Moving from Despair to Hopefulness

Vincent Van Gogh

Sadness can sometimes overwhelm us and seem to rain deep, abiding darkness over our hearts. Mamas carry so very much on their shoulders in this very fallen place. I am so deeply sorry for the events of today in Boston, and Iraq. My heart has gone out to them and my prayers for their comfort have been flying from my heart all day.I wish I could take a meal, embrace and comfort one of these precious ones.

In no way, do I want to diminish the suffering of so many dear ones who are in the throes of tragedy.

Yet, I have seen in so many tragic situations where woman seem to have this innate ability to mount up over dire circumstances to bring hope, redemption and life in the midst.

Faith is the glory of a woman when she could choose to fear, or quit or despair, but instead chooses to believe against all odds.

"Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." Hebrews 11:1

We take it in our hearts to choose hope--hope that our faith will be justified, because we believe that God is real, He is loving, He is powerful and He will have the last word.

“Only a Christian has a right to hope, for only he has the power of God to give substance to his hope…Earth is bearable because there is hope."

A.W. Tozer

Throughout history, the battle between light and darkness has ebbed and flowed with horrible acts of violence and wickedness being perpetrated on undeserving, innocent lives. But stories have also been told of the many heroes who entered into such battle and stood in harms way to protect those who were frail, to battle against evil and to stand forth for the right.

It seems that the incidents of violence, tragedy and killings have filled the stories of our lives in this century. Even in the past few months, our family has been surrounded by a  several untimely deaths of precious ones who have taken their lives at too early an age.

We have all felt such deep sorrow and empathy for those who have lost loved ones, even in Boston today, in Iraq, where real people and families have been destroyed, and who have had to bear these tragedies in a more personal way.

Try as we may, we cannot make control this world or subdue all that is evil.  And yet, as believers we must come to God and His word for our answers. The world around us is longing for a word of hope, a reason to keep going, a comfort to their shattered dreams and overwhelming sense of grief.

What if we are moving towards the last times and what if God has chosen you and your family to live through a very difficult time in history, because He trusted you to be able to live a story of faith, to look to Him for hope, to comfort those who are longing to feel the loving arms of God wrapped around their necks?

A friend of mine who is a Bible teacher once said that she thinks some of the greatest people who have ever lived are alive now. The reason being that it requires so much faith, strength, Biblical perspective and focus on Jesus to live through difficult times.

We read in Revelation, that Satan, knowing his time is short, will pour out his wrath on the earth. The gospels tell us that in the last days, even the elect will be tempted to fall away. And we know that people's love will grow cold from reading in Matthew.

The concept of being "over-comers" is used 28 times in scripture--those who overcome evil with good; those who overcome temptation, overcome difficulties, overcome spiritual battle. To overcome means to conquer, to vanquish evil.

For whatever reason, God has seen fit to allow us to be born in this time. We know that throughout Biblical history, there were many who lived in fear--the Israelites who were afraid of the giants in the land; the army of Israel when they faced Goliath and many more stories. Yet, God was on the side of those who chose to believe in Him against all odds, to take steps of faith to bring His light into the darkness. 

Be strong and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for and hope for and expect the Lord! Psalm 31: 24

What if God is calling us to come in the name of the Lord of Hosts and instead of running away from the battle, He is asking us to run into the battle head long because we believe that the Lord of Hosts is with us, and that in the end, He will prevail.

What if we are called today, to be strong--to make the faith choice to let our hearts take courage?

Joel noted today, that instead of adults just running away from the bomb, many ran into the storm of chaos to help, to hold, to lift and to comfort.

It is easy as parents to fear the world our children have been born into. But what if, instead, we prepared our children to be warriors for His kingdom? What if we whispered over and over into their sweet little hearts, that though we love them so much, we cannot keep them from evil because God has chosen them to fight a valiant battle, to be a hero of light and goodness in their time and that some day, Jesus Himself will say, "Well done thou good and faithful servant!" --because they fought the good fight and were waiting, like Paul, for the crown that is stored up for him and all who believe and wait for his coming.

Little ones must be protected from media and events that would cause them to fear, so that they can build such strong foundations on goodness, they will be firm and established in love, in goodness and in the ability to hope. In time, the right time as God shows us, we can little by little be the ones who interpret this world to them from God's eyes--but God will help us to know when they are ready.

Yet, little by little, we must strengthen their muscles of faith by giving them the opportunity to be sources of hope and comfort and love to those in need. We are their trainers, those coaches, who are to prepare them to stand strong in their world when God calls them away for His great work.

Satan will not have the last word. Though the battle rages, we shall prevail because we are His and He is the king and Lord over all.

He who overcomes will inherit these things, and I will be his God and he will be My son. Rev. 21: 7

It is my prayer all of us will hear the very voice of the Holy Spirit calling  to have hope, because He is the ultimate redeemer and we know that we will reign with Him through all eternity, after we have been faithful here, to fight the good fight, as Paul did. May we also run the race with godly endurance, keep our faith, and wait for the crown of righteousness that will surely be ours. And may our children who follow behind us find us faithful to leave them a story of hope, a pathway of courage and an end that rejoices in the reality of His presence.

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing. II Tim 4: 7-8

Mentoring Monday! Serving Children to Teach Them to Serve!

Sunday Morning Feast

Here

Way 6

The smell of coffee brewing, warm cinnamon bread coming out of the oven was one of the ways I would bribe my children to crawl out of bed on Sunday mornings early enough to get ready for church. Often, I would lay the Bible out by Clay's plate with a favorite verse I had been reading, in case he had not had enough time to pick a chapter out ahead of time.

Especially when my children grew older and activities, jobs and trips interrupted our previously predictable schedules that they had know as little children, I felt it important to gather all of us around the family table to invest once again in each other.  Sunday morning feasts were my way of gathering us every Sunday to catch up on all that was happening in our lives. Our church didn't start until 11, so we usually had plenty of time to eat a leisurely breakfast together.

From French toast to apple-pecan pancakes, scrambled cheese eggs to cinnamon rolls, breakfasts on this day were always a pleasure we enjoyed. Last Sunday, after a very active, tiring, but fun week with Joy home from college, I planned to arise to make a fun breakfast before we took her to the airport to fly back to school.

Much to my surprise, when I came downstairs, the table was set, and a pot of fresh tea was steeping that she had made to bring up to me in bed, and French toast from my homemade bread was sizzling and browning on our electric skillet.

"I just wanted to serve everyone one last meal before I took off to tell them I loved them. This has been such a fun week at home, I wanted everyone to know how much I loved being here and spending special time together."

There is almost nothing that means more to me than someone else cooking for me and setting the table or washing the dishes! I was deeply grateful. Even more, though, it has been fun for me to see my children serve each other as a part of their own inner integrity--a grid that they have owned that they are people who God has called to serve, help and meet the needs of others. What a treat to be served by my own sweet Joy!

Serving does not come naturally to most of us, it must be trained into our core values. Yet, teaching children to serve one another can be fun and also fulfilling as children love feel their own prowess and strength when they learn that something they have to give is needed by others.

Way # 6 of Our 24 Family Ways

"We serve one another, humbly thinking of the needs of others first."

Memory verse

"And whoever wishes to be first among you shall be slave of all, 'For even as he son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many."

Mark 10:44o-45

Serving others helps children to learn how to think of someone other than themselves. Often, serving others softens their heart, comforts them in times of need, and obviously makes their loads in life easier. Serving is a skill and character quality that is so easy to spot because it is so rare in adults today.

Many moms say, "If someone would just take care of my children once in a while, I would be soooo grateful just to have a break."

If a child grows up serving, it will come as a more natural part of giving their whole lives.

