January 19 with KT-Girl

Thursday:  SO ... here is what I have concluded (this is seemingly going to sound like it is coming out of nowhere) ... Kaity is 10-and-a-half years old. She attends an Awana program on Wednesday nights during the school year (Miss Jen is one of the Awana leaders!) ... but any other teaching or instruction about the Lord--she does not receive. I have tried in years past to have a weekly "Bible story" time with her--just doing brief 10-minute stories--but Kaity will have nothing whatsoever to do with it! She just doesn't tolerate hearing a story from the Bible. Sigh. 

But I have been hearing whisperings deep inside of my heart, and I believe they come from God's Spirit, that I have given up too easily on teaching Kaity. And I've been asking Him HOW to be more intentional with Kaitlynn instead of having her call all of the shots around here. Here's the thing, though--I am not the type of person to CRAM something down her throat--so don't worry. I just need to find a way to share God with her in a way she can understand. Thankfully, we do a lot of singing in the car--beautiful songs about Jesus--and Kaity sings them with enthusiasm.

I have a children's story Bible that is exceptionally written (by Catherine Vos) and I've been thinking I could read one story per week with Kaity, starting NOW!

We began with the first story in the book which is the account of Zacharias (the priest) seeing the vision in the Holy Place of the temple and the announcement that he and his wife would have a son in their old age (John the Baptist). As I read the story, Kaity and I painted. Our pictures had nothing whatsoever to do with the story--but that was OK because it gave Kaitlynn something with which to occupy her hands while we talked about the story.

Speaking of something to do with her hands ... Kaity really got her HANDS involved in her painting. We were using watercolor paints that I had prepped beforehand with a little moisture, along with nice watercolor paper that I edged off with painter's tape so that it would have a nice "finished" look once the tape was removed. We made it through the entire story with Kaity tracking along and asking questions as we went. It was good time spent, I think. We enjoyed painting, too.

Kaity went back to her phone afterwards, but that's OK. I cleaned up our mess at the table and was just thankful that we had this time together.

I will have to think of something different for next Thursday ... because repeating the same activity each week doesn't work well with Kaity. She likes "new" things and quickly becomes bored with reruns. Something for me to pray about ...