This past Saturday I was able to spend a lot of time with my mom. I picked her up in the morning and we drove up to BB's to do some shopping.
After shopping we went to Lapp's Family Restaurant which is just a mile or two from BB's and had lunch together. I had such a wonderful time talking about many things with my mom. She has such a wonderful way of sharing insight that God has given her while she watches Dave and I raise our children. She offers suggestions and often has the answer to difficult situations that I may be having with my children or with myself!
After spending all this time with my mom, I was able to see some areas in our family that sorely needed improvement. She in no way implied that we were having problems, but through me sharing with her and with the insight she gave, God revealed many things to me.
Most of these things I found needed to be approached with me first taken the initiative to set a better example. I realized that my quiet times had been weak and shallow and I really need to get back to getting adequate nourishment for my family. I need to be diligent in my physical exercising so that I am able to keep up with my kids better. I need to require better manners of my children. I need to be more consistent in the correction of my children - especially with the younger ones who are going through "tantrum phases"! I need to approach schooling my kids as a privilege, not a burden, and I need to do it as unto the Lord. I need to have the kids pull their share of the chore load around the house and make sure that they finish these chores before they are released to play for the rest of the day. Most importantly, I need to require my kids to spend time daily in the Word on their own - not with Dave or I reading a passage of Scripture to them, but finding for themselves what a joy it is to learn from God's Word with a daily quiet time.
In short, I need to require excellence in living first of my self, and then of my children. The Bible says, "Be EXCELLENT at what is good..." My calling in life right now is to be the best mom that I can be. I am to diligently seek the Lord to give me wisdom in raising these future warriors for Him. If I fail, it is only because I was not striving to be excellent at what I have been called to do. If I fail, then all these years of training will have been for nothing. When my kids are grown up and raising children of their own, I want them to be able to look back and see that they ended up where they are because their mom required excellence not only in their life, but in her own.
"There is nothing I desire to live for but to do some small service for my children, that as I've brought them into the world, I may, if it please God, be an instrument of doing good to their souls."
Susanna Wesley
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2 comments:
Good post. I'm wondering how you went about asking your mom, or did she just lovingly say, "I've noticed a few things." And did she point out areas you were blind to? I just usually don't have the courage to ask my mom, and she doesn't usually say anything because she figures I know the weak spots already. I don't just mean this is difficult between my mom and me, but are people really doing this for each other in the church? I wonder if I'm just not all that approachable...?
You know, it seems like I did most of the talking that day! Sometimes just talking about your kids without the interruptions of having them around brings all kinds of things to light! I think her insights were coming about from things that I brought up. She is schooling two of my kids right now, so it is a normal occurance for us to ask how "each other's kids" are doing.
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