From making, " I love you," cards to plates of cookies for neighbors, cleaning a child's room, making a special sick tray when a child was in bed, serving meals at the homeless shelter, and so many more ways, helped our children to learn to give of their time and effort to ease someone else's life.

Occasionally grumbling, or dragging their feet accompanied the training exercise of serving others. None of us is naturally unselfish.  But often, it created a positive sense of self-worth in our children as adults would thank them or people would be pleased with their efforts.

I actually think that serving as a way of life at our many national parenting and mom's conferences over the years, in some ways tied my children's heart to Christ's heart of giving his own life, because all of the kids have verbalized how much of a role conferences have played in shaping their faith.

Jesus called his disciples to serve along beside him and in this practice, they began to perceive themselves as leaders.

This week, engage your family and even young children in thinking how they might help or serve someone in need. You will probably be surprised at how much they will enjoy being a part of something that makes them feel rather important. The earlier you start, the better, as it will become a part of the fabric of their lives!

Serve away!

Today, you will also find me writing at Momheart.org about Kind words that melt our children's hearts!

Today is the last day to enter the drawing for the 7 copies of Heartfelt Discipline I will be giving away tomorrow! Be sure to remind your friends to enter today for an opportunity to get Clay's book:

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Peace, Rest, Grace to all you Sweet Mamas!

Exercising beauty--a woman's civilizing honor!

Scripture is very vague on so many subjects that often we want to fill in with human thoughts and rules. I so appreciated the wonderful comments and thoughts and ideas I saw come across my blog, facebook and to my email yesterday. And yet, we are called to glorify God in this role of motherhood by living by faith, seeking Him for wisdom, and then exercising the glory of our motherhood by creating life-giving ways in our home within the unique personality details of our own story. And of course, you will become wiser every year that you walk this road with God and His grace will follow you as you follow Him.

So, do not worry, those of you who wondered if you have ruined your children. Don't all mothers wonder that? God's grace and life follow those who seek after Him and who seek Biblical wisdom, the counsel of those whose lives have produced mature fruit and who live in prayerful faith. As I have said many times, a wise woman copies wise women.

Though I have read BabyWise and am familiar with Growing Kids God's Ways, I was not specifically just addressing these as a curriculum. There are many formulaic approaches. And there is much wisdom to be gleaned from reading different books and ways.  Ours is to become discerning in what we read with a grid through which we see life, that is based on the counsel of scripture and the counsel of wisdom.

But I was also addressing some of the underlying philosophical issues that have crept into our lifestyle choices that seek to make the task of mothering children pragmatic and utilitarian, instead of what is really needed to infuse children with the life and love of God.

With the onslaught of the internet and television and lack of training of the character of sweet mamas, there are many ways and temptations to put our babies aside and to neglect their very basic needs--to be held, loved and cherished and attended to, so that they can grow into strong, healthy adults. The distraction of the internet, television, cell phones, and drive for women to find distraction and companionship on the internet has diminished, as well as feminism, has diminished the incredible role that mothers were created by God to perform.

And so, I seek not to create rules of definition, so much what or who you should follow--but to call you to the age-old boundaries that were set up for the physical and psychological development of children. So there will never be a formula of how long to nurse, when to discipline, when to encourage babies to sleep, on my blog, as each child is different. I do think that having rhythms and boundaries as a goal to bring order to a home must be a part of a wise mom's planning--but there is great room for freedom, if living within wisdom's ways.

Sarah was almost a perfect baby. Almost never cried, learned to go to sleep easily. (I am a believer in training my babes to blankies and other cuddlies that signified to them comfort.--more on that another day.) But I thought I was a great parent because she was so content. Eventually after I got over the initial dismay of having a baby and having mild breast infections and the flu and all the interesting stuff that happens to your body in child birth. But because I had the flu when she was born and my milk did not come in well and I wanted to nurse her, I fed her on demand so that my supply would grow strong and would be sufficient. But my desire to nurse her far outweighed my desire for sleep as I wanted to have this experience and it was so precious.

And I know several moms suggested that the exhaustion at the beginning of  having a baby is overwhelming. I feel like most mamas with littles are often exhausted--for years on end, amidst the stomach flu, ear infections, disrupted schedules, teething, nursing, seasons of fear in baby's lives, bedtime routine and more.

However, I learned that my capacity to be strong and to mount up over exhaustion was built into my body and was something that I would learn to overcome with a will to overcome, as I had no outside help. My point is that some challenging seasons and exhaustions and illnesses are just life and will be lived through, with patience.  I think if we had grandmas, aunts, friends surrounded us in our communities as of old, we would not have to be so exhausted and do it alone.

Joel was a real number. Had him in Austria. He would only nurse for about 2 or 3 minutes at a time and was a large baby, and then he would sort of grunt and make weird noises with his throat and wouldn't, couldn't eat. The Austrian nurse suggested he might have a brain injury--so that kept me busy praying for a while. The funny things people say to us when we have our babies! But because he would never nurse much, I had to feed him more often. But he was also an easy-going baby. Just very physically and behaviorally different from Sarah.

Nathan never settled or rarely did. He arched his back and cried a lot. No method worked with him, but I kept praying, touching, loving him and since I had two other young children, he still had to fit into our lives and I obviously needed to attend to my other very young children.  But I carried him a lot, rubbed his little back, and tried to calm him as best I could in the midst of Clay working 70 hours a week and me having no help and two other little children that had ear infections and clinical asthma, a lot! But I always pursued touch, love, gentle responsiveness with all of them while having less time to be neurotically idealistic as I was at first with Sarah.

Nathan did not sleep through the night until he was four. I kept loving and cuddling him and seeking wisdom with all the kids in the midst and just felt that his issues were not discipline issues as others had suggested. But since I had two other children within more of a normal range of comforting, nursing, quieting, I had a suspicion that something was internally wrong with Nate, so I refused to spank him for something that seemed beyond his control, though he did cry often and sometimes would lay on the floor and scream and kick.

He ended up he did have a digestive issue that I discovered when he was 4. I was so grateful that God led me, in spite of the more demanding attitudes of others that I was going to ruin him, to be consistent as possible, to gently lead and train him, and to seek to be patient in the midst of a very challenging baby and child. God used this season to stretch my faith and my dependence on Him. He trusted me with Nathan as a very challenging child to teach me compassion, patience, faith and love, and to be able to encourage other sweet mamas who were trying to figure it out.

This is where some of our convictions came from as we were living amongst so many strict disciplinarians who said we were going to "ruin" our children. And Clay and I just kept seeking to be consistent in loving, holding, affirming and training all of our children to maturity--little by little. And of course this is when we began the convictions that are held in Heartfelt Discipline because we saw so many parents following arbitrary formulas regardless of the child or personality or gender or maturity level. We just did not believe that one size fits all and now we had seen that it would never work with the children with which we had been entrusted.

Then Joy came, and I almost had to fight to hold her because always one of the kids wanted to hold her, rock her, sing to her, play with her. And she was very easily incorporated into our busy lives. But I nursed her until she was 27 months because our established alone time was an anchor to her life amidst others who were so involved.

So each child needed something different and had different rhythms. Even extroverted children behave differently than introverted babies. They are more active, require more stimulation, and more settling, by God's design. There just is not one formula that fits all.

Yet, in the end, we must seek to find the combination of habits, rhythms in our lives that will honor the validation of children that God has granted us, with His spirit to shape.

There is no formula or one right way, but there are wise ways and life-giving heart attitudes that will pour into the very core of our babies. My desire, whatever "systems" you adopt, is to elevate the loving and cherishing of the babies that God gives us as gifts--those whose souls and the implications of their souls will last through all eternity. Our children's lives will effect generations and the way we invite them into our home and into our lives will determine much of the way they feel about their lives.

