Tell Me a Story out of Your Mouth

“Tell me a story, Mommy. Out of your mouth.”

I learned at a very young age that the best stories were the true ones. The too-good-to-be-true ones. The too-crazy-to-be-true ones. I especially loved to hear about when my mom was a little girl like me, something proven by old photos that nevertheless confounded me. The idea of it seemed nearly impossible but simply wonderful at the same time.

A pivotal point in my own story was when I crossed the threshold of faith and believed that the story of the Bible was true. The intersection of God’s love and glorious plan of redemption through Jesus Christ with my life was too wonderful for me to comprehend. Could it really be that the God who made the universe would humble himself, take on human flesh, and die on the cross for my sins? My heart burst with joy and my eyes overflowed with tears at this over-the-top, too-good-to-be-true story.

That story changed everything for me. My life is now one continuous stream of stories that point to Jesus.

Stories that tell of God’s faithfulness and mercy.

Stories of his provision and protection.

Stories of his love meeting me in desperate times.

I have stories. You have stories. We all do. And for those of us who are Christians, maybe God hasn’t delivered us from lions’ dens like he did Daniel, but he’s redeemed us from our sin. Are we being good stewards of our stories? We should be rehearsing them in our hearts, sharing them with others, and telling them to our children.

That’s where the Lord’s been pricking my heart. Am I telling these stories, the too-good-to-be-true stories of God’s grace, the out-of-my-mouth ones, to my children?

I love my church, and I’m extremely grateful for the role of pastors, youth workers, and Sunday school teachers in training my children. But I don’t want to lean so heavily on them that I neglect my role as a parent in instructing my children in the faith.

We shouldn’t wait for someone else to tell our children the gospel. We need to tell them how much they need a Savior and how much Jesus loves them. And one way we can do this is in the context of our own stories. Do our children know how we came to faith? Do they know what Jesus saved us from? Have we told them how he has changed us?

Not only that, but we can connect God’s story to their own stories. How has God shown his love to our children? Provided for them? Protected them? As parents we store up memories in our hearts, but sometimes we forget to tell them to our children. For example, unless I tell my son, he won’t know how God protected him from a life-threatening car accident when he was an infant. Unless I tell her, my daughter won’t know how God provided diapers for her during my husband’s season of unemployment.

An important part of our children’s faith education is story-telling. The true kind. The kind that make them see how good and great God is. The kind that make them want to know and love him too.

Tell your children a story out of your mouth.

Deuteronomy 6-11, Psalm 78, Psalm 145:4-7, Mark 5:19