"If I could only encourage mothers to follow one principle of wisdom in their relationship with their children, it would be that of cultivating fervent, intimate love with each of their children. When children feel loved and cherished by the parents who brought them into the world, they have enduring stability and security that provides them with groundwork for understanding the God of the universe who so loves us. Love is the most important foundation for learning to believe in God."
-Sally Clarkson, The Mom Walk
I am convinced that a child who feels his mother does not love him or have his heart in mind, cannot learn well and will not be as easy to motivate. The Bible uses the word heart 725 times. The heart is the place a person is inspired, catches vision, and it is the seat of belief and faith. A wise mom will realize that education, motivation, inspiration to excellence and greatness lies in reaching the heart.
But if the mama does not cultivate her own heart of gentleness, love, patience, words of affirmation, trusting the Holy Spirit to work in her children's lives, bringing the heart of God into the picture---then she will be left with gutting it out in her home and in homeschool. If we lead with a heart sensitive to the values of God, then we have a great capacity to influence almost anyone.
Often, moms tell me that their children are impossible to teach. I always have to say, "Have you filled the emotional cup of your child? Does your child believe that you like who he is? Does your child think that you are more concerned about her ideas, thoughts and over all well-being or does she think you just want her performance? Works and laws just drive children further away from being teachable. God has entrusted mothers to subdue a very important task--to be life givers, to bring beauty, to maintain the home domain, and to ultimately be the heart of the home. This may sound like an ideal with impossible expectations, but it is not only necessary, but practical as well.
The connection of a mother and child is deeply physical, emotional, and even spiritual. By God's design, children will always sense at some level a special connection to their mother that gives her a unique voice and influence in their lives and hearts. If properly cultivated, developed, and understood within the context of God-given personality drives, it is a powerful source of influence. Homeschooling mothers, you have the unique opportunity to be the relational heartbeat of your family as you interact with your children. Being home throughout the day with your children, you have nearly constant access to their hearts.
Having a heart for your children means accepting their God-given personality.
Laughing at their jokes (especially if they are boys!), having compassion for their tears. It means not belittling them, or shaming them, but believing in their hopes and dreams, even if there is a pile of dishes in the sink. And also believing that they will eventually be able to learn their multiplication tables! Believe in them, believe in their potential--do not give them a voice in their head that you doubt them or believe them to be bad.
If you love and accept them unconditionally as Jesus accepts you, you will prepare their hearts to believe in God's love because they have experienced it from you.
However, your influence as a mom, or homeschooling mama, won't come from obsessing over reading all of the right books on motherhood, listening to the latest parenting experts, using the "best" homeschooling materials, or being the best homemaker--in short, checking off all the right boxes. It will come from your faithfulness and because your "mom heart" is open to God and seeking His will. It is in the moments of godly influence in your children's hearts that will make you the heart of the home.
Being this faithful mother may seem like an idealistic goal, but it is a very realistic challenge. Homeschooling is demanding and constant with little time off. The reality of homeschooling is that God is asking you to become a servant to your children-to be willing to sacrifice your time, body, energy, and expectations for them. It takes your willingness and intention to become the heart of the home and to give your homeschooling a heartbeat.
Your faithfulness and willingness simply means you saying:
"I can do all things through him who gives me strength!" -Philippians 4:13
Being the heart of your home is having God's heart for your family and serving their hearts for God. How can you create a heartbeat in your home today?
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For more encouragement and inspiration, you will enjoy this course on Weaving the Love of Learning in your Home.
Joel is a miracle maker and retrieved all the information and our own video and added his music! I hope you will enjoy it and be encouraged. Let me know if you think this is a good way to gather for encouragement--especially for sweet mamas who cannot attend the conferences.
(For those of you who have wondered, the conference company we hired lost their recording connection Monday afternoon and forgot to inform us of the inability to record our conference as promised. We had to add our own small camera on the spot, tape it, download it for 24 hours and then edit it. God was so gracious to allow this to all come together! Kinda like life--We live somewhere between ideals and real life! Onward in His grace!)
It is uploaded for those of you who registered! You will get an email in your inbox that will give you the link to the video where you can watch it!
For those of you who have asked if you can still watch it, we will offer it for the next few weeks.
For those of you who originally attended the course, you have received information in your inbox of how you may watch it again.
If you wish to do so, you can download the video as well as just watch it, though keep in mind that at an hour-and-a-half, it is a very large file, and download times may be quite lengthy. (it took us 24 hours.) So you may just want to watch it.
We appreciate all of you honoring the copyright laws. Please do not give your friends the pass code to the video, or put it anywhere online publicly as this is copyrighted material. It is only for those who registered. Thanks for supporting our ministry projects with your participation and protection of this video privacy.
VERY IMPORTANT: If you originally registered and paid to attend the seminar, you DO NOT need to buy this video again. An email was sent out to all registrants detailing how to download the video. If you did not receive that message, please email us at mail.homeforgood@gmail.com, and we will verify your registration and send you the link. (If you opted out of receiving any more emails, you will have to write homeforgood@gmail.com and let them know you would still like to receive the code, as they honored your request.)
Blessings, blessings and blessings come to you from all of us at our family entity, Home for Good and from Whole Heart Ministries. We hope to bring you more opportunities for conferences and resources to strengthen your families soon.