On Tuesday, Aleyah turned 8. While she believes she is actually 18, her father and I have the job of guiding her back to reality. But because she is growing up, we decided to give her an iPod as her birthday gift. Thankfully we had an extra one that was no longer being used, so she opened it Tuesday morning and was super excited to see that she had this “toy”. She didn’t have much time to fiddle with it since she had to get ready for school, so when we arrived home from dismissal that afternoon, she made a bee line for her iPod. She raced upstairs, changed into workout clothes, put in her earbud (yes, singular- so she always has an ear to hear!), and began running up and down our street like she has seen her dad and mom do so many times.
When I told Scott what she had done, he told me that through his reading for his children’s ministry class this semester, he learned that research has shown that children begin to mimic their parents around age 7-8. An awesome and scary responsibility this is!
I am a daily example to my children whether my actions are positive or negative. My prayer is that my children will live for Jesus, be loving, be bold, be strong, and be a light in a dark world. Which means this:

iLead with dependence on God, so they can trust in saying, “iFollow”.