Parenting – Page 5 – Joyful Domesticity

April 30, 2015May 1, 2015

Creating Memories

The daily and weekly rituals of your life add up.
Not only do they create your past,
but they quite possibly also create the past of someone you love.
What you choose to do with those moments,
in addition to the value you place on them,
can mean the difference in creating lasting memories
or creating none at all.
~Rachel Macy Stafford, Hands Free Mama, p74~

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What do you do to purposely & purposefully create memories in your family and with your children?
Has there ever been something that you thought, I want my kids to remember that! and how did you follow through?
What memories from your own childhood do you cherish the most?
What memories from your own childhood surprise you by taking up brain cells you could live without?
What memories do you want your own children (or the children you interact with) to take with them throughout their lives?
How do you pursue consistency in creating a lifetime of daily routines that you pray will mesh into memories worth keeping?

Over the next few days, I will be highlighting a few little things that we do in our family, along with answering some of these questions above, and I hope you will follow along and chime in (please comment with your thoughts!). Conversations are way more fun when they aren’t monologues, right?

April 16, 2015

Christ is Always Enough

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Motherhood is physically exhausting, emotionally draining work.
Where can a mother find the strength she needs to serve her family?
From God, who is “able to make all grace abound to you,
so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times,
you may abound in every good work” (2 Cor. 9:8).
~Gloria Furman, Treasuring Christ When Your Hands are Full, p109~

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My prideful heart want o badly to be Super Mom
and for other moms to think I’m Super Mom.
Sometimes I prefer to glory in things other than God’s grace.
Pride shows up in many forms.
When we’re tempted to revel in the acceptance of others,
we need to draw near to God’s throne of grace.
We can have confidence that God will
hear our prayers, come to our aid, and bolster our hope in Him
because of what Christ has done for us on the cross.
Pride induces us to worry about tomorrow
as though we can control the outcome with our anxiety.
In those hand-wringing moments we need to remember
that God’s grace will still be sufficient tomorrow.
~Gloria Furman, Treasuring Christ When Your Hands are Full, p121~

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April 11, 2015

delighting

We were made in the image of God.
We were created to delight, as He does,
in the resident goodness of creation.
~Robert Farrar Capon, The Supper of the Lamb: a Culinary Reflection, p91~

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There is a habit that plagues many so-called spiritual minds:
they imagine that matter and spirit are somehow at odds with each other
and that the right course for human life is to escape
from the world of matter into some finer and purer (and undoubtedly duller) realm.

To me, that is a crashing mistake—
and it is, above all, a theological mistake.
Because, in fact, it was God who invented dirt, onions and turnip greens;
God who invented human beings, with their strange compulsion to cook their food;
God who, at the end of each day of creation,
pronounced a resounding “Good!” over his own concoctions.
And it is God’s unrelenting love of all the stuff of this world
that keeps it in being at every moment.

So, if we are fascinated, even intoxicated, by matter, it is no surprise:
we are made in the image of the Ultimate Materialist.
~Robert Farrar Capon, The Supper of the Lamb: a Culinary Reflection, xxvi~

April 10, 2015April 8, 2015

Motherhood, daily & divine

Any way you cut it, motherhood is intimidating…
moms might not know it, but they are the bravest of the brave…
and perhaps what makes this kind of everyday courage the most remarkable
is how very seldom it gets recognized.
~Lisa-Jo Baker, Surprised By Motherhood, p93~

Vacations are more than vacations,
and that island is more than an island.
Vacations are the act of grabbing
minutes and hours and days with both hands,
stealing against the inevitability of time.
There will be a day when our family as we know it will no longer exist,
and I want to know in that moment that I wasn’t at the office or doing the dishes
when I could have been walking on the dock with my dad,
when I could have been drinking tea and eating ginger cookies on the porch with my mom.
~Shauna Niequist, Cold Tangerines, p45~

We are always to do our best,
striving to be obedient
and to love, nurture, and discipline them.
But we are to do it with faith in the Lord’s ability to transform hearts,
not in our ability to be consistent or faithful.
~Elyse Fitzpatrick & Jessica Thompson, Give Them Grace, p53~

April 6, 2015April 5, 2015

Easter Lessons

This year, we went out of our way to do a few more hands-on lessons and Easter preparations with the children. The older they get, of course the more they grasp ~ and it is delightful to hear their own 6, 3, and 2 year old sized insights into why we do the things we do.

