It’s true! Baby number six has been making its tiny presence known in this house for the last many weeks. I just read the other day that hormone is the Greek word for impact. SO insightful. I mean, I try to be a pretty mellow person. But give me one whiff of a pregnancy-related hormone, and my body goes off like a bottle rocket of over-reactions. Luckily for me, there is a houseful of children here to sprinkle humor all over life. Blaire pretends to puke, rushing off to the bathroom, making everyone else howl with laughter. The bigger kids love to hush each other up whenever some kind of food is mentioned, “DON’T TALK ABOUT FOOD OR MOM WILL PUKE!!!” And we are old enough now to know that we forget about this phase later. We know that the baby at the end is worth anything in the middle, and more than anything we know that this baby is a gift. So, happy times all around! Continue reading ‘Baby Time.’
Archive for the 'Mothering' Category
Kicking the anger can a little further down the road, I thought I’d write something about where this anger comes from in the first place. I doubt any of us gets up in the morning hoping to get angry at someone, especially someone near and dear to us.
The Bible is very clear about where our words come from: they come straight up from our hearts. So if something nasty comes out of our mouths, then our hearts have got some nastiness in them. No way to dodge this. In Matthew 12:4, Jesus says, “O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.” And again in Luke 6:45, “A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil; for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.”
Now how can a sweet Christian woman get angry and say “evil” things to her children? Does that mean she has “evil” in her heart? Unfortunately, that’s what it means. We all have evil in our hearts. No one is good. So we all need gospel grace day in and day out.
Here are a couple of suggestions Think about when you are most likely to be tempted to be angry. Is it Continue reading ‘Wise Hearts’
My husband just preached on anger this last Sunday, so it’s been a topic of conversation around our house lately. And since it seems to be a bit of a topic in the comment sections here, I thought I’d weigh in with two small cents . . . on anger as it seems to manifest itself in wives and mothers.
Let’s just say (hypothetically of course) that you have just completely lost the bubble with your children. (That would never happen, right?) You got tweaked all the way out because they were being loud and rambunctious and they woke up the baby. And, (this is the vitally important part), you TOLD them not to be loud or they’d wake up the baby. You said it plainly and in English, and now they’ve gone and done it. This is clearly a flagrant disregard of your authority, of God’s law, of the ten commandments, of all the laws of nature, of house rules, of all human decency, and now you’re not going to have your calm moment to sit down and sip your tea and look at Pinterest. Or fold your laundry. Or get caught up on your email. Clearly (you tell yourself) you need to show the children the full weight of their offense. What better way to do this, than to pack all the punch you can into your frown, ramp up the tone of voice, raise the level of sarcasm to previously unscaled heights, and grab them (too tightly) by the shoulder and frog march them to the bathroom? All of this, you reason, is to show them how badly they have offended God – you are clearly obligated to show them how grievously they have transgressed.
If you don’t have a baby, then change the above scenario to the one where your daughter used up more minutes on her phone than she was allotted, or sent more texts than she was supposed to, or didn’t get her chores done. You draw yourself up, put your hands on your hips, and commence an outraged speech, littered with tasteful phrases like, “Why can’t you ever LISTEN TO ME???!!!” Continue reading ‘Masking Anger as Justice’
Well, Happy New Year! With the resurfacing of my old milkshake post came the reminder to me that I had promised a little more on the topic. Well, here I am, a whole year later, trying to do just that.
It does seem that every mother has energy, joy, and fulfillment sometimes, but consistently having these things can challenge us beyond what we feel is a reasonable amount. Joy all day? Every day? Even if Daddy is out of town, or when the whole family has the stomach flu, or when the pre-dinner warp spasm is upon the children? How can we maintain a cheerful, calm, happy, giving attitude when we certainly don’t feel like it? Well, here are a few thoughts, incomplete though they be, that may help us get a little perspective.
A family is a lot like a church. After all, a mother has a little congregation at home, as my mother-in-law kindly pointed out to me long ago. “You have three in your congregation, three in your little Bible school.” It seemed like a pretty big congregation to me, but some of you mothers have two, three, and four times that number in yours.
Mothers of children, let me tell you something. You are like a pastor to your children. You must feed them like a good pastor does. You must know how each one is doing. Each and every one. You must make sure each child is receiving love and attention, that each feels loved as a special member of this family/congregation of yours. You must see that each one is washed and clothed and fed. And you must be available at all hours to minister to these little or big ones. You may not ignore them or put them off. The way you love and teach them is showing Continue reading ‘Shepherd Mothers’
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