Activity 1
If you’re going through a divorce, talk with your children about what they’re experiencing. You can start by asking about their feelings. What emotions are they having?
Then, together with your child, investigate the many times in Scripture when people had similar emotions and pursued God in their distress. Read Scriptures where God tells us to go to Him in our pain. Here are a few to get you started: 2 Samuel 22:7, Psalm 118:5, Psalm 120:1, Deuteronomy 26:7, Isaiah 41:13, Isaiah 25:4, Psalm 42:5-6, and Matthew 11:28. After reading about people in the Bible who brought their troubled feelings to God, you can ask your kids these questions: What do your emotions tell you? And what can you do about them?
Write a verse or verses on a canvas or a framed sheet of paper. Help your kids hang it in their rooms as a reminder of “a shelter from the storm” (Isaiah 25:4).
Here are a few other questions you can discuss with your kids:
- How has divorce affected how I think about marriage? God? My parents?
- Why does divorce happen?
- What can God do to restore what has been broken and stolen
Activity 2
Help your children use Philippians 4:8 (TLB), reprinted below, to remind them of the good things in their lives—and of God, Who never changes, even though divorce has changed their circumstances. Remind them also that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). Work with them to write specific things in the following blanks that are true, good, right, and so on.
And now, brothers, as I close this letter, let me say this one more thing: Fix your thoughts on what is true (_______) and good (_______) and right (_______). Think about things that are pure (_______) and lovely (_______), and dwell on the fine, good (_______) things in others. Think about all you can praise God for and be glad about (_______).
Activity 3
Read Colossians 3:12 with your kids, and talk about how we need to set our minds on what we can control instead of getting stuck on what we cannot control.