Fostering Gifts in our Children

Fostering gifts in our children is an ongoing message at yearly Mom Heart Conferences.  Last week at the conference in Raleigh, speaker Sarah Clarkson indicated that real heroes influence culture during their lifetimes. It’s what we desire for each of our children….to be light bearers in their sphere of influence.

Two years ago in Raleigh, I met a sweet mom named Erin. Thanks to Facebook we have been able to stay connected over the past two years. By remaining online friends, I was able to celebrate what God is doing in the life of her oldest son Tristan.  Here is her story:

“Tristan was born with music in his soul. My first clue surfaced during the semester of music classes in which my husband and I enrolled him at eighteen months. Our little introvert who desired no contact with anyone besides his father or me suddenly danced right out of his shell. Something miraculous happened to him there and he was a different kid, waltzing right up to strangers and interacting with them. We could not believe it!
As time passed, Tristan was always in the business of entertaining through dance and music. I remember the “Lord of the Dance” phase. You would have thought he’d had Irish step dancing lessons from birth. Then came the phase of always drumming on everything in sight, which is enough to drive a home-schooling mommy insane. When he finally met a real set of drums, it was love at first sight. He picked up those drumsticks and intuitively knew how to play the drums.  When he was around nine years old, he was playing on the worship team at our church.

Soon, Tristan was drawn to Christian rap. I had a hard time with this. I like gentle, calm and peaceful. And while I wrestled with these preferences, God used the lyrics of Godly rappers like Toby Mac and Lecrae to teach my son a great deal of solid biblical doctrine. They have been  positive role models for him. And as a result, Tristan began writing his own music and lyrics.

Over time, he built his own recording studio in our basement. Recently, a friend remixed a song that Tristan had written and recorded. On New Year’s Eve,  a local ski resort played his song.  The song later began airing on the local Christian station during weekend nights, while being released  on iTunes and Amazon.

We are thrilled that God is using the gift He gave Tristan to speak truth into the lives of people he may never even meet. It is a testimony to God’s grace and how He can use our children to advance His kingdom despite our flawed parenting. We can’t wait to see how the Lord will continue to use Tristan’s unique gifts for His own unique purposes.”

I asked Erin to include her story here because I believe often, in the online world, it might be easy for the mom at home to believe what she’s doing at home is trivial or mundane. It is my prayer that you see differently now through Erin’s story. When Erin took Tristan to music class at eighteen months, she had NO IDEA that God would develop that gift over the years to advance His kingdom. She and her husband simply took a step of faith to help Tristan discover his God given gifts.

May each of you know that the smallest details we each attend to in our child’s lives have the potential to make an eternal difference in the world. As we value them by fostering their gifts from their Heavenly father, we equip them to be today’s modern day heroes and influence culture for Christ during their own lifetimes.

You can enjoy Tristan’s gift of music at the following site by copying and pasting the link into your browser:

https://soundcloud.com/eyesontheking/tristan-peace-till-they-know

And know that his mom Erin is doing the “happy Mom dance”!

May God richly bless you as each of you discover and foster the gifts and abilities in your own little nest.

Be blessed!

Pam