So here's the thing - we realise reading is not for everyone. Some people find it really hard work, and that saps the joy out of it before you've even begun. But it is a fundamental skill for life - we need to be able to do it whether we enjoy it or not. And so it can be a bit of a battle field. If this is you, we hear ya!  But please don't give up on us! Storytelling is a part of who we are - whether it's written down in a book, out there on the big screen or ringing in your ears on the radio, stories connect with us in a way facts don't. They draw us in, tap into a part of us that is hidden deeper than we know and resonate with us long after. We may focus on books, but stories are all around us and you can find Jesus in them all.

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All of us on here have beautiful children -  some of them are even our own, but all of us have them even if they don't technically belong to us. Children who we invest in, pray for and desperately want to follow Jesus for themselves. We don't usually tell everyone how beautiful they are out loud, usually we like people to come to a realisation of their unmatched beauty by themselves, but you may never have seen them so take our word for it. Anyway, our children's beauty aside, we have them and over the years we've told them a lot of stories - not all of them that good.

 

Many of the books that we read when our children were very small have become well worn, firm favourites on our bookshelves, some them of them we are on our third or fourth copy due to poor binding - or very sticky fingers, it's hard to say exactly. 

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This project comes from many conversations with parents, grandparents, carers, fake aunties, new mum's, old mum's and most of them tired mums.

During one of these conversations, in trying to searching for a good example to try and encourage a mum through her tricky teenage season this phrase was uttered;

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"It's a Bear Hunt Situation."

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It needed no further explanation. And with it came a realisation; all those children's stories, all those years of rhyming and lifting the flap, were foundational to something.

 

You see, what's interesting about children's books and what makes the good ones good, is that they tap into a fundamental human truth. One which we all face at some point and one which we need to overcome. These stories were not simply passing the time until our kids went to school. They were forming our children's sense of self. They were helping them work out who they were. What they liked and disliked. How to deal with difficulty and pain and triumph. In ten short beautifully illustrated pages we have been teaching our children things that they would carry with them through their lives. The Bear Hunt needed no explanation. Everyone understood it was a situation where she "Had to go through it" because the Bear Hunt story had imprinted on the mums and on the teenagers.

 

As our children grow and we get ready to release them into the wild, we find we're falling back on those old familiar stories to try and help them process life more and more. The use of these memories help the situation seem less scary, more surmountable and a little more...cuddly? 

The Bible doesn't shy away from the fundamentals of who we are as fallen human beings. It speaks loud and clear to the very core of our sinful nature and desires (the very ones identified in children's stories) and points us to the ever loving gaze of Jesus.

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This project aims to draw familiar children's stories and deep Bible truths together to help navigate a way down the path. It's not fancy, nor will it mash your brain - but it may have you reciting rhymes you thought you had forgotten.

 

Each page will focus on one children's story. It will have a brief overview - for those who haven't had the pleasure - draw out one fundamental human truth and one theological truth that deals with that human truth.

We really have no idea how you will use this - but we pray that it will be helpful in raising your own beautiful human beings...