If you are a woman, as I suppose most of my readers to be, I am sure you have compared yourselves to your friends.  You think, “wow, that mom does a lot.”  Or “she has such a clean, organized house.”  Or “how does she run her home so effectively.”  Or “how does she have so much time to make such beautiful things.”  The list could go on and on.  I find myself comparing myself a lot lately. I’ll come home from wherever I’ve been or talk to my husband after reading blogs or facebook and be down on myself because I don’t do such and such.  But then I remember I have FOUR kids…three of whom are under 3!  AND God has not called me to be those other woman.  He has called me to be the mom of my four blessings and the wife to my husband.  No one else can do that. Lots of people can be the best business owner, or the most organized mom, or the most crafty, or whatever but no one and I mean no one else can be my kids mommy or my husband’s wife.  Remember this when you start to compare yourself with those around you because you know we all do.  There are certain things that God has called you to that no one else can do it.  Do these will all your might and God will bring you peace and joy as you fulfill His purpose.

I stole this from A Wise Woman Builds Her Home.  Go check out her blog for other encouraging posts.

If I talk to my children about what is right and what is wrong, but I have not love, I am like a ringing doorbell or pots banging in the kitchen. And though I know what stages they will go through, and understanding their growing pains, and can answer all their questions about life, and believe myself to be a devoted mother, but I have not love, I have nothing.

If I give up the fulfillment of a career to make my children’s lives better, and stay up all night sewing costumes or baking cookies at short notice, but grumble about lack of sleep, I have not love and accomplish nothing.

A loving mother is patient with her children’s immaturity and kind even when they are not; a loving mother is not jealous of their youth nor does she hold it over their heads whenever she has sacrificed for them.

A loving mother believe in her children; she hopes in each one’s individual ability to stand out as a light in a dark world; she endures every backache  and hearthache to accomplish that.

A loving mother never really dies. As for home-baked bread, it will be consumed and forgotten: as for spotless floors, they will soon gather dust and heel marks. As for children, right now toys, friends and food are all-important to them. But when they grow up, it will be their mother’s love that they will remember and pass on to others. In that way, she will live on.

So care, training and a loving mother reside in a home, these three but the greatest of these is a loving mother.

Have you ever had one of those days? A day where every child seems to get hurt over and over again? A day when once you finish cleaning up one child’s poop the other one has even more poop? A day when your daughter takes her diaper off and smears poop all over everything and herself in the crib? If you are a mom I’m sure you have and today was one of those days for me.

But as I was sitting in my chair feeding Zeke for what felt like the millionth time and hoping he falls asleep so I can put him down and get some laundry done, I looked out the window and saw how pretty the moon looked. At that moment I quieted my heart and talked to the Lord. I thanked him for he beautiful night sky and for His creation. Than my eyes noticed the smudges all over the window. I thought about how badly my windows needed cleaned and how in the world I was going to fit that in. Then in the next instant I thought about how someday I will miss having those smudges to clean off the windows. There will come a day (and it will come faster than I can imagine) when I will clean the windows and they will stay that way for a good long time. When that day comes I will miss the smudges.

Thank you God for the smudges and messes my kids make. Help me to remember that they will not stay young forever and to enjoy every single moment while they are at home. Continue to teach me what is important. In Jesus name, Amen

I have seen this video a few times now and it always makes me think. First of all, Paul Washer rocks! Secondly, I agree with much of this video if not all of it and even if you don’t agree with it please take the time to think and pray about it.

The part I really want to point out and make sure you catch is the part about public schools. How can we as Christians send our children to be educated by the World, or as Paul Washer puts it Satan. We are to train our children up at home. We can’t expect the little bit of teaching we give them when they get home from school (if we have time and aren’t too tired from homework and housework since mom isn’t home doing it) and church to make our kids Godly! If we want to raise up a generation of rock solid Christians who can make it through the coming persecutions we need to be training them at home and training them in the Word first and foremost!

Reading the Bible with our son has been such a great blessing in our family. For some time we had been reading to him out of a Bible storybook. Then one day my husband stumbled across an article on Titus2.com about reading to your little ones out of the “real” Bible. While I was not initially convinced, I submitted to his decision and he began reading to our son a segment out of the Bible every night, starting in Revelation (of all places!). We originally read out of the NKJV, but then switch to NIV because it is an accurate translation and easier for a youngster to follow. Eventually we bought our son his very first “real” Bible, a VeggieTales NIV Bible, which we now read from with him. I think it’s special that he has his own little Bible which he can look at during Bible study at our LIFE Group (it has Veggie-Tales comic strip inserts relating to Bible stories) and when we read to him in the evenings we’re reading from his very own Bible. He also has a Hermie Plush Backpack Bible Cover and you can get a Hermie & Friend’s Bible to go with it.

Hermie Bible Backpack

Inside the Bible

Another inside picture with a comic strip

The outside of Ben’s Bible

While it took me quite awhile to be completely sold on the idea, I was amazed that our son would actually pick up on things from the text. Ben is sometimes reluctant (especially at first), but he is actually absorbing the Word of God. A child’s mind is much more complex and ready to understand things than we often think. A recent example of how Ben is really getting it was when he was playing with his cars the other day. He was playing with the ones from the Disney-Pixar movie Cars, and I heard him tell one of the cars that “the first shall be last, and the last shall be first.” He even said “shall.” It just melted my mommy heart. I love that he is actually picking up on these concepts; all it takes is a mommy and daddy willing to put up with the fussing and actually read the Bible to their children.

I encourage you today to start reading to your children from the Word of God. They may not look like they are listening or care, but it is being absorbed.

Proverbs 22:6 – “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.” ESV

Isaiah 55:11 – “so shall my words be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” ESV

2 Timothy 2:15 – “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.” ESV