On Good Friday, rather than doing our normal homeschooling routine, while the little ones had individual room time (learning to play on their own for a solid hour is a good skill to learn), Gabriel helped me clean the house. We washed windows, cleaned bathrooms, swept floors, mopped floors, did laundry, washed dishes, wiped down cupboards. And while we worked together, we talked about why we were working so hard, and why is this what we chose to do on Good Friday. When I asked Gabriel what he thought, he paused in thought, then profoundly said, “Well, today is the day we remember the whole reason why Jesus came. He came to clean our hearts. So I guess that’s why we should clean our home.” I wanted to just stop the conversation right there, and leave it at that ~ because my kid gets SO much of the Gospel story, and I love hearing his perspective on it. It’s beautiful. But we went on to talk about how Jesus served others, even though He was King of all. We talked about “our people” ~ and who are our neighbors. Gabriel even asked if he could wash my feet when we were done cleaning, because he wanted to bless me and serve me like Jesus.

But I hate to admit, I forgot about the feet-washing, because by the time we were done cleaning the house, the little ones were ready to be done with solitary playtime, and we needed to move on to the phase of dirtying things back up again. Funny how we do that in my line of work: we clean things up so we can make them dirty again!

So after a little lunch, Evangeline was ready for a nap, and the boys & I got out supplies for some crafts that would hold more lessons.

We had already dyed Easter eggs with Grandmama, Auntie, and cousins, complete with super sweet and thoughtful conversations about the metaphors, symbolism, and just plain fun of the tradition. My children and I have talked numerous times this week about the symbolism we can see in the eggs… how they symbolize the rock which closed the tomb, but new life can spring forth from it… how we can take plain eggs and give them new clothing, as we do when we take on new life in Christ… how the yolk in a cracked egg can symbolize the glorious light of Jesus’ resurrection from the dark tomb when He burst forth in glorious array…
Click here to read about Easter Egg traditions throughout the life of the Church, following the Lenten season. Even plain old Wikipedia had some great thought-provoking things about Easter Eggs, or Paschal Eggs. And for some fun nuances on Easter Egg traditions, click here and have some fun with the kids in your life.

Romans 6:4
We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death,
in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead
by the glory of the Father,
we too might walk in newness of life.

Thanks to Ann Voskamp’s diligent sharing each and every year, I finally felt like my boys were old enough this year to really grasp & enjoy a couple more unique & detailed hands-on projects.

First we had a snack of nuts and figs, while we made a crown of thorns (using a small grapevine wreath and a few dozen coffee-stained toothpicks) and talked a lot about the events of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. Three year old Asher was nearly in tears (I love how his forehead crinkles and his chin quivers when he feels genuine sorrow), talking about Jesus being tortured, bleeding, and dying. He finally smiled again when I reminded Him that this was why Jesus came, and this is how He worked to save US from OUR sins. And in his sweet little voice, Asher proclaimed, “I sure love Jesus, Mommy.”

Matthew 27:29
…twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on His head…

Mark 15:17
…twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on Him.

John 19:2, 5
And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on His head and arrayed Him in a purple robe. So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe.

Next we went out on to the back porch and put together our own little Gethsemane. Using a small moss planter (I used this, and don’t let the word “large” fool you!), we filled it with soil. Then we set our tomb carved in the rock in the corner of the garden (I found that aquarium accessories could offer some neat options, like this cichlid stone), before filling the rest of the garden with plants. We used some little succulents we got at a local store along with some pretty decorative moss, and then Gabriel used small smooth stones to make a little pathway through the garden to the tomb. Last of all, the boys went on a stone hunt outside to find something that would serve as a tomb cover.

