The Denver Broncos have won five of the six games they've played since Tim Tebow became their starting quarterback, turning their season around.  As I watch him play football, I remember the evening in April 2009, when we heard Pam Tebow, Tim's mother, tell her story, and the story of her Heisman Trophy winning son, at a fundraiser for a Crisis Pregnancy Center in Tennessee.<a href="http://motherhoodstress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/pamtebow.jpg"><img class="alignright size-full wp-image-677" title="pamtebow" src="http://motherhoodstress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/pamtebow.jpg" alt="" width="155" height="194" /></a>

When she was pregnant with Tim, her fifth child, she was told that if she gave birth to that child she would risk her own life.

Pam and her husband Bob were missionaries in the Phillipines. Medication she had taken for an amoeba infection resulted in complications and, the doctors told them, she NEEDED to have an abortion.

"They didn't just recommend it; they didn't really give me a choice," Pam said. "That was the only option they gave me."

Instead of following the doctors’ advice, the family prayed. They prayed for Timmy by name.

“God spared him,” Pam told us that day in 2009. “We knew that God had His hand on Timmy’s life. And through the years we all told Timmy that.”

Pam shared that one of the values she and Bob instilled in their children was humility.  And that they relied on Scripture and faith.

She turned to those of us in her audience and said, “I have the same Bible and the same God that you do.  I’ve just chosen to count on it and I have staked my life - and the lives of my children - on it."

[caption id="attachment_669" align="alignleft" width="90" caption="Tim Tebow after the Heisman Trophy presentation in 2008"]<a href="http://motherhoodstress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Tim-Tebow.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-669 " title="Heisman Trophy Presentation" src="http://motherhoodstress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Tim-Tebow.jpg" alt="" width="90" height="90" /></a>[/caption]

The Tebows told all five of their children that they were special and that God had a plan for their lives. Tim's situation, however, was more intense because of his miraculous birth.

The Tebow children were home-schooled. A Florida law passed in the 1990s allowed homeschoolers to play public school sports.  So Tim played football for Nease High School in Ponte Vedra, even though he did not attend classes there.

Tim has gone on mission trips every year since he turned 15.  He spoke to a group of ten thousand students in the Phillipines on one such trip.  Pam attributed his ability to articulate his faith clearly to those summer mission trips.

[caption id="attachment_670" align="alignleft" width="240" caption="Tim as the quarterback for the University of Florida."]<a href="http://motherhoodstress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/tim-tebow.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-670" title="Tim Tebow" src="http://motherhoodstress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/tim-tebow-240x300.jpg" alt="" width="240" height="300" /></a>[/caption]

Pam’s advice to us as parents was this:
- "You start teaching them values when they are five or younger -- you don't start when they are in college."

- She had two “secrets” for parenting. The first was scripture. “We spent a lot of time memorizing Scripture and studying the Bible -- a lot of time."

- Her second "secret" was faith. “Trust God who has given you your children. He is adequate. You can trust Him to enable you to do what He's called you to do."

- "Prayer is also a huge part of the discipline of a parent," she reminded us.

<a href="http://motherhoodstress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/TimTebow3.jpg"><img class="alignright size-full wp-image-672" title="TimTebow3" src="http://motherhoodstress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/TimTebow3.jpg" alt="" width="120" height="80" /></a>Most of the parents whose young children I work with today, like the majority of parents I knew when my own five were growing up, spend untold hours chauffeuring kids to and from sports practices and cheering them from the sidelines game after game, season after season. Few of us will ever watch our kids play for national championships, earn their livings as professional athletes, or become the talk of sports world (like Tim Tebow has lately) with broadcasters and commentators describing their athletic feats as "magic" or praising them as "a winning winner."

But we can pray for our children, study the Bible for wisdom, and trust God to help us to teach them the values that will enable them to be winners in life.