It takes engaging with Him in the privacy of your own room, all alone, believing He hears, and living through years of seeing His faithfulness.
It is a real live relationship— exciting, mysterious, an adventure. To be close to His heart will always bring confidence, peace, and security.
Have you spent enough time with God lately to feel you truly are growing to know Him more and more? Think about how you might build your relationship today.
Read more about this in Mom Heart Moments.
Click here to play today’s new podcast episode.
I love historical biographies that inspire, give me a model of faith I can learn from, have full-bodied Christian women who call me to my best self and stay with me for decades. Lilias Trotter has been a favorite Victorian role model for me for quite a while.
It just happens, a very dear friend of mine just released an excellent, soul-filling book about her life. It is great to have a summer time read, just for fun and encouragement that I can savor. This is such a book.
Jennifer Trafton is the author and the book is called If Only We Could See: Reimagining Creativity, Compassion, and Calling Through the Extraordinary Life of Lilias Trotter.
I think you will greatly enjoy it. Hear our conversation about her life on my podcast.
"But there is also an eternal reward to parenting. Through your children, God has given you the privilege of passing on your faith and the truth of Scripture to future generations.
When you reach your heavenly home and stand before God, He will be waiting to show you the generations after you that will find His path to their eternal home with Him because of what you did for your children. God’s reward will be His, 'Well done!'"
(From Heartfelt Discipline by Clay Clarkson)
If you take the time to mentor your children, love them well, speak into their lives, give them a spiritually rich atmosphere, they will indeed surprise you. My children have all grown far beyond my expectations. That resulted out of their own personal direction and choice.
But I learned more clearly that children are the most valuable resource of any country in all of history, and their capacity to excel, to create, to accomplish is vast because they were endowed with amazing capacity in their hearts, souls, and minds.
From Awaking Wonder.
Click here to play today’s new podcast episode.
“The Lord GOD has given Me the tongue of disciples, That I may know how to sustain the weary one with a word. He awakens Me morning by morning, He awakens My ear to listen as a disciple.” -Isaiah 50:4
Words have the power of life and death, so James tells us.
Yesterday a sweet friend sent me an email and she told me how much she valued my friendship. Words of love and appreciation followed, and how much encouragement and vision I had provided in her life and an example for her to follow.
My whole day was changed. She spoke hope into my life. I felt more adequate for what she had taken the time to plant in my mind and soul.
Scripture tells us that a good word at the right time is of great value:
“A word aptly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.” Proverbs 25:11
Words give hope to the discouraged. I was talking to one of my children who is struggling with jobs and finances and I invested words of affirmation, exhortation, believing in this child's abilities, seeing God grow character through the trials, saying how proud I was.
Words like:
I believe in you.
You are such a dear friend to me.
Your integrity has been such a model for me to follow.
I love you for going to work every day and serving me and the kids so diligently. You are a wonderful provider.
I love who God has made you.
I appreciate your faithful heart and the ability to keep going even in hard times.
I love you for knowing me and still loving me, a rare trait unconditional love!
Our children need a treasure chest full of our good words to draw from in challenging times. Our words literally build their garden of their soul.
Two days ago, I talked to one of my children, quite discouraged by months and months of an uphill climb in this challenging life. I intentionally poured out scripture, love, affirmation, exhortation, belief in God working even as we waited, and love to this child. Today, another phone call came. Seems the words set this child to pondering God's life's work and dreams and plans for this one, and consequently, this child was greatly encouraged to trust God for life's challenges—dreaming dreams of world changing again. Words are there—as the proverb says—aptly, at the right time, to do their work.
Words are created to be a spring of life by the Word of Life, Jesus, who uses people with real bodies to give His own encouragement through the life pouring out from our hearts as a result from being with Him.
Words can also devastate and kill. Words that should never be uttered out-loud. Words stick in the soul of children, a husband, friends, Christians, non-believers. Words can spread hurtful gossip, hate, bitterness—it sets aflame all sorts of contention. Controlling our words is an amazing work of the Holy Spirit.
Often, when I would feel lonely or discouraged in my own life, I would choose 5 people that I loved and appreciated and write them a note or email telling them of their great worth in my own life. I found that when I sowed words of life and love, my own heart would always become encouraged. Kind of like choosing to begin making a list of all I have to be thankful for, makes my heart grateful.
Who needs you to write them a note of life-giving words today? Who needs to hear your words of love and encouragement in person or on the phone? Who are the five people that God could use you today to give them just what they didn't even know they needed, but would change the course of their day?
Words must also be initiated to be useful. It is no good just thinking appreciation. Words are water to thirsty souls, food to hungry hearts. May we pour out a flood of great words today and see the lives of people who need to hear God's voice, be changed by the grace that He uses through us to give to them who are longing for a touch from His Spirit.
I also know that I will never be perfect, that controlling life is an impossible and unreasonable goal.
Eternity with God has become more precious to me as I have allowed him to take my hold on those things that really do not matter, to gently place each of my fingers into the palm of his hand, to feel his grasp on my hand, confidently leading me forward.
Read more about this in Dancing With My Heavenly Father.
His life and light are what make us “the light of the world” so that we can “shine before men in such a way that they may see [our] good works, and glorify [our] Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:14-16).
We’re turning on that light in our homes so others who are overcome by darkness and death may see it and find the light and life in Christ that we have found.
Read more about this in Mom Heart Moments.
Surprised by Daffodils—unexpected blooms during different seasons
Recently, I was sitting out on our covered deck with a dear old friend reminiscing about our lives as roommates, single missionaries in communist countries over 40 years ago. What adventures. I didn’t know life would be this way! I could never have predicted my story would turn out with so many twists and turns, I didn’t know motherhood would be such a marathon, I didn’t know I would be stretched to my limits. Or that God would over long years give me the strength to keep going forward and living into the story I had been given.
Today, I am quite tired to my bones, but it is a good tired. I never knew God would give m 4 children, or that they would live far, far from home. Or that I would have the privilege to have a ministry amongst kindred spirits all over the world.
Today, in a crunch of time, I am going to relax a bit and share a couple of my own stories—just for fun. Maybe some day I will tell my life story—it is beyond what I could have imagined.
Join me on my podcast today to relax and enter into some of my tales.
I hope it gives a little grace to your story, too. And some of my favorite verses that helped me to learn to put away fears and worries through the seasons of life. Bless you this week.
Whether we live in tiny apartments or suburban subdivisions or out in the country, we can—and must—seek out places of refuge where we can all breathe fresh air and freedom.
Walks in public parks, trips to national parks, fishing in a river, picnics in forests for a day away from the demands of daily life— any of these can restore souls.
In the midst of our busy, stressful, challenging days, we desperately need to taste the beauty of the Lord and remember just how good He is.
Read more about this in Different.
Seeing children develop a heart for God's service and begin to find their own place of ministry in the world is a reachable goal for us as mothers, because God has designed us to fulfill this purpose.
The is the true ministry of motherhood—to usher our children into the living presence of God, to nurture in them a heart for Jesus and the Great Commission he has called each of us to fulfill.
Read more about this in The Ministry Of Motherhood.