John 19:41
Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid.

Luke 23:55-56
The women who had come with Him from Galilee followed and saw the tomb and how His body was laid.Then they returned and prepared spices and ointments. On the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment.

On Good Friday, we used last week’s palm branches and our homemade crown of thorns to decorate our dinner table, when we ate lamb and roasted vegetables and matzo ball soup, along with the Seder plate with all its elements and plenty of wine.

Our kitchen island was cleared of all other decorations, and that is where we laid our own little Gethsemane. On Friday evening we closed up the tomb. On Saturday morning we found a little soldier to keep guard outside the tomb. And the children looked forward to seeing what would come of it on Sunday morning.

Matthew 27:59-60, 66
And Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen shroud and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had cut in the rock. And he rolled a great stone to the entrance of the tomb and went away. … So they went and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone and setting a guard.

Come Sunday morning, the children came downstairs to find the guard fallen down, the stone moved away, and a piece of linen folded inside the tomb.

Matthew 28:2-8
And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it.His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow.And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men.But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified.He is not here, for He has risen, as He said. Come, see the place where He lay.Then go quickly and tell His disciples that He has risen from the dead, and behold, He is going before you to Galilee; there you will see Him. See, I have told you.”So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to tell His disciples.

Luke 24:1-12
…On the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb,but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel.And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead?He is not here, but has risen. Remember how He told you, while He was still in Galilee,that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.”And they remembered His words,and returning from the tomb they told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest.Now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles,but these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.But Peter rose and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; and he went home marveling at what had happened.

They found a table set for a beautiful little breakfast. Fruit salad, hard boiled eggs with sea salt, mimosas, Easter story cookies, and Easter tomb rolls (the kids had helped me make those all on Saturday, which was really wonderful). Candles and music and the excited rush of gathering and eating and praising God together, singing Christ The Lord Is Risen Today. Gifts for each one at their place ~ books and chocolates.

Once the morning feasting was done, it came time to don our Easter clothing (clothing is hugely metaphorical and meaningful in Scripture and the history of the Church) ~ even the Easter sermon mentioned this, because we had three baptisms during the service and these Scriptures were emphasized.

Ephesians 4:17-24
Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds.They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ!—assuming that you have heard about Him and were taught in Him, as the truth is in Jesus,to put off your old self,which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds,and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

Colossians 3:12-17
Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience,bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.

Galatians 3:27
For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.

And so we got dressed in new matchy-matchy clothes (and my heart ached in all the heaviest and bestest of ways, because I have been given a family to clothe, and children who can wear sickeningly matchy outfits!), and talked about putting on Christ, putting off our old selves, putting on the new self in newness of life and the beauty of holiness, putting on love above all other things.

And then? Then the party really started. Gabriel pointed out, “there sure is a lot of joy around church and everywhere today!” and I couldn’t help but laugh. Because isn’t that just exactly, precisely the way it should be?! May the joy of the gospel, and of the Resurrected Christ, and of the hope He has given His people, shed forth from your homes, your families, your churches, and your wanderings until He comes again and everything is made new and all is set right.

To the glory of the Father, amen. Allelulia!

March 25, 2015March 25, 2015

Homeschooling Grace

Yes, give them God’s law.
Teach it to them and tell them that God commands obedience.
But before you are done, give them grace and explain again
the beautiful story of Christ’s perfect keeping of it for them.
~Elyse Fitzpatrick & Jessica Thompson, Give Them Grace, p36~

Everything that isn’t gospel is law.
Let us say it again: everything that isn’t gospel is law.
Every way we try to make our kids good that isn’t rooted
in the good news of the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ
is damnable, crushing, despair-breeding, Pharisee-producing law.
~Elyse Fitzpatrick & Jessica Thompson, Give Them Grace, p36~

As I continue on the somewhat daunting, but ever rewarding, task of homeschooling my children by God’s grace, I seek to do it not only by God’s grace, but for God’s grace. I just ordered curriculum for the next year or so of Gabriel’s official education, and once again I am so easily drawn into the law side of things. But that’s not the beauty of the gospel! The beauty, the gift, of the gospel is the utter and complete GRACE of it. Grace for each subject. Grace for methods. Grace even for principles. Grace for me. Grace for my children. Grace upon grace upon grace!

