The Weary Mom - Dinner #64

     As a mother with an ever-active 14-month-old, and a baby on the way, I know what it is like to sometimes be TIRED . . . physically tired, mentally tired, emotionally tired . . . Days when I’d really rather not fold the next load of laundry, let alone hear that we might be about to pack everything up and move!  But do you know what? Isaiah 40:11 tells me, “He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young.” What a comfort it is for this expectant mother to know that God will lead me GENTLY!! When God designates the next step for us in life, He won’t drag me along! My kind Heavenly Father GENTLY leads “those that are with young”, and that is such a blessing! He will also “gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom . . .” He won’t let my little one feel unsettled and tossed about, if we pick up and move – He will care for her, as well!

     God knows us better than we even know ourselves. He created us! Psalm 103:14 “For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.” This same loving, Creator God, is He Who will care for us! Isaiah 44:2-3 “Thus saith the LORD that made thee, and formed thee from the womb, which will help thee; Fear not . . . For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground: I will pour my spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring.”  Who gives us this caring promise? The One True God! Our Trustworthy Savior! Isaiah 44:6 “ . . . I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God.”

     There is another blessed comfort in Isaiah for the sometimes-weary mom: God NEVER faints nor grows weary, and it is HE Who gives us strength! HIS strength! Isaiah 40:28 “Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding.” Isaiah 40:29 “He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.” We will ALL grow weary, at certain times in our lives! Weary of illness, weary of the same daily routine, perhaps, even weary of life . . . Isaiah 40:30-31 reminds us that, “Even the youths shall faint and be weary . . . But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.”  What a blessed promise! You may feel as though you cannot even WALK, but the Lord can keep you from fainting! He can grant you the strength to make it through any day and any situation.

     One of my favorite verses in all the Bible, declares, “Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.” (Isaiah 41:10) When we are weary and worn, we do not have to “make it” on our own! Whenever our day grows too long or too hard – He is there!  Isaiah 41:13 reiterates, “For I the LORD thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee.”  

     Are you a weary mommy, this week? Let the Lord God be your strength!  He IS ALWAYS THERE!

The Selflessness Of Motherhood - Dinner #44

     As the baby is finishing her breakfast bottle, you smell a dirty diaper.  When you go to change it, you find that it has blown out the side, and you’re going to have to give her a bath right away, rather than waiting for night-time.  There are too many dishes in the kitchen sink, to set the baby tub inside it, so you’re going to have to wash all of THEM before you can give a bath.  Dishes are clean, baby is clean, but by this time, guess what?  She’s HUNGRY AGAIN!  SMILE!  Have YOU had your breakfast yet? Nope! And you haven’t had your shower yet, either!  Does this scenario sound familiar?  Being a Mommy requires a lot of SELFLESSNESS!!

     People will tell you that, “Nothing teaches patience like parenthood”, for a reason!  God is our patient Heavenly Father, and He often uses children in our lives, to make us more like Him!  In Luke 9:23, Jesus says, “ . . . If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.”  As mothers seeking to follow after Christ, we must selflessly DENY OURSELVES, every day!  Is this an easy task, when we feel like our “Me Time” has just been taken away from us? No, indeed!  How much easier it would be to get angry and say the wrong things!  How much easier to just “lose it” and have an “emotional breakdown” in front of everybody!  Romans 6:11 instructs us to, “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Can we die to our sin, and do what is right, in and of ourselves?   In Galatians 6:14, Paul says, “But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.”  We can only be “dead” to the world and to sin through Jesus Christ our Lord!   If we hope to refrain from getting angry when our 3-year-old colors on the wall, then we are going to need the Lord’s help to do it!  If we hope to be patient when the baby has spilled his food for the fourth time in a week, then we are going to need heavenly assistance! We cannot glory in ourselves! Romans 7:18-21 declares, “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing . . . For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do . . . I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.”  Whenever we try to do anything right, on our own, we find that we miserably fail! Galatians 5:25 tells us that, “If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.” Even when things are going all wrong, our reactions can be RIGHT reactions if the Holy Spirit is leading and directing our lives!

     There are days when all you want to do is crawl back under the covers and pretend the dead leaves, the mold, the food-stained dishes, and the dirty diapers just don’t exist.  There are mornings when you really, REALLY wish you didn’t have a pediatrician’s appointment to keep.  It is for times like these that we have Galatians 6:9 - “And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.”  What shall we reap? A happy, healthy home . . . Children who “arise up, and call” us “blessed” (Proverbs 31:28) . . . A contented husband . . . And a million other riches.  How do we become the selfless wives and mothers that God wants us to be?  Romans 12:1 “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.”  We give ourselves to God!  We say, “Lord, I give my life to you!  There are days when I’d much rather be someone else, with no husband and no children to care for, but You have CALLED ME to be a wife and a mother!  That is Your perfect plan for me!  Please help me to be a living sacrifice for You! Help me to daily do what YOU want me to do!”  When those difficult days come, God is always there, helping to give us patience in the midst of our lessons in SELFLESSNESS!