But God has asked us all to live by faith within the limitations and blessings of our own personality, the personality of each child, our own story. We are given a mandate in Genesis 1, right at the inception of the creation of woman, to subdue our lives--to rule over and bring order to our world--including that of our babies. And so the ruling over our babies and children and family must come from wisdom--from the very nurturing potential that God designed into our DNA--our hormones, our brains, our souls and the modeling of other wiser and experienced women as seen in Titus 2.

Eve was called the mother of all the living. When a woman acts upon her life-giving instincts and uses her creativity to exercise wisdom, it is a glory to her name and story.  And so we want to choose life-giving commitments that bring about beauty, civilization, love, excellence into our children's beings.

My desire was to stir up within women the value and sweetness of babies--to treasure them, to hold and kiss them and sing sweet lullabies. The sadness of mama-hood is that children have been devalued in our culture and so many philosophies have sought to help mamas manage, make their children less of a burden and more convenient. Is having a child or committing to any important relationship ever convenient?

It was not convenient for Jesus to pick, train, love and serve his disciples and then to die for them. Love has a cost. But because the stakes are great when it comes to loving and shaping the next generation, the hard work and investment reaps eternal rewards that justified all of the cost.

Too many words--perhaps, but wanted all of you mamas to know that He is with you in your home, He loves you and does not require you to please other's standards, but to live in the freedom of you home with Him infusing your ways with wisdom and life as you go. Our God loves to redeem and bless all who look to Him.

Pick up your baby! Do to them what you would have done to you!

Lhermitte

All of us, at some time or another, have been taught the golden rule, " “In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets" Matthew 7:12

And yet, it seems we forget this when we raise our children. Having babies is a mysterious journey to say the least. Most moms search all the books for right answers and want to figure out just the right way to be a mom, because we are usually separated from more experienced moms or grandmas and aunts, and so we flounder to find what is the right method of treating babies. Most of us are a little neurotic when we start out. Little experience and few models create an insecure beginning.

All of my babies were different in personality and not one size fit all--in other words, I had to get to know each baby on its own and slowly figure out what each needed to sort out life the best. Each child also had to fit into the whole of our family life, so adjusting on all sides took place as we added one baby after the other. Living by faith and trusting God and the instincts he gave us, within the bounds of loving our children, and understanding their basic needs, is how a mom will best proceed. It is not an exact formula.

A sweet young mom in my ministry was telling a story recently. She has a new baby and her mom has encouraged her to nurse her sweet baby when she cries, to cuddle and sing to her, to hold her, to comfort her and to enjoy her. My friend is surprised at how responsive her new infant is, even at three months, and how easily she comforts.

A friend of hers who had her baby at the same time, reading a book that had strict guidelines about when to feed a baby and hold a baby. . She does not hold her baby often.  She will not feed her baby until 4 hours exactly, as she does not want to train her babe to be selfish and break the rules she had been taught about picking up her baby too often and training her baby to demand too much of her,  and so on. (I had such big babies and not so much milk, so my babies would have starved and been so fussy if I waited 4 hours.)

When the two moms were together, the mom who was adhering to the rules, whose baby was fussy and cried a lot, proclaimed. "Look at my baby. Even at 3 months you can see that she is strong willed and defiant--just look how she cries when I don't pick her up. But what she didn't know was that her baby was saying,  "Hey, mom, I need you. I am hungry and insecure--would you please hold me? "

How would this work if someone  treated me this way--let's say that I was in some kind of pain--physical, emotional, psychological--whatever. Because of this, I began to cry. If my husband or family said to themselves, "Let's just let her cry this out. If we just leave her and ignore her, she will eventually get a hold of herself and we will show her who is the boss, because in our home, we do not want to put up with people crying and needing us too much."

Sadly enough, this kind of treatment of me would eventually cause me to pull away from the family member who treated me that way and would teach me to stuff my emotions and needs, but it would not create a healthy environment for a good relationship.

Now I know that this post will create controversy and my desire is not to make anyone feel guilty, but you need to know I get literally hundreds of letters from moms who say, " I feel like I have developed an antagonistic relationship with my children. I regret being so harsh. I lost the heart of my child." Literally hundreds.

Many moms have been told, "You will spoil your baby. You need to establish discipline now. You need to show your baby who is the boss." And so moms become afraid to do the wrong thing--they do not want to raise a spoiled, selfish child, and so they start out feeling they need to be a policeman figure in their children's lives instead of a mentor, guide, trainer, lover, encourager---you get the picture.

But what the young mom did not know is that even as Jesus was vulnerable and needed the love and cuddling of Mary, so all babes are created to find a basis for security by having security and snuggling with their own sweet moms, who speak to their brains about life, by being cared for and attended to. God made babies to be dependent--and toddlers and young children--it is a relational strength and has purpose.

I am sure this mom in the story is seeking with all of her heart to be diligent. By three months, she had already judged her baby to be strong-willed, defiant and she had created this problem herself--the sad thing is, she created her own havoc and didn't even know it.

My friend's baby was sitting in her lap cooing, snuggling, resting and smiling. And the mom felt jealous that she should be given such an easy-going baby.

Does this mean that all babies who are held will sit still and coo and be happy? No, absolutely not. All of mine had colic and all had different personalities and habits. But physiologically, all babies need to be touched, caressed, and attached to become as healthy as possible.

The deep desire and felt-need in ourselves ad our babies, is for the golden rule to be practiced in our own lives. 

Call me silly, but I long for friends and family who love me, who are affectionate to me. I really appreciate having the ones who are closest to me, give me grace and forgive me, for my frequent mess-ups. I appreciate words of encouragement. I long for loyalty. When someone listens to me pour out my heart and comforts me, I feel validated and heard--sympathy means so much to me. I am blessed by thoughtfulness. Loyalty and steadfastness and a generous friend is such a satisfaction to my soul--I do not deserve such grace but am blessed by it when it comes my way. I have been blessed by friends and my sweet children who do to me what they wish would be done to them--and it makes me want to respond back in kind. And so this is what I wish for in others--and so this is what I need to give others, and especially those in my home.

Wouldn't a baby want, long for such things?

Jesus told his disciples to serve and lay down their lives. He served them meals, He washed their feet, He died for them. He never asked them to do or be what He had not done or been first.

If I want my children to honor me and respect me, I must treat them honorably first to show them what honor is.

If I want them to work hard, they must see me work hard. If I want them to have godly character and not complain, they must observe me making the choices to not complain and to not create strife. How can I teach them to be gentle and long-suffering if they do not receive this from me.

Of course all of us are selfish and struggle with our own sin and lack of training, which means we will fail often in carrying out these noble displays of love. But if we understand this principle--that the law and prophets are defined by this rule, it simplifies our choices, our behavior. And the interesting thing is that it reaches and opens hearts.

Our home, our relationships, our family will become what we live by, what we practice.

So today, if you wish your children would respond to you in love, in gentleness, with grace, with loyalty, with words of life, just do unto them as you would have them do unto you. Be consistent, have integrity, practice maturity--what we sow becomes what we reap in the lives of our precious children and I can say, at this stage in my life, the fruit of such practice is so very sweet. How very blessed I am by my wonderful, thoughtful, still growing, but loving children. A mystery and miracle took place in my home when God partnered to make my paltry offering of His ways enough to become a blessing.

As I wrote yesterday, I do not mean we use no logic and just give into every demand of our baby--that is another extreme. But, all children have a deep longing to have that security of belonging, being held, being attended to at the point of need. And babies move from total dependence to independence over time.

There are many mistakes along the way, days of strife, seasons of battle and lots of fussing. No doubt it is so very challenging, and especially if you are like me and were not trained.

