Coming Alongside

Thinking about our Mom's discussion time this evening around Sally Clarkson's book, The Mission of Motherhood: Touching Your Child's Heart for Eternity. We were talking about being a discipling mother and being intentional in our purposes for our children.

The moms in our group want to disciple their children, want to guide them into eternal truth and godly living, want to lead them to the One who makes life meaningful. It's not an easy task, but one that has eternal value. What we lack in knowledge and ability God makes up for through His abundant grace. He's looking for mothers with willing hearts, willing to expend the time and effort, willing to be involved in something bigger than themselves.

This thing of discipling children is a challenge in our current culture. A challenge because of the decadence of the day, yes, but a greater challenge because of the scattering of families away from extended families who could come alongside and help. No one besides the parents care for their children like grandparents do. One of the moms in our group is seeing that blessing in her own family. She says that when grandma comes for the day a peacefulness comes into the home. She helps with the laundry and such, and the children settle in around her as she reads to them. Blessings all the way around. The American quest for personal independence has run amuck and caught unsuspecting families in the frenzy.

How can grandparents help raise the next godly generation? A comment from Sally Clarkson, but one that could apply to grandparents as well:

What many in our culture don't understand--and many more forget--is that a relationship with Christ is best taught through a long-term personal relationship with someone who knows the Master, not through activities organized around lots of people in impersonal and distracting instructional situations.... Our children will learn righteousness best by seeing it lived out in every possible way in our lives, moment by moment, in the context of normal life.

We help by coming alongside, being involved in our grandchildren's normal life in a long-term personal relationship. Long distance is not normal, everyday life and doesn't develop much of a long-term personal relationship. Oh, but some say, the technology to stay in touch these days is so easily accessible. There are cell phones and texting and email and digital pictures and skype.... and we can do everything but touch each other. Technology cannot substitute for grandma and grandpa's laps, for holding hands as you walk along, for looking at the little bugs as you do and talking about the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord in the glorious riot of autumn color. Or for helping with the laundry.

Painting~ Grannie, Joseph Clark, 1878

via I Am A Child, Children in Art History

When A Mother Chooses to Stay Home

Just finished reading this week's chapter in preparation for our Mom's Discussion Group this evening and want to share a bit with you from The Mission of Motherhood: Touching Your Child's Heart for Eternity by Sally Clarkson. I can say from my own experience as a mother that Sally's assessment of the opportunities for stay-at-home moms and their children far outweigh the call to career.

If a woman chooses to stay at home with her children, she has the opportunity of nursing her baby in peacefulness of her own home, caressing her precious little one, singing sweet lullabies to comfort and please the child's deepest emotional desires. She can offer them the restfulness of long, quiet naps in their own bedrooms. She has time to enrich the home environment with beautiful sights and smells--from aromas of homemade soup bubbling on the stove to the beautiful pictures in books--and arrange outings that foster budding intellects and awaken curiosity. And she has the flexibility to change her schedule to respond to teachable moments--those times when children's natural curiosity leads them to question and learn.

Best of all, when a mother chooses to stay home, she has the time and opportunity to craft the kind of relationship with her young children that only extended time together can foster. And from such a relationship she has a much better chance of building a strong moral and spiritual foundation in the heart of her young child, teaching a system of truth and values without the constant challenge of authorities and peers whose lives are totally different. When these advantages are taken away from a child, how can we not count them as a loss to a whole generation of children who are hungry for direction, love, stability, and individual attention?

Painting ~ Mother and Daughter, George Goodwin Kilburne 1839-1924

Wikigallery public domain

The Blessing of Children

Thinking about the time with our Moms Group this evening. Discussion went to Genesis 1, when God blessed Adam and Eve. Part of that blessing was to be fruitful and multiply. Children are God's blessing to us. What an awesome privilege to be part of God's plan of procreating the earth!  He has put it in our hearts to receive this blessing, but because of the Fall and the sinful state of life, many have difficulty seeing children as anything but a hindrance or a nuisance. They're certainly work and responsibility, but God's blessings are always good for us.