Oh! What a mercy and a joy and a privilege and an honor.

Thanks be to God. I would not want any other job than that of being the one to train and educate and mold and fill these little people. May God grant me the grace and diligence I need to do it well for His glory.

March 15, 2015March 16, 2015

Resting in His Image on His Day

…Above all you shall keep My Sabbaths, for this is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I, the Lord, sanctify you. You shall keep the Sabbath, because it is holy for you… a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the Lord…It is a sign forever between Me and the people of Israel that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed.
Exodus 31:13-17

Around here, we love Sundays. We love the routines it carries, the rest it brings. It is an anchor for our week, the most predictable day of all.

A Sunday here is typically quite simple in structure yet profound in what it represents. Rest is indisputably delightful, in its various manifestations and representations! All five of us cling to the joy of resting on the Lord’s Day. We go to bed earlier than normal on Saturdays so we are well rested—in order to be prepared for the day of rest! (What could be more wonderful preparation than that?!) We have some of our best & favorite foods and wear some of our best & favorite clothes. We go to church to worship the King and be with His people. One of my favorite things about Sundays, personally, is how we covenantally ascend into heaven (just read Hebrews 12 for yourself) during corporate worship, because it makes me feel so intimately close with my nine babies in heaven. We commune through bread and wine with the Lord and with one another. We sing and pray, pass the peace of Christ to one another and find ways to shower grace upon each other, share conversation and fellowship and food and handshakes or hugs. While sometimes Sundays include hospitality, family parties and meals at the grandparents’ house, or spending hours with friends, we do sincerely love Sunday afternoons that offer us quiet hours at home—not to fret over schoolwork and house projects and cleaning nooks & crannies, but to play together and rest together. We love enjoying God’s creation on His day, from many vantage points and in varied ways. We have a special family tradition on Sunday evenings of eating goodies and doing something fun—for this current season of our little family’s life, it usually looks like eating popcorn & ice cream while snuggling & watching movies. After kids are tucked in their beds, it also means date night for my husband & me—with wine, chocolate, cheese, and sometimes a movie just for us.

Sundays—the Lord’s Day—our Sabbath—is a foretaste of heavenly rest, and a recurrent (utterly joyful and blessed!) reminder that our hardworking life should be predictably punctuated by worship and delight. And it isn’t just because in our human frailty we need a break from the six other days where we run around working hard, being as productive as we can manage, and having an undercurrent of diligent & dedicated labors. It is, after all, a good reminder that God did not rest on the seventh day of creation because He was exhausted. He rested to delight in His work.

God did not rest because He was tired.
He rested so that those made in His image
would share in His rest through worship.
He rested so that He could turn Adam and Eve’s attention
from the creation to the Creator.
In a sense, God was saying to Adam and Eve and all humanity,
“Come and rest in who I am and what I have accomplished.
Enjoy with me the goodness of all I have made.”
This was to establish a rhythm of
engagement with the world through work
and then thankful enjoyment of the world through worship.
~Nancy Guthrie, The Promised One, p45~

Some Sundays are more placid than others. Sometimes our resting is kind of… well… flat out energetic and lively and noisy or busy enough to even border on chaotic.

