This post is written by my friend Lynette Swart – she was a likehearted mum who encouraged mums in our town for the short time she lived here.

According to the dictionary affirmations mean: When something is affirmed, a positive statement or declaration of the truth or existence of something.

How many times God does say I love you in the Bible? Why? He wants to make sure you know and understand that He loves you. It’s a declaration of the truth.

How many times do you say I love you to your beloved one and him / her to you? Why? You want to make sure that they know and understand that you love them. It’s a declaration of the truth.

How many times do you say I love you to your children? Why? You want to make sure that they know and understand that you love them. It’s a declaration of the truth.

We teach, train and guide our children about the right things to do all the time. It’s an ongoing process. It is a beautiful and challenging journey. The levels of guidance, training and teaching differ from child to child and from age to age, because of the uniqueness and emotional levels of the children.

How do I maintain at all times a positive, joyful, and learning atmosphere and attitude in our home? With Gods guidance, I use our set of values to direct me. A value system is the heartbeat of a family. It is a set of guiding beliefs that, no matter where and when you are or whatever happens, you can always fall back onto those beliefs and act according to it. The easy part was to create the value system for myself and for my family, but the application thereof; to teach my children what a value system is, is the more challenging part.

Reading the Bible and learning through experience in parenting I’ve discovered the importance of positive statements and declarations of the truth. This led to affirmation in my life. I like to confirm my beliefs and to see, to experience and exercise it to the best of my ability every day.

Call it brainwashing, psychology, playing with your brain cells, whatever; it works for me. What do I do? I focus on a specific value that’s most appropriate for our family dynamics at a specific time and draw up some affirmations. The boys (3, 5 & 7 years), normally get an appropriate sketch with the positive statement (affirmation) and it goes onto our blackboard in the living area. Reading and seeing that day in and day out, is like positive brainwashing. After a while, we move onto the next value/affirmation and the previous one will go onto the backside of the toilet door.As an example: Our current value is Courage. The following is written on the blackboard in our home in the living area:

Together with this verbal affirmation, we’ve read and discussed a lot about David and Goliath.

As a personal growing step, I’ve also created some affirmations about my weaknesses, which I can use to remind me, to “brainwash” me about things that I would really like to develop or change. These affirmations go onto my bathroom mirror where I can see, feel and reflect on them every day, at least 5 times a day.

I’ve found positive statements / declarations of the truth / affirmation statements a great way to deal with personal growth and development, parenting and to value creation. It also serves as a great tool when lying in bed every night reflecting on the day or when journaling the days joys and challenges.

Laugh always, learn every moment and live life now!!
Lynette Swart

The little signs or posters that Lynette puts around her house reminds me of our “Reminder Wall”, taken, very loosely from the idea in Deut 6:9

The Scripture encourages us to record God’s Words on our doorposts. I have one wall in my house where we regularly post the things that we need to be reminded of

These and others are values that we attain to from reading God’s Word. We need to be reminded both of who we are in Christ Jesus and who he is making us be. I am reminded of that song “He’s changing, changing me, from glory to glory He’s changing me”. How very encouraging.

Read more about our Reminder Wall and see examples that may help you in your house.