes with Megan will leave you overflowing with joy. Her passion is evident in her pursuit to please God. She shines brightly as she ministers to other women. In addition to being a model mother and loving wife, she recently received her PhD in Clinical Christian Counseling.

By the Spirit's leading Megan recently launched Shaped With Love Ministries. She strives to equip mother's to nurture a healthy body esteem in their little ones. Please visit her website and consider supporting her ministry to young mothers. Her material is very timely in today's culture and will surely bless you and those you know with children.




I am sure that I am not the only one who has noticed that almost every toy made and sold these days was mass produced in China. I actually amuse myself with “trying” to find a toy in our playroom that was made in another country. I am extremely grateful for my children’s toys, they are all blessings (even the obnoxious talking dump truck that likes to go off randomly in the middle of the night!) but some of the most cherished toys that we own were handmade.

There is something special about handmade things…they are unique, one-of-a-kind, made with painstaking detail, time, and energy. I think of the quilt my mother made my daughter before she was born, the colors and patterns chosen specifically as my favorites. A gift of a handcrafted clock that hangs in my son’s room boasts a detail of thinly painted stripes with outstanding intricacy.

On a daily basis, I joyfully share with my children that they too were “hand-made” by God. For example, I help to point out the very design of their hands…four fingers and a thumb for grasping….brilliant. When my children were first learning the names of body parts, eyes, ears, hair, toes…my husband and I were always saying, “God created your _____.” When I marvel at how fast my son can run across the backyard lawn I verbally give thanks that God created the very muscle in his legs and design of his bones to propel him forward.

You see, there will potentially come a day when the very essence of our children’s being will be challenged by this world. A day where they will feel that they were “mass-produced” and do not measure up to a cultural standard of beauty. Our society is filled with messages about “not measuring up” and the insecurities that flow from the acceptance of this message can damage how they feel about themselves.

The first foundational Christian principles for nurturing healthy body esteem are:

1. To teach children the foundational truth that they were created uniquely, specifically, wonderfully, and purposely by God.

2. To teach children that everyone with whom they come into contact or see was also created uniquely, specifically, wonderfully, and purposely by God.
Impress upon the children in your life these words in Psalms 139:13-14, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful.”

If you are grandmother, a mother, or a special person in a child’s life…I pray that your week will be filled with moments to share the awesome realities that the little one in your life was handmade by God.