Families are a good thing. Children bring life to ..... well, life!  Before I had children, I had no concept of what joy they would bring me. I had delayed blessings because of my own self-focus. Nine years of career-minded thinking, not knowing what joy and blessing I was missing. That's not to say that everything changed in the birthing room. I had to have a heart change, and that took some time. But when I got my focus off myself and onto these new little humans that God had placed in my life, my capacity for receiving the blessings greatly increased. I could have lived in those years forever.

Our group is meeting weekly here in my home to discuss The Mission of Motherhood: Touching Your Child's Heart for Eternity by Sally Clarkson. Sharing something from this chapter that I hadn't considered before:

The fruitful family was even the foundational place in which the Son of God was placed in which to represent his Father in this world. When God chose to bring Jesus into the world, as a full reflection of his glory and being, he chose to bring him into a simple family with a mother and father and, eventually, siblings. It was within the context of this home that Jesus was trained and instructed and loved and nurtured, both protected and prepared for his ministry ahead.

Totally awesome.

Painting ~ The Family Picnic, Frederick Morgan 1856-1927

Wikigallery public domain

Filled With Purpose

I just lost a half hour of blogging. Somehow what I had written just disappeared off the page and is irretrievable. I was writing about motherhood, with some thoughts borne from our Mom's discussion group last evening. We're discussing Sally Clarkson's book, The Mission of Motherhood: Touching Your Child's Heart for Eternity. I must go on to other things in my day right now, but I do want to leave you with a few overarching thoughts from Sally's book:

[Many women] don't know how to reconcile these conflicting messages [from our current culture] with the calling of God on their hearts and lives. What's the cure for this confusion? I believe it lies with a rediscovery of the traditional mission of motherhood, a rediscovery of what God had in mind when he first designed families.... My calling as a mother is the same as any other Christian's: to fulfill God's will for our lives and to glorify him.... The journey of discovering God's design for motherhood has filled me with purpose, peace, fulfillment, and excitement. In fact, I have come to believe that being a mother encompasses all that is best within me. I have come to believe that motherhood, while demanding, is one of the most meaningful roles a woman can fulfill. ~ Sally Clarkson

The Simple Woman's Daybook

Today I reflect on simple thoughts and simple pleasures. My leads are somewhat similar to others in The Simple Woman's Daybook group, yet a bit different as well.  

A picture to share...  

 

 

Outside my window...

Snow white azaleas in full bloom in the front garden. Especially gorgeous at night!

Thinking...     

About the good fellowship that I had while walking this week.

 

Thankful...   

That my parents and sister's families were safe during the tornadoes this week in Huntsville. They only lost electricity that will be off for several more days. Inconvenient, but many others lost much more.

 

Learning... 

That quilt blocks don't necessarily come out square with precise 1/4 inch seams, but rather that the seams need to be adjusted to make a block square.
  

Around the house.... 

Finished a new 4-week menu rotation for May-August. This sure is a big help when it comes to supper time and grocery shopping. Not that I'm stuck to the menu when I want to do something different, but when it's on paper it's off my mind (not a lot seems to stick there anyway), and I can just give it a quick glance to see what's upcoming for supper.

Noticing the sound of...

Quiet. A peaceful night.

Reflecting creativity, in His image...
Gave The Book Nook a Mother's Day touch
 

From the kitchen....

Sharing one of the new recipes to our menu rotation. This one is Debbie's from our local homeschool support group cook book. Thanks, Debbie!

Meal-in-One Casserole

(Crock Pot)

1# ground beef

1 medium onion, chopped 

1 medium green pepper, chopped

1 cup whole corn, drained (I used frozen)

1 cup mushroom tops and pieces, drained (I used fresh)

1 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp pepper

1- 11 oz. jar salsa (I think mine was about 14 oz.)

5 cups uncooked medium egg noodles (I just cooked enough for the two of us)

1- 28oz. can diced tomatoes, undrained

1 cup water

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese (I used mozzarella)

In a skillet cook beef and onion over medium heat until beef is done. Transfer to slow cooker. Top with green pepper, corn and mushrooms. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Pour salsa over mushrooms. Pour tomatoes and water over all. Sprinkle with cheese. Cover and cook on low for 2-3 hours, then add noodles and continue cooking 1-2 hours or until noodles are tender. 

