I think a lot about what I should and shouldn’t do as a Christian parent.

What to get involved it.

What to stay away from.

What to protect my kids from.

What to allow my kids to participate in.

Is it ever okay to tell someone else’s family how to raise their children?  For someone to say, “Don’t let your children go trick or treating,” for example.

It can be emotionally exhausting at times.  I think the emotional aspect surfaces when we second guess ourselves.  When we look around at the masses and think that perhaps, we are doing everything wrong and everyone else is doing everything right.

We need to stop walking around with the shackles of fearful parenting.  Since when did the masses tell us how to raise our children or what was right for a particular home?  Your answer comes from the gentle whisper of your Father.  As you leaf through the pages of His living Word, He will speak to you intimately.  His whisper speaks much louder and clearer than a bickering crowd.

So whether it is

• home education or in a school building
• home birth or hospital birth
• trick or treating or avoiding any part of it
• bottle feeding or nursing
• large families or small
• watch television or don’t own one
• dance or don’t dance
• dresses all the time or slacks and sweats

don’t sweat it!

Seek your approval from God alone.  If you know in your heart that you are making a God-honoring decision, move forward boldly and with grace.  Never leave grace out, especially in your bold decisions.  Grace is always dressed with humility and kindness.

So whether you will be allowing your kids to trick-or-treat or not, do it with grace.  Extend grace and receive grace.  Grace is a partnership.

{We allow our children to trick-or-treat, but we respect the decisions of parents that don’t.}  If you choose to leave a comment, don’t leave grace out.