Raising A Soul Surfer by Cheri Hamilton & Rick Bundschuh

Author:Cheri Hamilton & Rick Bundschuh
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Regal
Published: 2011-01-28T16:00:00+00:00

The church we were a part of began to grow as new people became believers and we all grew into spiritually healthy families together. God’s Word became the backbone of our lives as we were blessed with many gifted Bible teachers visiting the islands. We loved celebrating Jesus together. Going to church was never a duty; it was a passion and a natural part of our lives. When the Word of God speaks to your heart, it becomes real and personal and helps you grow close to Him and trust Him with your life.

Since all of our kids are adults now, and in particular, since Bethany’s story has gotten so much publicity, it is not uncommon for people to ask us our secret to keeping our kids from rebelling against their faith. They want to know what parenting formula we used to develop the amazing resilience Bethany showed in her comeback from tragic circumstances.

I am the first to say that it has only been by the grace of God that our kids turned out the way they have. I have a master child-rearing secret; it is called the Holy Bible. Its contents hold the greatest template to pattern our lives after. But upon reflection, and in talking about it with Tom and the kids, I do think there were some personal things we managed to get right. They were key things that helped contribute to how our kids have turned out.

The first key is that a healthy marriage makes for healthy families. I always thought that having a good marriage was the best gift I could give to our children. The value that Tom and I place on our relationship—our commitment to one another—is an anchor. This doesn’t mean we don’t get into squabbles from time to time, and we have had some rocky patches like anyone else; but our children always understood that we were committed to one another through thick and thin.

What is the secret to making our marriage work? God’s Word! It teaches us to be slow to anger and quick to forgive. Jesus’ words and His own example teach us that unconditional love and learning to die to our own selfishness is the way to live. The Scriptures say we shouldn’t let the sun go down on our anger (see Eph. 4:26). I take seriously the idea that we must forgive each other and resolve conflict in a timely manner. Invariably this means that I have to be willing to forgive slights, whether they are perceived or real.

Another thing Tom and I managed to do was create boundaries for our kids that weren’t so tight that they felt constricted and weren’t so vague or loose that the boundaries were easily disregarded. We used God’s Word to figure out what we would and would not permit; what standards we would maintain and what things were negotiable.

For example, we had boundaries about what kind of stuff we would watch on TV, or the kind of movies we would welcome into the house.

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