Heavenly Mothering is Prayerful -Day 5

"Pray without ceasing." Thessalonians 5:17

We just watched Mom's Night Out tonight. It was pretty easy for me to relate to the heroine, hiding in the closet eating chocolate. There have been many days where, overwhelmed by all the little lives that I was supposed to be managing, I have stolen off to my closet to cram down some dark chocolate and pray for patience. 

I will never forget the moment when I had a room full of friends dining with us and my husband came out with the question, "Why do you have chocolate in the laundry room cupboard?" I knew that all my mom friends would totally understand why the chocolate would be in the laundry room. It had a door so my darlings wouldn't have to be tempted by unhealthy sugar, and it was a room where I could legitimately be alone to grab a moment of quiet (and chocolate) before facing the next crisis.

As a momma there are so many things that are completely out of our control. Childhood illnesses and accidents, sleepless nights and soiled sheets. We face long days that are often devoid of any adult conversation or extra hands to help us as we care for our little ones. We cannot stay sane and sweet, not even come close to Heavenly Mothering, unless we are staying in an attitude of prayer. 

God loves you and is ready to give you all the peace and energy that you need, simply turn to Him in prayer.

Your prayers might be simple, "Help me Jesus!" but God is always listening and cares about even the most trivial of things, God loves to come through for us. 

Psalm 62:8 says, "Trust in Him at all times ye people, pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us."

Sometimes it is hard to find a quiet moment to pray, especially when the children are all young enough that a moment to yourself might mean many moments spent cleaning markers off walls or pulling paraphernalia out of toilets (why is that little ceramic pond so attractive to small children?).

 When my children were younger I would try to get up before them and start my day with quiet time. However, it seemed that the earlier I got up, the earlier my children would get up. Now I grab prayer time wherever and whenever I can. 

I pray during Bible time with my children, in my bed as I go to sleep, and even in the closet while I am getting ready in the morning. Praying without ceasing is just that, grabbing opportunities to talk to God, wherever you can find them, knowing that He is a trustworthy refuge for us.

How do you find time to pray?

For the rest of my series on Heavenly Mothering, click here

Heavenly Mothering is Intentional-Day 2

"Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven." Matthew 6:10

I love the title of the book, Heaven on Earth. Although I don't know what the spiritual status of the author is, she does understand that Heaven is the ideal we all look forward to. Her dream is to create a heavenly home where children are able to thrive and grow.

I believe that when Jesus taught us how to pray, He wanted us to look forward to and believe in His heavenly will being done on earth. Part of his heavenly will is that there will be families that reflect to the world what the kingdom of God looks like. Heavenly minded families are made up of individuals who love God with their heart, soul and mind, and who are led by Holy Spirit.

Many Christian parents either don't know what God's will is, or believe that doing God's will doesn't have much to do with parenting.

I believe that doing God's will has so very much to do with parenting. When we are gifted with children, we are given little disciples. John 15:16 says, "...I have chosen you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain…"


There are many ways of being fruitful for God. Any time that you love your neighbor, or pray for the sick, or even keep your yard tidy, you are in a sense being fruitful. However, I can think of few better ways of being fruitful than by putting effort into mothering the small disciples that God has put in your home.

So before you do anything else as a parent, you must start by being intentional about parenting. This means that you recognize it as a calling, and that you see the small people in your home as eternal souls who are worth pouring into and caring for, if not for the joy of caring for your precious gifts, then for the joy that it brings your Father.

We will talk more about the steps of being intentional in future posts, but one good place to start is by spending time daily praying for your children. The Lord's Prayer or another written prayer can be helpful if formulating thoughts in prayer is difficult. For me, prayer is often conversational, or simply speaking the Word of God over my family.

Another step to being intentional is reading a good book or blog about mothering. The many books I have read have helped formulate a mothering philosophy and have given more meat to the foundational truths in scripture that relate to mothering.