In fact, at this very moment—while I might be reclining on a comfy bed with a cozy comforter snuggled on top of me and a cup of tea within reach—I have an excessively wiggly and noisy two year old girl going up and down, up and down, up and down… screaming and giggling and babbling, trying to grab at the computer keys or spill my tea cup… while a video booms with bright images and loud soundtrack in a corner of the room and children carry on with continual commentary, occasionally interspersing requests for a water bottle, popcorn or ice cream refill, or simply expressing utter delight in sharing goodies with one another on this special day of the week.

And this is after lots of lively fellowship & projects at Sunday school, loud singing during worship (although I must confess that the entire corporate worship service is beautifully rich and peaceful even in our busy pew), a boisterous lunch at a crowded Red Robin restaurant (mac & cheese, ketchup, and juicy orange segments seemed to get absolutely everywhere!), and a long chatterbox-filled 26-mile drive home.

But these in fact are some of the best ways that we see Christ, His goodness, His rest, His future hope—in the people He put around us, and especially those in our own home under our own discipleship. We turn our hearts to Him and tune our souls to His praise, resting in who He is, what He has done, and delightfully embracing these living temples where He lives right here among us—but sometimes the resting is clamorous and rollicking rather than quiet and what you might describe as serene.

But whichever way our Sabbath rest takes us on a given day, we delight in the gift of the Lord’s Day (Mark 2:27), knowing that the Lord accepts our worship, covers us with grace, and fills us up on this day that He has set aside for us (and in return, we set it aside for Him) so that we can once again go forth to labor for another six days in His creation before being called again to this sanctified day—this day where we enjoy all that God has made, and where we delight in six days of productivity and rest in enjoyment of His sweet grace in so many of its innumerable manifestations.

Serenity, silence, and solitude are good things.
God uses quietness to tune our heart to listen to Him through His Word.
Silence can help us pray without added distractions.
In the peacefulness of our surroundings,
the Lord can still our busy heart.
“Truly alone” time with the Lord is a gift.
But so are the times when you’re ringmastering your family circus.
The Lord is just as near to you when you’re
using a bulb sucker on a tiny, congested nose
and as you’re summoning the wisdom of Solomon
to settle a spat over a disputed toy.
~Gloria Furman, Treasuring Christ When Your Hands are Full, p72~

And now it’s clear that I need to move on to ringmastering my family circus down for the night… the three rings are busy and the tents are bouncing. I have a little girl here who can’t seem to decide whether she is a dancing poodle, a trapeze artist, or toy juggler—and it’s always fun to wrangle acrobats into their beds. So excuse me please while I go tuck these little God-images into their beds, and watch them drift into the rest of sleep as the rest from His day prepares them (and me!) for another six days of working the ground the Lord has put into our hands.

March 13, 2015March 11, 2015

Prayers of Psalmody for our Children

Blessed is everyone who fears the Lord,
who walks in His ways!
Your children will be like olive shoots around your table.
May you see your children’s children!
Psalm 128:1, 3, 6 (ESV)

Sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ, the ones specifically today who are raising the next generation for the Kingdom of God; how we need to recover and embrace the duty, the art, the service, the joy of praying for our children. No matter how old your children are, it is time to pray for them. And if there are children in your life who you do not mother, it is still a glorious privilege to bring them before our Father as well—so please join us in praying, even if you pray for the children of others. May we break forth in prayer to our Father in the vein of mothers like Hannah, like Mary, like Lois and Eunice. May He hear us and grant us our requests in accordance with His holy will. Please kneel with me and bow your hearts in prayer, as we pray together for our children.

Holy Father in Heaven, incline Your ear toward us, answer us in our need. Please hear us for the sake our children, who belong to You according to Your covenant promises. Please, Father, preserve our lives—we seek godliness in the light of Your glory, for You are our God and we trust You. We trust You for salvation and provision, O God. Be gracious to us, and hear our cries. Lift us up and give us gladness because of Your goodness, Your forgiveness, your steadfast love. Because of these things, Triune God, we plea for grace and ask you to hear our prayers. (Psalm 86:1-6) We pray for the sake of the children You have entrusted to us. May Your will be done.