Thank goodness, God is gracious and redeems. I used everything--every philosophy-- on my first one and prayed and sought the Lord, and somehow, in spite of me, she is delightful--though she could have lots of reasons to go to a counselor! (We told our children we would pay if they ever needed counseling because of our family!) But, I just want to share with sweet moms who are looking for Biblical wisdom, so they will not have to make as many mistakes as I did. God is with us and He will give grace to us and through us and we seek to walk through by faith.

This is why Clay wrote his book Heartfelt Discipline--to address these issues from a Biblical point of view.

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Now please remember, Sweet Mamas,

I have no intention of offending any of you or being harsh. I was just repeating a story and pondering this in my quiet time this morning, and realized that a lot of philosophy would be clarified if women would learn to look at their babies as real human beings who responded to life as they did--do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

All mamas blow it many times--and guilt does not move us forward.

All of us mamas are going to make mistakes and we are limited in our own strength  and knowledge to always know or do what it right. By God's grace, and in spite of all the ways I failed, He redeemed my best efforts and worked in my children's lives because He is faithful. We all make mistakes of judgment throughout our children's journey.

Yet, I believe that God pre-wired us to be mothers and to love and to civilize--it is the beautiful grace of a woman. Yet, many have been confused by reading books that sounded good but directed them in the wrong way. And if you know me, I do think that harsh parenting and adversarial philosophies do not win hearts. I am all about winning the hearts of our children through love and serving, as Jesus did,  so that they will learn to love the the precious God that we love. And we know that, "Love covers a multitude of sin."

I do, however, long to affirm moms in their need to be present for their children--to be a good mom, whatever philosophy, one needs to give up rights, time, body, life and convenience in order to build, to invest in a child who will have a healthy soul.

I also want to help moms learn to fall in love with this gift from God and trust in their love, desire to comfort, treating their sweet babies as the gifts God has said that they are, and to learn the gentle, generous art of mother love.

I want the sweet moms who come here to also give grace and peace to each other, as I hope that my blog will be a place of life and encouragement and peace.

It causes you to think more deeply about your own convictions, great.

I do hate for anyone to believe the deception that holding and responding to a baby's cries in any way will cause the child to learn less or be less responsive. As a matter of fact, volumes and thousands of pages of research show that if a baby is attended to quickly, it is calmer, happier and learns self-control at an earlier age, because it does not have to wail and fuss loudly to be responded to--attentiveness helps the mom to learn her baby, to train her baby, to respond to her baby and to build security. May He cover this blunder of mine with His grace as my heart meant it to encourage. Thanks for taking the time to comment.

Peace be with you today, the Lord is near and with all of us.

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Grace based does not Imply Leniency or Passivity! Giving Away Heartfelt Discipline!

Daniel Ridgway Knight

I adore beautiful gardens and especially roses. To see an prolific antique rose bush in its glory is amazing. In Vienna, near the Hoffburg Palace and also the summer palace where Marie Antoinette was raised, there are rows and rows of abundantly full rose bushes when in bloom speak of His divine touch and craftsmanship.

However, the grace and beauty of such a garden comes through much cultivation, planning and sacrifice of time. The bushes must be fed with the best of fertilizer, watered constantly to maintain proper growth.

Roses are especially vulnerable to mold and aphids and so the outside forces that would destroy them must be monitored and dealt with constantly. An eye of protection must look for any evidence of such pests. The more quickly the threats are dealt with, the less damage the bushes incur.

In winter the branches are cut back so far as to appear dead, at times seeming to have destroyed the very life inside. Yet,  the cutting back and training of the branches, allows the roots to grow deep and provides for a healthier long term plant.

The blooms are the fruit and glory of the cultivation of the plant. Yet, even the blooms are temporary and must be trimmed so that others may grow in their place.

The care of such a garden and particularly of the rose bushes is given because of the love the gardner has for cultivating such beauty. All the acts of cultivating and grooming the garden is that it may grow.

So it is with the discipline of children. Grace-based parenting is not just passively letting children go and over-looking their ways. Leniency and ill attention is also unacceptable. To raise and cultivate a lovely legacy of children requires so much time, attention, intentional discipline and training.

I have received interesting letters and been with women whose children are a nightmare to be with because they thought grace-based parenting meant not ever getting in the way of their children's will or saying no to them or making them wait. Once a woman said her 3 year old spit on her husband and kicked him when he walked in the room, but she said, "He just didn't understand grace based parenting and he is getting upset with my way of applying these principles."

I would never, never allow such behavior in a child for one second unless I knew the child had a disorder of some kind that prevented more mature behavior. All children must be trained and taught and shaped in order to reach their full potential. But anger and harshness need not be the prevailing attitude. Strength can be exhibited by firmness with gentleness, consistency and guidance with love self-control as the base attitude of the parent.

Because I knew my children were going to be in a tough world, where their needs and whims would not be swiftly met, I knew that they had to grow strong inside and learn to develop an inner sense of strength and self-control.

So, it starts with the great soil of love, warm and tender affection, words of life and affirmation and acceptance--even if a baby is challenging and difficult.

Then, we feed our children daily on the truth of God's word, modeling and training their little natures to have character. Saying prayers of gratefulness while shaping their little hands in a form of prayer to God every meal, snatching their little hands if they ever hit or grab a toy, saying, "No, you may never hit a child, you may never grab a toy." Separating them when they misbehave, teaching them to have self-control by waiting the tiniest bit for mommy, not interrupting, not demanding. Encouraging them to share, to give, to help siblings, to serve others by giving them real live things to do.

Training children by giving them consequences that tug at their heart to choose to obey. Telling our children ahead of time what is expected of them. "We need to stop playing and clean up the den. I am telling you five minutes ahead of time so that you can finish what you are doing and then we will all work together. Do you understand? Tell me what I said. "

Shaping their little appetites for life with beauty, peace, self-giving serving of others. We are to be God's instrument in their lives of turning them away from their own self-wills. We cut out the offending pests that would deplete the emotional, moral or spiritual health of our children--it means we must confront sinful attitudes, create consequences, train truth, and memorize scripture and train from that scripture! We must also create and allow difficulties to have their course in our children's lives so that they may become strong and deepen their roots. If we steal them away from all that is bad or unfair, then they will never be able to stand on their own in a world at war with God's principles.

It is a life of nurturing, cultivating, protecting, allowing to bloom, cutting back and shaping. It is an active life of constant attention and work. But the product is one of beauty, grace, and indeed has the divine touch of God's handprint on it.

One of my older, godly friends who heard of our philosophy of grace-based parenting, and thought we could never raise godly children without spanking heavily and being strict, traveled with me and got to know our children very well.

"Sally, you are training and instructing and correcting your children all the time--constant instruction, "Now, we are going into a very adult concert and I trust you because I know you can choose to be mature. We need to be quiet, considerate of others and self-controlled."

("If you use a whiny voice, mommy cannot talk to you because, as you know I am allergic to whining. When you stop whining, I will listen to your request."

"There isn't much food for all the people today, so I would really appreciate it if our family could stand at the back of the line. I will be sure to feed you later if they run out of food."

"Come with me to the other room, please. We need to have a little talk." (and then the offending child will be given a mommy talk about the misbehavior or conduct, consequences if the behavior is not changed, with the child able to give defense, and if necessary, the child will apologize or share or whatever.)

The work of the gardener of souls is never finished, goes through many seasons, wards off many pests. But the end result--a godly heritage is more beautiful and sweeter to behold than I ever knew. The fruit of the planting and gardening produces more fruit and satisfaction that I would have understood.

Passivity, undisciplined--not allowed, but the grace of life-giving, always. It is the glory of the gardener to see the fruit of labor well-done, beautiful and in full bloom.

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Obedience is a pathway of Maturity and Faith--Giving Away Heartfelt Discipline!