Do you have a favorite book that encourages you to be intentional as a parent?
Some books that I have learned from are-
Home Education- Charlotte Mason
Lies Women Believe
Shepherding A Child's Heart-Tedd Tripp
Heaven On Earth
Families Where Grace Is In Place
Seasons of a Mother's Heart
Montessori in the Classroom
Montessori From The Start
Last Child in the Woods


For the rest of my series on Heavenly Mothering, click here

If you want these posts delivered to your inbox, simply put your name and e-mail in the subscribe box above.

For more posts on Family Life from the 31 Days of Writing series click here.

Daily Worship-The Best Part of Homeschooling

When my children were all young, our daily Bible time consisted of simple devotionals such as Leading Little Ones to God, memory verse work and simple Sunday School songs mixed in with some classic hymns. 

A few years ago, we found the devotional Long Story Short which was just what we needed. I had been so oblivious to what the Gospel really was, I was placing way too much emphasis on good behavior, and way too little on the finished work of Christ on the cross. Long Story Short was all about the redemptive work of Christ, and it came at a time when we desperately needed hope that our behavior wasn't what got us saved, but that it was what Jesus had done for us that brings salvation.

Fast forward a couple years. We had tried and failed to produce good children by focusing solely on good behavior, and so most of my children who are old enough to remember the intense years when we hit the brick wall of failed human goodness, are very, very thankful for a God who saves, despite our failures. This has brought some big changes to our daily worship time. 

Our morning Bible time still has some memory work, and some coloring pages and simple Bible stories for the little ones, but now the bulk of the time involves pouring our hearts out in worship to our amazing Lord. We are a musically developing family, so we might stream a Bethel Redding worship service to get passionate worship dropped into our living room on a Monday morning, or it might be my teen boys on their guitars or cajon leading us in some songs which they have been working on. 

                                          

Whether it is Jeremy Riddle at Bethel leading our worship, or my boys on their guitars, we are thankful. I still love the hymns, and we still occasionally sing the B-I-B-L-E for the sake of the younger children, but to see my teens seek God because they have tasted and seen how good He is, is the most amazing gift this momma could imagine. 

I have blown it as a mom in a million different ways, but God has been only good, and the joy of worshipping Him with my children is just one of the millions of ways He has shown just how merciful He is.

                                           

A Fresh New Year With Fresh New Goals

Photo courtesy, Emelie Pepito

I love Christmas, but as soon as the day is past, I am ready to get organized for the new year. One of my favorite New Year's traditions is getting the decorations put away and the rooms dusted and vacuumed. It is so nice to have everything fresh and clean again. Another of my favorite traditions for the first day of the year is making a whole new set of goals to help define the coming year. 

Although I have read many books on goal setting, one of my favorite systems was well explained by missionary wife Colleen Adams at a women's meeting I went to. Thankfully my creative friend Rebecca, beautifully explains the whole system here, visit her page and you will find a very clear explanation of each area of goal setting. The short story is that, instead of trying to make A, B and C goals, or just a big list of general goals for the year, Colleen's method has you break down your goal setting into eight different areas. Also, instead of making goals for the whole year, these goals are meant to be for a shorter time period, such as three months.

Although, some of last year's goals, have found their way back onto this year's list, making goals and working towards them is a useful way of starting to develop the good habits that make up an orderly life and a civilized world.

Photo courtesy, Emelie Pepito

As a starting point for your 2014 goal setting, I have included my goals for the first three months of the year, in each of eight areas.

1. Self Care

Pilates 5 times per week (planning for 5, might help me get at least 2 in!)