Sitting Still - Dinner #28

     During the past several weeks, we have been fighting to help our baby girl gain weight properly, and for a while there, anywhere from 8-13 hours of my day was spent somehow related to her food needs.  Whether I was nursing, pumping breastmilk, or giving her milk and formula in bottles, the majority of my life suddenly became just SITTING STILL.  At first, all I could see were the piles of dirty laundry, dishes, and dust piling up everywhere.  As someone who lives for crossing items off lists and getting things DONE, I felt very trapped to my living room couch.  I was lovingly trying to give my daughter what she needed, but at the same time, I was quite frustrated and discouraged.  Then God opened my eyes to Psalm 46:10 "Be still, and know that I am God . . ."  These hours upon hours of my sitting on the couch, feeding the baby, were an opportunity from God to get to know Him more!  I wasn't having time TAKEN AWAY from me - I was being GIVEN time!  Time to read Christian magazine articles . . . Time to memorize Scripture and sing hymns . . . Time to pray and read God's Word . . . And then the Holy Spirit used a sermon my pastor preached about "Standing Still" and "Going Forward" to take the lesson to an even deeper level.  The sermon was from Exodus 14, where the Israelites are crossing the Red Sea.  Pastor Sexton shared that we cannot "go forward" and serve God properly until we've had a revival in our spirit from "being still". It reminded me yet again that feeding Brooklyn is my "being still" right now.  In much the same way, us waiting for my husband to complete his Master's classes before heading out on missionary deputation is "standing still".  Sometimes, we must "be still" before we can "go forward".  Then it hit me - This is just as much MY training time for the mission field as it is my husband's! 
     Psalm 77:6 declares, "I call to remembrance my song in the night . . ."  Someday, I want to look back on these days and recall a "song in the night"!  I want to be able to remember that though I was awake feeding my baby, I was praising God!  In Psalm 4:4, each of us are told to " . . . commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still. Selah."  God wants us to take the times of "being still" to grow in our relationship with Him!  "Sitting still" moments can be moments for just you and God.      
     Do I watch the news and a few TV shows throughout the day? Of course I do! I also eat meals, write reminders to myself, and make shopping lists while I'm "sitting still".  But God has been opening my eyes to the opportunity He has given me to know Him more through all of this - Brooklyn won't be drinking milk and formula forever!  This is my time for "sitting still" and growing with God, and I pray I won't miss out!

The Newness Of Mommyhood - Dinner #27

     You think you're a prepared woman.  You've worked in church nurseries, you've attended a class at the hospital, you've watched DVD material on how to care for a newborn, you've read countless articles and listened to advice from experienced moms . . . and then your OWN baby is suddenly brought home from the hospital . . . WOW, are you ever in for a surprise!  Brooklyn is now a month old, and the verse that has come to my mind the most during the past few weeks is I Corinthians 8:2 - "And if any man think that he knoweth any thing, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know." I thought I understood how tired I would be, waking up in the middle of the night to feed my baby.  I was DETERMINED not to give my child a pacifier until she was at least 3 weeks old.  I was certain I'd never EVER give my little girl formula from a bottle.  I was sure I'd be over the hormonal "baby blues" within just a week or two of having Brooklyn.  Let me now say with experience, when motherhood is suddenly upon you, you truly realize that you are a person who ". . . knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know." SMILE!

     Another good verse for new moms is I Corinthians 10:12 - "Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall."  If you get to the point where you think you have all your emotional "ducks in a row", you'd better watch out!  You may very well fall flat on your face!  When you think you won't ever be frustrated with your baby's actions again, she's going to stain her cutest church dress with a dirty diaper.  When you're sure you'll never be upset at your husband over parenting issues again, he'll rest the carrier with the baby IN it, on the hood of your car.  But when the temptation comes for us to blow our top, we can stand on the promise that with each event that tries our patience, God HAS made a way for us to escape falling.  I Corinthians 10:13 - "There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it."  Believe it or not, those raging hormones DON'T have to get the better of us! SMILE!

     While it is easy to see our glaring mistakes, it is also easy to gloat about our new-mommy successes.  If pride steps in and causes us to think we're just the most incredible mom ever, we need to recall the words of II Corinthians 3:5 - "Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God."  If I even APPEAR to be a sufficient mother to my newborn, it will only be because of Christ!  It is not in and of myself!

     As I'm going through these first-time experiences, it is SO good to know that many of my girl friends are in the same boat! - Each of us struggling to make sense of the new world we find ourselves in.  Are you a lady just about to step into the world of motherhood?  Be prepared to find yourself LESS prepared than you ever imagined.  God wants you to HAVE to rely upon Him during these new days!  Do you feel like you couldn't possibly stumble in a certain area of your life again? "Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." And if you're tempted to think you're the best there is, remember that any sufficiency AT ALL only ever comes from God.  May the Lord bring a smile this week with the verse that declares, "And if any man think that he knoweth any thing, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know." Some of us are still coming to the conclusion that NONE of us have "arrived". SMILE!