The path of the righteous is like the light of dawn which shines brighter and brighter until the full day. Proverbs 4:18 (Sarah, Joy, Joel and I on a Austrian path in the alps on a lovely spring day.)

And as I have been studying Hebrews this month, I see that obedience is really connected to faith, believing hearts--soft hearts willing to wholeheartedly trust, follow, rest in Him, those who love and believe God are who he considers obedient--not just those who check off the task to be done or consider obedience an action to be accomplished.  So here is the article......

Obedience--first time or eventual?

Now, the secret is out--I do believe in obedience for me, for children, for all who want to love and serve God. But, I see now that the goal for my obedience is not behavioralism--performance--doing a task that I want done this instant because of fear of punishment. I do not measure my success as a parent by whether or not my children instantly obey.

I think that the goal is to teach our children to obey quickly, but search as I may, I cannot find that as a standard in scripture. And so I may find relief in the grace I have found in scripture.

I have loved the book by Eugene Peterson, "A Long Obedience in the Same Direction." ( Not a book about parenting, but a book on discipleship for adults) Even the title itself is about the process of discipleship--creating lives dedicated to the service and love of God by a life time of learning to make mature choices. Wisdom is little by little.

Instead, I want my children to learn to love God, to desire to serve Him out of their hearts of respect, awe, reverence, love. I look for growth, not perfection. Maturity, not instant holiness.

Now, it is in the process of having them learn to do my will, that they learn obedience. I must go against their wills to teach them to obey. But it is little by little, season by season. Personality and gender and exhaustion and wellness and life all go into the process.

Sometimes it is first time and sometimes it isn't. But, I am trying to train their hearts to learn and to value and honor obedience.

For me, this was best done over years and years of training, correcting, modeling, loving and doing it all again the next day.

God's Ways

The older I get, the more I reflect on Christianity from a long term perspective. It seems that God is a long-term process Father. He doesn't do things all at once. He is rarely on my timetable. I almost always have to wait much longer than I want to to see my prayers answered. He does not make my life easy or take away the difficult things, but teaches me in the midst. I am very grateful, though, that he is not pernicious or unnecessarily harsh. He is patient, compassionate, understanding, loving through the whole process.

His focus for me as a child is that I move from immaturity towards maturity. From self-absorption to self-sacrifice. His discipline for me is daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, training my appetites of life to His ways. Teaching me to love righteousness and to be sensitive to His heart. Learning in my real paths of life how to life my life his way, with His wisdom. It has taken me a whole lifetime to learn the ways of righteousness. And so it is with our children.

God's Fathering of me

When I was a young, single missionary in Eastern Europe, I thought I was so spiritual--and I probably was for my age. I had given my life to Christ and wanted to be "His girl", following Him to the ends of the earth and bringing His love and grace to bear. But, because I was young and I had not failed enough or come to my own limits, I did not even know how much I needed to depend on God. I did not know how very capable I was of sin. I did not clearly see my own immaturity. I was not humble. All of these areas were not because I did not want to please God, but because I was young, inexperienced and didn't know better.

But then when I got married and had children, I began to realize just how selfish I was and how little I had learned to work. For a while, I thought my problem was my children and marriage,  and then I realized that my children were God's gift to me, but also His way of bringing training of righteousness into my own life, by teaching me what it really meant to serve Him, to give up my rights, to be humble.

The real giving of my life to Him was every day, every minute to the constant demands of my family and Clay. Parenting was for me His pathway of teaching me to obey, to love, to serve. Family life was His training grounds to build holiness into my life.

I am so very grateful that He did not show me all of my sinful, selfish ways at once. He gently took my hand and through the process of caring for my family, little by little I became aware of my need to mature, to love more, to give grace, to be loyal, to work harder,  to serve, as He had done with His disciples.

He disciplines us that we may share in his holiness. Holiness is a long term process of development in our hearts, training our wills to want to obey out of a developed love and awe of God.

Path of Life Parenting

There are so many verses that speak of this. Clay calls it, "The Path of Life" parenting model.

The path of the righteous is like the light of dawn--it shines brighter and brighter, a little at a time.

Proverbs also tells us, "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it. It is a process--a little here, a little there, a little again. Giving our children the appetite for obedience, wisdom, love, and holiness.

I am so grateful in my own life, that God did not overwhelm me with all of my sin and selfishness at once. I would have quit if He had treated me harshly. I wanted to please God and I wanted to be righteous, but didn't even know that I was so very immature. My heart was right in my own eyes and was seeking to please Him, but my character and behavior lacked so much. it has taken me a life-time to understand just what it really means to be sacrificially loving, loyal in my faith, righteous and generous in my behavior. If God has treated me in such a way, shouldn't that be the way I treat my children.

Babies

Babies are made to be totally dependent so that they can live in their mother's arms, and be held and taken everywhere she goes to breathe in the reality of the life she herself lives in Christ.

First, they learn that they can depend on their mother to be comforted, touched, protected. They learn that when they are hungry, their mothers provide their needs, feed them, clothe them, sing to them. This loving connection is the first place babies must learn to look to their parent for their very life, but also for the cues of life.

The baby grows into a toddler, and then into a fully walking person, all gradually. And so the baby learns obedience this way as well.

Even nature itself teaches us so much about process and I find that God has hidden so many mysterious and wonderful answers within the art of His playground--creation. All seeds start small and take time to develop into a full plant. Same with trees. A small sapling in time can become a great, towering tree, but it takes years and years.

Same with baby animals. From puppy to dog. Calf to cow or bull. Chick to fully grown hen.

Sometimes I think it is because we have such small families that we micro-manage obedience and training of little children. When a mom has numerous children who are constantly in need of life, food, clothing and managing chores, and responsibilities, she is much more gradual about the training of her little babies--as she goes, as she can, as the baby lives and learns in the warp and woof of the family life.

Throughout centuries, families were large, and the "gang" all tended to lend themselves to a positive-peer pressure sort of influence on the development of the baby. I know that all of my children tended to learn things together, what the Clarkson values were, what the Clarkson manners were, what the Clarkson expectations were.

With asthmatics and ear-infected children, I had to teach my children to wait their turn. Life itself gave them ways to learn to be unselfish and to learn to serve-because I needed their help!

I have seen that my children went through normal growth patterns. None of them now suck a binky (pacifier), wear a diaper, want to sleep with me every night, etc. God has put maturity into their very dna and brain cells. It is ours to be patient with the process, to enjoy it and to learn from it.

If we just learn to patiently live with our children long enough and learn to look to God for guidance, and train them little by little, the mysterious life of God begins to work in and through their hearts and lives. Yet, we must remember that this is a natural and normal path from the beginning of time--to live into it, and not fight it, and to cultivate joy along the way.

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First time obedience, really? Revisited and A Giveaway of Heartfelt Discipline!

My own children, (. 3 years ago!), on whom many philosophies of child discipline were practiced! And yet God's grace covered our mistakes and they grew into healthy loving human beings by His grace!

I just wanted to tell all of you again just how much I appreciated your comments and emails in response to my questions. I will be printing it all out and try to figure out a plan for hitting as many subjects as I can.

However the next few days, I am going to be reposting some older discipline articles. The most common questions are about child discipline. I also want to promote the newest version of Heartfelt Discipline, which Clay finished a couple of months ago. It has been fully edited and has been rewritten in a number of places to give more clarity. I will also be giving away one copy each day of my discipline articles. So be sure to tell all of your friends about our giveaway and about Clay's wonderful book. It will answer so many of your questions about Child Discipline, but from a discipleship perspective. I hope you enjoy these principles--I call them basic leadership principles. Let us know what you think.

And yet God's grace covered our mistakes and they grew into healthy loving human beings by His grace!

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FIRST TIME OBEDIENCE, REALLY?