Drink 5 glasses of water per day (coffee doesn't count)

2. Spiritual Life

Finish Experiencing God (Henry Blackaby)

Spend first 30 minutes of the day in prayer/Bible study

3. Intellect/Emotions 

(for me right now, these are some homeschool goals)

Finish Algebra with second daughter

Consistent school with youngest children

4. Relationships

Spend friendly time with hubby when he arrives home 

(complaining about the day, or asking him to do a project does not count)

Read aloud to children daily

5. Time Management

No phone/computer until priorities 1, 2 and 3 are done

Up and productive by 7am

6. Nest Management

Keep my room clean

Keep the laundry room clean

(2 hot spots that make me feel better when tidy)

7. Uniquely You

(This might mean weekly pedicures, or more time spent on self care, 

but those aren't my top priorities right now)

Consistent blog upkeep

Keep closet organized

8. Financial Stewardship

Make a list of accounts

Organize household filing system

I hope these give you some ideas for your own goal setting. Be sure and pray through your goals and let God give you inspiration about what you should be doing. Then, once your goals are written down, find a friend to be your accountability partner and enjoy seeing all that you accomplish this year.

The steps of a good man are ordered of the Lord: and he delighteth in his way

Psalm 37:23

Linked up at Welcome Home Wednesdays

Family Vacation with a Purpose

For over 12 years now we have been combining family vacations with family mission trips. When I was pregnant with our 4th, we took a week to go to Mexico and help some missionaries there and our life was forever changed. Since that trip, we have made an effort to be either living in or visiting Mexico for mission work.

some of my guys

 About 8 years ago, we moved to Mexico and lived there for nearly 4 years, helping an orphanage and doing building projects to help local churches and friends. Now when we go on our biannual trips to Mexico, instead of feeling like a mission trip, it is more like an exciting vacation to see our friends.

We recently made the big drive down, making sure to stop at one of the beautiful 

 Southern California beaches on our way down.

the beach!

As we drove through the border into Mexico our 12 passenger van was flagged and we were given a semi thorough search. At one time, being pulled over to try and maneuver the laws of  Mexico might have made us nervous, but now it is just an expected annoyance.

After crossing the border we made the long trip down a dirt road to the home we lived in during our last few years there. We were warmly greeted by our friends who are living there now, a family who lives off the grid with very little in the way of modern conveniences, such as water and electricity.

The view from the east road, over the hill is the ocean.

Our time in Mexico is always busy. Visiting the orphanage and trying to remember the names of all the children, feeling sad about the ones who have left and trying to meet the new little ones, is always a highlight of our time in Mexico. 

some of our friends at the orphanage

Our other favorite part is seeing dear friends and trying to communicate with them in our fading Spanish. We have been so blessed by our times in Mexico. Something that seemed so frightening back when we first started going down is now like a visit to see family. There are some inconveniences to be sure (we stay off the grid and not at the Marriott), but we are blessed to have the privilege of being in relationship with Christians south of the border.

Visiting with friends over Pollo Asada

Pray

I am a little late in updating this week, it has been incredibly busy. We are meeting with a group of teen girls to study the book, "Lies Young Women Believe," trying to find a car for Emelie, celebrating Elias' birthday and working through church search issues. The Lord is really impressing on my heart an urge to pray more, it is really my only recourse in the midst of pressures.

In my last post I talked about a basic principle of not leaving children to themselves. When we do not pray for our children, it is the ultimate in leaving our children to themselves. Prayer should be our first response to a problem and number one on our to-do list.

When we first moved to Mexico, we left a homeschool dream world. Our creek provided plenty of nature study, we had a safe community of homeschool friends and no financial worries to bring stress into our home. Moving to Mexico was an extreme dose of culture shock. The sights of scantily clad girls on the Spring Break billboards, the smells of sewage as you cross the border (San Diego has their sewage treatment facility conveniently located next to the T.J border) and the new friends we made, regenerate ex-cons, made our new community a challenge and joy to settle into. Psalm 46:1 says that God is our refuge, an ever present help in trouble. As we met each new experience and challenge, going to Him in prayer was our refuge and He was faithful to keep us safe and growing as we walked through the trials.

Whatever your situation is, whether dealing with the regular challenges of raising toddlers, or the more intense challenges of financial stress, family struggles, special needs, or cross cultural ministry, while raising toddler, God is there, He knows how many hairs are on your head and He promises to walk with us through the valley. Pray without ceasing.