 

I just cooked the noodles separately so I could save mixture leftovers. The next time I won't add as much liquid. I think the mixture would good over nacho chips, too, especially with less liquid.

A thought from my Quiet Time....

From Knowing God Through the Year by J.I. Packer

Just as you do not know the path of the wind, ... so you do not know the activity of God who makes all things. ~ Ecclesiastes 11:5

"Among the seven deadly sins of medieval lore was sloth (acedia)--a hard-bitten, joyless apathy of spirit. There is a lot of it around today in Christian circles. The symptoms are personal spiritual inertia combined with critical cynicism about the churches and supercilious resentment of other Christians' initiative and enterprise. Behind this morbid and deadening condition often lies the wounded pride of one who thought he knew all about the ways of God in providence and then was made to learn by bitter and bewildering experience that he didn't.

This is what happens when we do not heed the message of Ecclesiastes. For the truth is that God, in his wisdom, to make and keep us humble and to teach us to walk by faith, has hidden from us almost everything that we would like to know about the providential purposes that he is working out in the churches in our own lives."

Currently reading...

The Mission of Motherhood by Sally Clarkson. I began previewing this book as a possible Book Nook addition, and I quickly found that it certainly is one I'd encourage all mothers to read! In fact, I'm thinking about hosting a 6-week discussion group for moms around this book. It's that good!

This coming week I'm looking forward to...
Our upcoming visit with Elizabeth and Craig and our little Elijah. Looking forward to holding and hugging! 

You may also enjoy reading what other simple women are saying and doing these days. Just click here to go to The Simple Woman's Daybook site. I'll be posting my journal on Saturdays. Do stop by again.

From The Book Nook

I'm heading over to the church this afternoon to give The Book Nook a Mother's Day touch.  Thought I'd pass along just a few brief reviews of titles I'm highlighting there for moms and children. 

The Mission of Motherhood: Touching Your Child’s Heart for Eternity

This book by Sally Clarkson helps us rediscover the joy and fulfillment found in the role God has wisely given women. Although our current culture minimizes this role, God’s purposes are higher and nobler. Sally shows us how to nurture our children and help them open their hearts to God by bringing God’s purposes into our homes.

 

Feminine Appeal: Seven Virtues of a Godly Wife and Mother

This is a book that I wish had been around when I was a young wife and mother. It’s probably the best book that I’ve read on the seven feminine virtues given in Titus 2. Carolyn Mahaney gave me a much broader understanding of God’s design for women—older and younger alike. She meets the challenges of living today with the truths of scripture. 

 Grandpa’s Box: Retelling the Biblical Story of Redemption

While many children’s books about the Bible focus on biblical heroes and what we learn about them, this book by Starr Meade helps children see beyond the characters to the God whose story it really is. Grandpa uses his box of collections to tell the story of redemption through events involving biblical characters, but shows that it’s really just one story—the story of redemption down through the ages. A great read-aloud book for family devotions, or it can be read alone by children ages 9-12.

 

I’ll Love You Anyway and Always

This book by Bryan Chapell is a lovely hardback book that helps children understand God’s abundant love, forgiveness, mercy and grace. Young Katy’s disobedience provides an opportunity for her daddy to tell her about God’s love for His children, and, in turn, Katy learns to love others when they have wronged her. Beautifully illustrated. Ages 3-8

Ten Boys/Girls Who….

This is a series of five books written by Irene Howat giving brief biographies of men and women of faith who were once children themselves and grew up to influence the world around them. Five books are about boys; five books are about girls. Ages 8-12

Included in the series:

10 Boys/Girls Who Made a Difference 

10 Boys/ Girls Who Used Their Talents

10 Boys/ Girls Who Didn’t Give In 

10 Boys/ Girls Who Changed The World

10 Boys/ Girls Who Made History

 

All of these books can be found at christianbook.com.