Often, the subject of child discipline comes up as I am working with young parents. I do not have the time to answer all of my email or comments as I must stay focussed on my own family and I will not be able to answer all the questions this article will raise, so please understand my time limitations. But I do offer this as some of my own thoughts on childhood discipline and hope that in some way, it may be of encouragement. My blog below is a mish-mash of some of my thoughts--but hope you can make some sense of it!

A Need for Guidance

Well-meaning parents all over the world have tried throughout the centuries to try to figure out the right formula or wisdom to use in raising up a godly, responsible, emotionally and spiritually healthy child. It is right to desire to find a way to love, educate, train and discipline a child to help him become mature.

However, in our culture, so many young couples do not live around their parents, do not have good models of what a healthy family looks like, and so they look to "authorities" to find their answers--people who speak or write books. (Scary thought, since that is what Clay and I do!)

Formulas do not work!

 Most parents are looking for a formula--a one easy step guide to instantly raising up an obedient child, a one size fits all.

But, over the years, I have heard so many extreme talks about child training and I have also seen many young immature parents follow rigid, formulaic parenting philosophies and I have lived to see many children rebel, leave all the training of their parents and even turn their hearts away from God.

The parents wring their hands saying, "I don't understand. I followed all the books and did it just like they said!"

Thinking Biblically

However, when we learn to think Biblically, we must learn to live by faith and in wisdom in the raising of our children. If God had wanted us to follow a formula, He would have given one and made it clear so that we could use the ten easy rules to pop out perfect children. But He made each person with a different personality, different maturity level, different ability.

Scripture is much more long term about maturity than we usually want to understand. "Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not fall away."

"The path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until the full day." A path of life parenting that allows for more and more light to show forth with each passing year.

In Hebrews we read about the mature and immature--about babes who are still drinking milk and not yet ready for solid food--and here the context is of a young Christian and a mature one--allowing for growth.

I tend to look at my children through this lens, "It is the kindness and mercy of the Lord that leads to repentance." Romans

An Issue of the Heart

First, we must understand that all discipline should be focussed on the heart--not the behavior. Over 800 times in scripture, God talks about the heart--Love the Lord with all of your heart. God searches to and fro for a heart that is completely his. Man looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart. and so on. And yet I see many extraverts being disciplined for being louder and more talkative (not rebellion--a personality issue--or boys for being boys--moms who want them to behave like a little lady, etc.)

But God is concerned with our desire to love and obey Him, he already knows we are immature and that we take time to understand His ways. Jesus was patient with Peter and said, "Satan has desired to sift you like wheat," He predicted that Peter would fall--and Jesus was totally supportive of his disobedient, immature disciple---He said, "I have prayed for you, and after you have returned, strengthen the brethren." In other words, "I know you will blow it, but I will be with you, I will pray for you, I will still use you."

And so, when we discipline our children, we must learn to look at their hearts. Is their heart rebellious? Are they being willful? Am I expecting too much for them--their age, their level of over-stimulation, the circumstances, their maturity level, their abilities? A child should not be punished for being exhausted, immature, a boy, or for making a mistake. I make mistakes all the time, again and again. And yet scripture teaches in the new testament and the old that maturity is as a result of training, time, growth, heart and will.

Reading and understanding the way babies and children respond at different ages helped to inform my expectations. I remember that I read an article that said that the average 2 year old took between 30 seconds and a minute to have some messages sink in if they were engaged in their brain somewhere else. And so often,  Moms can be very strict with their children and  harsh when sometimes the child has not even understood yet just what he is doing wrong. Harshness does not win over a child. Neither does wanting a 2 year old to be more mature than he can be and so punishing him for being 2. We must use wisdom and discretion to understand the situation, the heart of a child, and how to best train him according to our wisdom, faith and training of the child. It is the kindness and mercy of God that leads to repentance. Child discipline should always be based on a relationship between a mature, benevolent, loving parent who is seeking to lead his child to maturity, to train his child to think in the direction of righteousness and to train his behavior little by little.

The mature parent should consider the state of the child, his emotional needs, physical needs before meting out harsh discipline.

Formulas like "First Time Obedience" do not necessarily reach the heart!

I was speaking at a conference once and the speaker before me was plying the audience with all sorts of guilt. This speaker said, "If you don't require first time obedience every time from your children, then you are disobeying God and you will be responsible for losing your child's heart and tempting him to rebel against God!" Many men in the audience cheered loudly and clapped. I could just see the harshness that would follow in their homes because a speaker had given them permission to be harsh and demanding, every time with children, without ever teaching these parents sympathy, wisdom, skill and understanding with their children, their ages, their paths of life.

But Really? Can you cite me verse and give context that says God always requires first time obedience without mercy? I am thankful that He is much more patient with me than that in my own life. I have made so many mistakes over the years and done such foolish things, and still He is there loving me, instructing me, showing me his compassion and gently leading me daily to better understand His holy and righteous standard for me. God reveals one issue of immaturity at a time and I learn slowly. He has never pointed out all of my weaknesses and disobedient attitudes at once--and if He did, I would be devastated.

There seems to be no exact Biblical evidence that this is a true "rule." Of course I believe in training our children to obedience and to teach them to have the highest of standards, and often it meant training them to learn to obey us as we requested something of them, by training them to learn to respond to us and obeying quickly as they learned and matured.

 The reason Deuteronomy 6-8 talks about us speaking to our children morning, noon, night and presenting truth and the gospel to our children every moment of the day, is that training is to be a whole-life passing on of values and obedience and wisdom, a morning, noon and night---let's live together in fellowship and relationship and you will see that I have your best in mind and I will teach and train you how to be mature, wise and excellent.

It is a process of love, consistency, patience, and repeating over and over and over and it takes many years for a child to become mature. Maturity and integrity are also issues of the heart and motivation that comes from responding to the teaching and instruction given in love and mutual respect.

Ignorance produces harshness

The unfortunate thing is that many parents, in the name of faithful discipline, do not understand the differences between babies or toddlers or young children or even teens with all of their hormones,  and they exhibit  anger and harshness toward  their children, act in a demeaning way, while neglecting the cues of the child at each stage. These parents  have no perspective for the children themselves--they use  a  rule and formula no matter what--and often wonder why their children to not respond to them.

But, this kind of one rule discipline neglects the child's basic well being. If children are exhausted or overstimulated by television or other children, they are naturally more hostile or out of control. A wise parent will tend to his child's need for rest, quiet, rhythm, balanced blood sugars and understand hormones or emotions, and personality. Often I see children disciplined for things the parent has neglected--their physical and emotional needs---when the child's behavior is often a direct message to the parent of a basic need that has been neglected.

 Biblical discipline must take a long time to secure the heart--many years of constant loving training and instruction. We had very high standards for our children, but our discipline was always viewed through a lens of relationship as the strong basis of our discipleship of our children. Without a close relationship, discipline is quite unproductive.

A parent must live by faith, trust in God, wisdom, and patience. I spent many hours on my knees praying, seeking God, learning new ways of His parenting with me as I parented my children. It was a process of growing in wisdom. My children are all very different in personality and ability, and yet, by God's grace, all have come to love us and do deeply love the Lord. But we had to raise each of them up in love, by faith and treat them according to their own personality bent. And the basis of our home was God's unconditional love and grace.

Lack of Basic Knowledge

I have also observed often, lately, precious moms who do not even know how to treat little ones. I was walking down the hallway of a hotel several months ago in California and a sweet, very young, exhausted mom was exasperated and shaking her 4 month old baby, saying loudly, "Go to sleep, go to sleep!" At which point the exhausted baby cried louder and louder. The baby was her first child.

I offered to hold the baby for a few minutes and to give the mom a break. She quickly gave the baby to me. I held the baby tightly in my arms and held it against my cheek and gently rubbed its head while singing softly into his little ear, and swaying gently back and forth. Immediately the little one relaxed its stiff body and listened to my voice and within 5 minutes was soundly asleep.

