By-Product Blessings - a guest post by Amy Carroll

I asked my friend Amy Carroll if I could repost her blog about her family's first week into Our Salvation and Song.  I am so blessed to have other families reading along with us.  Although we are all on our own schedule and pace, it is such an encouragement to me (and some good accountability) to know other moms are out there each morning trying to get everyone to the table in time to read together. 

Amy Carroll is a speaker and writer with Proverbs 31 Ministries and is a speaking coach through Next Step Speaker Services.  I met Amy recently at a women's ministry luncheon.  Her eldest was leaving for college the next week, this immediately made me want to weep and wear sack cloth with her.  Oh I can't imagine, but I know the day will come!! But she seems to have survived this event and is doing Our Salvation and Song with her husband and teenage son.  I am so inspired by this because I have a bit of parenting tunnel vision.  I think of spiritual development in children as an elementary school thing - I have a hard time thinking ahead to the high school years.  But those years are on the way - so I better get ready! 

I hope Amy's message with encourage you to pick up or keep at the practice of daily bible reading as a family, whether your kids are 6 or 16 .... God has bountiful blessings waiting to pour onto your family. 

By-Product Blessings (originally posted @ www.amycarroll.org)  

Day 3. Check!

On Monday I wrote about our family's attempt at pre-school morning devotions. I thought that it was so interesting that my friend Lynn Cowell wrote about the same thing for Encouragement for Today this morning. 

Lest you start to think that our family is super-spiritual, let me just get the truth out there. Morning 3 of the alarm clock was way harder than morning 1. Also, I don't have a great track record for finishing what I've started. If you've ever wondered why I start series on things like wunning or memorizing James and then you don't hear anymore...is that enough of a confession?

But there is already a byproduct of our morning devotions that is unexpected and wonderful enough to keep me going--hearing Nolan pray. I'm gaining encouragement, spiritual insight and a glimpse at my boy's heart that is both surprising and delightful.

As the boys have gotten older and have started having their own prayer and Bible reading time, our family prayer time has fallen off, but the last three mornings have reminded me of why it's so important. I thought I'd be modeling prayer, but it turns out that I'm the learner!

I'd love to hear your family devotions stories. How do you follow through and keep going even with busy schedules?