When I became a mother, I began the search for materials that would help me foster my son’s – and my family’s – spiritual growth. I considered different ways I could pray and read the Writings with my baby, created ways to systematically introduce spiritual themes into our family’s routine, and tested how I could integrate Baha’i community activities into my new lifestyle as a mom.
I tried out various ideas from books, websites, and suggestions from friends. I spent hours upon hours reading and doing things such as creating homemade prayer books, establishing a weekly “Learning Virtues” routine, composing and recording our favorite tunes for Baha’i selections, collecting devotional programs appropriate for young children, testing ideas to make prayer-time more child-friendly, and connecting with Baha’i mothers all over the world in order to share experiences.
I started sharing my findings and creations on a personal blog Veritable Treasure. To my surprise I received quite a bit of feedback from Baha’i mothers around the world expressing common interests and desires for materials. Examples of comments I received on Veritable Treasure include:
Hi Chelsea, I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoy your blog. I learn so much every time I read it and inspires me to be a better mother to my 1 and a half year old twin girls :). You seem to have so many wonderful activities for your son and I was wondering if you could share some ideas for things I could do with my girls at this age at home. We have lots of nice outings during the week but I could use some inspiration for activities for their age at home besides just playing with random toys. Thanks in advance!
This is so amazing! Thank you so much for sharing your experiences in this way. It’s so inspirational and helpful 🙂 Reading your thoughts… resonates so much with me… I’m looking forward to trying to implement some of your strategies. I’ve not been able to stop reading one post to the next – it’s late – so I better… 😛 Thank you so much.
After keeping my personal blog for a couple years, my heart began to yearn to reach a wider audience and work on the Baha’i materials more systematically. So I did lots of brainstorming and planning about my vision and what I wanted to create, mostly by thinking about what was (and would have been) useful to me as a Baha’i mother of young children and what others had told me was useful to them.
I was also seeing the need to streamline my efforts after becoming a mother of two, because I simply did not have time to dedicate to so many unattached projects. Thus, Radiant Hearts was created to combine the “best ideas” I had tried and tested into one complete easy-to-use program. Addressing the most important aspects of spiritual education I had in mind for our family – studying prayers and quotations, and practicing spiritual qualities together – Radiant Hearts is the product of a few years of experience of raising two small children with these two goals in mind.
I asked my sister-in-law Penina if she wanted to team up with me so we could share our various talents and ideas, and we decided to create a website totally dedicated to supporting Baha’i moms. So Enable Me To Grow was launched in February 2012, and Radiant Hearts is the first of several resources we hope to offer over the next few years. (Read more about our story here.)
I am thrilled like christmas morning thrilled to have found you! Thank you, thank you, thank you for all of your hard work and dedication to this service. It’s EXACTLY what I / we needed!
Since creating the website and the Radiant Hearts program in particular, we have heard from Baha’i families around the world about how helpful it is to have this comprehensive resource available online, all free of charge.
We hope families will continue to enjoy the website and Radiant Hearts program while also understanding it is simply an individual effort at introducing spiritual education in the home, and not an official Baha’i resource. You may find it works well for you, and you may find another set of ideas and materials serves your family better.
We are grateful for your feedback so let us know what experiences you have had using our resources, and please share the website with your family and friends. If you would like to support our efforts, click here to find out how.
From Chelsea