She just had not been taught how to be gentle, affectionate, or personal. It scared me a little to think of the future of this little child.

I also observed that my very introverted, creative child took longer, even as a baby to focus on me. I learned to work with his personality and to get on his eye level, gently get his attention and clearly state what my expectations were. He was happy to comply, but he did not always hear me the  first time. (He now my absent-minded professor who composes music and still has a great heart to obey and to please me.)

My third son, I eventually learned, was adhd, and ocd and a few other letters. But being harsh never, never made his more mature or able to change his behavior. I learned that the more I poured into his life--affection, time, listening, talking, the more able he was to obey. I learned that if I was patient and gentle and helped him--holding his hand, using words of encouragement, gentleness, I could lead him in obedience.

My husband, Clay, wrote an excellent book, called Heartfelt Discipline and many have said that it changed their lives. It will be back in print next summer.

When babies are touched and loved and sung to and talked to and have regular routines and regular, healthy diets, they are much more happy all the time and responsive to instruction. However, when a child has not received these basic needs, the only means of a child letting his parents know he is not happy or comfortable with his life is to whine or cry. When I am around generally healthy children whose needs have been met, it is obvious because they seem more content with life. All children are immature and will misbehave, and pages and pages could be written about the subject, but these are just a few of my thoughts.

My last thoughts on this today and then I must run to my day. Jesus'  life is my example. There was a lost world because His children rebelled against Him--no first time obedience. But His love and compassion was so much a part of His character and being, He was compelled to come to save us. He fellowshipped with His disciples, loved them, listened to them, confronted them, corrected them, fed them, taught them, and laid down His life for them. Because of their relationship with Him, and their love for them, they were willing to lay down their life for Him and His kingdom.

His love compelled them--it was a long-term process, this one of securing their obedience and hearts, but their hearts wanted to please Him and obey Him because of what He had meant to them. And so I did write Ministry of Motherhood, reflections on Jesus' method to secure the hearts of His twelve. It has been a study over many years. And today, from my quiet time, I am again humbled and blessed by His active, redeeming, sacrificial love that redeemed me.

His model to me as a parent, "Greater love has no one than this, that He lay down His life for his friend." a Rafflecopter giveaway

Loving Well is the most profound Commitment of Life

Measure your life by how well you have loved. Choose love. 

Sally Clarkson, Own Your Life Book

No matter how we try, none of us will ever have a perfect family. Most families are fraught with personality issues, immaturity, selfishness and baggage of unhealthy relationships from a past broken family heritage. 

No church, ministry, neighborhood holds perfect, always happy relationships, either. Because we are a part of these groups, we make them unstable because none of us is perfect. 

And often, we are most disappointed when we have conflict, fall-outs, and broken relationships with other believers. 

I wish I had known this earlier, as I was broken-hearted and disillusioned the first time we were involved in church where several created disharmony and separations with groups in the church. 

Yet, another aspect of growing in love is giving ourselves time and grace to grow. Most of us never knew how selfish we were until we got married and had children. All of us fall short, but all of us can mature. Learn every day to live more and more into the foundational love and unconditional grace of God and you will become a generous lover like Jesus is.

It is best if we also know we will never be perfect in loving or in relationships. It will keep us humble, generous and make us more likely to forgive.

Loving is the food that fuels each of our lives with health, hope, and a sense of well-being.

That is why is it most important that we learn to practice loving well, forgiving more each year and guarding our mouths so as not to create unnecessary conflict. 

Learning lots about the importance of loving well came through being a mama to children who were starving for it from the beginning.

"Mama, you love me the most, right?" ....Our joke through all the years but repeated over and over again.

"I love you the "Joyest" and you the "Nathanest" and you the "Sarahest" and you the "Joelest," my sweets.

Seems that even now, I am often texting, emailing, fb'ing my kids how much I love them, how special they are to me, how much they are beloved by God.

All of my children have gone through bouts of doubt when confronted by a constant barrage of challenges. All four have written notes to me to say our constant love is what pulled them through. "You always believed in us, you were always at our back. You never gave up!"

A heritage of being loved and cherished is profoundly important in the life of any human being.

Surrounded by people who care for their needs, commit to cherishing them from birth to death, wrapping them in the bonds of unconditional love is a legacy that will give them strength, hope and vision through the rest of their lives.

It is something that cannot be bought or quantified or boxed. Love is a real, day in day out, giving of ourselves for the benefit of others God has placed in our lives--a giving of ourselves for the blessing of others. When we love and touch affectionately, it pre-disposes our children to remember the caresses and affection of love hidden in the pathways of their brains and will cause them to be more prone to believe in the love of God when they are teens and we tell them, again, that God loves them.

When children are deprived of love as an infant, consequences to their health, emotional stability, understanding and perception of God, ability to hold relationships and even intelligence is effected the rest of their lives. Of course, Christ is able to redeem and restore all things. I know in my own life that restoration and healing are possible. But in this fallen world, the process of healing may take awhile.

God created all of us with a deep need to be loved, and a capacity to love generously.

Being loved perfectly was God's original design, it was born in His heart when he created us to know Him intimately.  

If I could point to one thing that truly had an impact in my children, it was giving them a foundation of unconditional love. Generous, overwhelming, words of affirmation, an expectation of forgiveness, acts of service, and many more gestures of love is what opened our children's hearts to listen to our messages about God. 

Loving them as they are, appreciating the personality that God has given them, restoring them to generous love when they have failed, pouring out love even when they were at arm's length, focussing on love as the lens through which I looked at life as a mother, giving out words of love on a daily basis--sometimes many times a day, became the fuel for building a fire in their hearts to want to love God.

When love is modeled as a way of life, then a child has the brain patterns, the very familiarity of how love feels from a parent, and will then be more able to experience the love of God when introduced to it as a concept.

We read:

God is love.

Greater love has no one than this than a man lay down his life for his friend.

The two greatest commandments are to love God and to love others.

Love one another and so fulfill the law of Christ.

They will know you are my disciples by your love for one another.

So many times, parents are afraid that if they show their love for their children too much, they will spoil them. (I am not talking about enabling them by giving in to every whim, but real, unconditional, servant, mature love.)

Has anyone ever loved you too much? Or do you wish for more love?

Though I was loved in many ways, I grew up with some performance based issues in my family, I often felt inadequate and as though I could never do quite enough to please others--my parents, the world--God Himself. I felt defeated in my inner heart, though I kept striving to perform for many years.

However, it was at a college conference in Mexico my junior year, that a wonderful teacher personally explained to me, while focussing on my heart's cries for over an hour, that God truly loved me and that nothing would ever separate me from his love.

This knowledge changed my life forever.

Then I read and pondered and studied the life of Christ with His disciples. It was His love poured out, serving them and their families, living with them, giving them words of life; cooking for them, washing their feet, encouraging them, that so changed their lives that they were willing to give their lives for His cause.

We as adults must understand that unconditional love, as shown by Christ, is the foundation to good relationships.                                              

But the place that our children learn this kind of mature love is by watching us practice loving them in our home.

Many of you, never really understood or experienced love in this way while growing up and perhaps you carry unhealthy habits of relating to people in ways you learned in your home growing up.  What I have found is that by receiving God's love by faith and then practicing it in my home with my family has stretched my ability to love, and it has changed my life. Reading books about relationship has given me tools to recognize what is healthy behavior and what is not (Boundaries and Safe People are two books by Cloud and Townsend that have  helped me to recognize un-health in myself and in others.)  Recognizing habits that do not build my relationships and learning to grow little by little has helped me move in the direction of strong friendships and stable family relationships. This has also helped me to understand and recognize unhealthy people that come into my life and to understand more about how to establish boundaries in ways that protect me from manipulative or broken people. This has become especially important to me in ministry, where I am interacting and committing to people all the time. But the love of God has slowly transformed my life over many years. In making loving well my goal, I have learned to love many people better and more effectively. It is a process of growth.

In our own family devotional, The 24 Family Ways, we made love prominent in our training.

Way # 5 WE LOVE ONE ANOTHER, TREATING EACH OTHER WITH KINDNESS, GENTLENESS AND RESPECT.

MEMORY VERSE:

"Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us." I John 4:11-12

If we understand the importance of building this foundation of loving our precious children and teaching them to love others, we will give them the power they need to build strong relationships, stay strong in marriage, learn to work in ministry and a profession well--in short, we will give them the ability to have a fuller, more fulfilling life.

Loving my adult children is still just as important as when they were young.

The world can be hostile to adults who seek to live morally excellent lives, and who attempt to live lives for the glory of God. And so even now, loving, listening, encouraging, supporting and giving my adult children a home where they will be circled in love and commitment of friendship is one of the pulls in their lives to uphold their ideals in a very challenging time.

Love covers a multitude of sin.

Love is a perfect bond of unity.

So today, commit in your journal what it means to love to each of the precious ones entrusted into your hands and then begin by practicing love today.

How do you show your children acts of love that penetrates their hearts? 

What am I supposed to do?

Now that I have raised 4 children into adulthood, and find, by God's grace, they are all reasonably intelligent, moving ahead with ideas and inspiration and relative accomplishment, love the Lord and growing in that direction and love us, I have closed the door on a season of my life.

I am no longer in the "raising my children" phase, but I am at a moving on to another season, supporting and loving my children, but mostly done with those initial phases of training, educating and inspiring.

Now this is the dilemma. Many of my wonderful younger friends, including Sarah Mae, say, "There are no mentors out there. We need more moms to help us, encourage us."

Having been immersed in this whole role and calling for so many years, I can get lost in the forest for the trees.

So my question to you is:

What are the burning topics that you wish you could ask a mom like me?

What are the biggest issues in your life?

What should I write articles on?

I realize that by God's grace, I have made it through pretty well. But now that I have done it so long and so much is second nature to me, I don't remember exactly how I got here or what people would want to know.

So, I ask you to please help me.

Please answer some of the questions below as well as add your own input.

1. What is the biggest mothering issue in your life that you wish someone would address?

2. Do you want me to write about homeschooling or even just education issues in the home no matter what educational choice?

3. What are spiritual topics that are relevant to you?

4. What are personal issues that you wish I would address?

5. What other topics do you like to see discussed?

6. What aspects of child life do you wish you had more help with?

7. Should I write about marriage?

8. Practical areas--like cooking, baking, house organization, traditions, what areas of practical life appeal to you?

9. Do you like or not like videos and or podcasts--which is preferable, writing, or voice.

10. Would you rather have more information or encouragement (longer articles) or shorter articles cut up over several days?

Thanks ahead of time. I am often tempted to quit blogging because I speak so often and teach a lot and have written a lot of books and so I feel like there is nothing more to say or share--so your input will help me a lot!

So should I spend my time writing more books (lots of ideas here) or keep going with blogs and writing fewer books.

And truth is--when I get more comments and help in getting the word out, I feel like what I am writing is hitting the target. When there are few comments and not as much help in getting a wider audience, I wonder if I should just write more books and maybe rest the blog for a while--your input would help.

He is not a tame Lion, but He is Good

"He is not a tame lion," said Tirian. "How should we know what He would do?"

The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis

Recently, I spotted this old print of a lion, beautifully framed. I purchased it on the spot and now it hangs framed over our fireplace in our den. Aslan, the picture of Christ, stands guard in our home.

Always, I desired that my children understand that they, and no one can contain the living God. We spoke of His greatness, His sovereignty, His kingship and Lordship over the world and over our lives.

"I wonder how God is going to use you in this world in your lifetime to bring His power, His beauty, His wisdom to bear in this world. He has called normal people to do great things because He wants to live through them."

And so we spoke to them of a kingdom that would never end and a King Jesus who had dominion over all realms.

Our instruction was not a moralizing kind or a teaching to be good. But following hard after one who was Life Himself and who had created all of His followers to join in the battle for good against evil, love against hate and redeeming back what was his. All of our children knew they were to be warriors for His cause.

When I first ventured out as a missionary into Communist Eastern Europe, I faced many unknowns with my fellow pioneers. Our doors were pounded by police, we smuggled Bibles and Christian materials in our car and sometimes, our knees shook in frightening situations. Our girls that we lived with in our home were questioned by the secret police as Christian ministries were disallowed to exist in a Communist country.

But we believed we were involved in a spiritual revolution for God who was bigger than governments and stronger than any barriers.

The language was quite difficult and we were lonely and there was not much food. No television that we could understand. No cell phones. No personal computers. The food was strange and we ate mostly eggs at almost every meal because we could not get meat very often.

Our parents worried when they heard on the American news that the Russian tanks were plowing into our city in Poland because of the rebellion rising all over the country. We hovered around the BBC radio to try to hear what was really taking place in our country and to try to find out if we were really in danger.

But, deep in our hearts, we had made the commitment to be there because we believed with all of our heart that we were living for a Kingdom that could not be shaken and we were determined to bring light to a dark world where Christianity was suppressed.

To us, God was almighty, Holy, beyond our comprehension, and so we trusted Him to do miracles, and He did. We also knew He was one who heard our prayers and was willing, for the sake of those who believed, to do miracles and to bring powerful redemption to a whole nation and to the world behind the iron curtain.

Our faith was exhibited behind closed doors where our hearts were tested and no one could see.

Sometimes, I miss the fellowship of such believers. We knew that God could not be contained in a box--but that He was much bigger and more powerful than we could ever imagine. We took risks in order to bring this Hope to a world that desperately needed light and and hope.

Now, as I am approaching 60, I do not want to be satisfied with what I have seen God do previously in my life. I want a new frontier, a new way and place to cast a vision in the lives of others so that they might understand the infinite ways of His love, wisdom and goodness.

I often feel as though we do God an injustice by playing at words and grappling after finite issues, by pettiness and criticism of others, when the lives and eternal destiny of people are at stake.

How can our children be inspired to live great lives if our lives are not burning with a passion to serve Him and to see His power lived out through our lives?

Perhaps we are indeed guilty at times of straightening the picture on a wall of a house that is burning down, when we focus on temporary issues.

And so, as I reevaluate my life and my goals, I pray:

Let my faith not be limited to mere words on the internet, but let my life be a sacrifice to real people who need to know the loving touch of your hands, the power of life-giving words, the healing of forgiveness and acceptance that you have so generously provided.

Let my messages be filled not with rules and lists and formulas, but with truth, vision and foundational instruction. In the power of your Holy Spirit, God, give me renewed faith, boldness, compassion, so that I may expect to see your power through my life in new ways. In the next 10 years, what would you imagine for me to accomplish for your kingdom? What would you have Clay and me venture to help others understand your power. 

Please, Lord, let our faith never diminish to a point of limiting you to a mere philosophy or dogma. Help us always to see you as the Lion of Judah, the God transcendant, the one who crafted the galaxies and put in place the eyelashes on a baby's face. 

And let my children, understand these truths and live their story, faithfully, boldly to give profoundly of your love and life till they see you face to face.

As we ponder your omnipotence, that you are greater than we could imagine, 

that your ways and thoughts are higher than ours and that you can do whatever you choose, 

let that picture of you inspire us to bow our knee to your will and be willing to risk and work with all of our heart to please you until we see you face to face in all of your beautiful wildness, glory and splendor.