Father, my children come from a line of Christians that have been faithful to Your covenant, like Timothy’s line through Eunice and Lois. You have put faith in the hearts of my children, and I ask You to fan that flame which is a gift of God. Please enable my children to embrace the spirit of power and love and self-control that You have given them. Give my children strength to share in the sufferings for the Gospel, for You have saved my children and called them to a holy calling, for Your own purpose and grace. Lord, give my children confidence in You, and allow them never to be ashamed of their testimony for Your Kingdom. (1 Timothy 1:5-9) You are in heaven, and You alone are the Holy One.

God, please give our children the grace and wisdom they need to keep the commandments of their father, give them stout faith and diligence so that they do not forsake the teaching of their mother. Please bind Your truth on the hearts of our children and tie them around their necks, keeping the commandments of righteousness ever before their eyes. Lord, cause these things to lead our children when they walk, to watch over our children when they lie down, and to speak Truth to our children when they wake. (Deuteronomy 6:20-22) Father, give our children graceful garlands for their heads and pendants for their necks, that are the instruction and teaching of their parents in godly fear and humble hearts. Use us as their parents to instruct and teach in godliness. Please give our children faithful dedication to the things they have been taught from Your Word so that they will flee from evil, run from temptation, and not consent to the enticement of sinners. (Proverbs 1:8-10) Please protect our children from the evils that surround them, for indeed we do not only battle against the physical things of a sinful world, but against the spiritual forces of evil and the hidden principalities of the devil. Please, O Lord our God, grant that our children would be equipped with Your armor, so that they will stand firm when facing evil. Oh Father, fasten upon our children the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the gospel of peace. Give our children the shield of faith, and use it in them to extinguish the flaming darts of the evil one. Put on their heads the helmet of salvation, put in their hands the sword of the Spirit. Give our children praying hearts, making them alert with perseverance, giving them mouths to boldly proclaim Your Gospel. (Ephesians 6:10-19) In this way, O Lord, further Your Kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven. Lead our children not into temptation, and deliver them from evil.

God of all wisdom, please grant wisdom to the hearts of our children. Direct them in Your way. Teach them discernment, giving them eyes to see folly for its emptiness. Give our children ears and hearts that are eager to heed the voice of their father and honor their mother. Please give our children a love of truth, so that they will seek wisdom, instruction, and understanding in all things. O God, give us the hearts of our children, and give them eyes to observe our walks with You, even as You mercifully grant us the grace we need to walk faithfully with You. Let us rejoice and be glad over children who are faithful and righteous. (Proverbs 23:19-26) Give us faith for what we do not yet see, and give us hope for the future, knowing that You hold it all. Enable us as parents not to provoke our children to anger, but give us humble dependence on You as we bring them up in Your paideia. Cause our children to honor and obey their parents, in You, and be true to Your promise to them to bless them. (Ephesians 6:1-4) Give them their daily bread.

Lord, You are our God and God of our children, and Your name is majestic! You are glorified above all, and Your glory is in the heavens. Establish strength in our children because of Your grace, and use the faith and testimony of our children to still Your enemies. (Psalm 8:1-2) Thank You, Lord, for the heritage You have given us in these children—please continue to make us fruitful as we nurture these olive shoots for Your Kingdom. Thank You for blessing our quiver with gifts of life! Please make us skillful archers to tend these arrows, help us to hone and sharpen and straighten these arrows by Your grace and favor. May we always remember that it is not their number that is important but their efficacy. Oh Lord, make our children potent. (Psalm 127:3-5) Please give us as parents wisdom and humility to train our children in the way they should go, so they will embrace Your covenant and never depart from You, giving us grace to discipline our children according to Your Word so that folly is driven from them and their hearts are continually softened by Your Word. (Proverbs 22:6, 15)

When our children sin, Lord God, bring them to repentance quickly. Create in them clean hearts and restore righteousness to them because of Jesus their Savior. (Psalm 51:3, 10) O Lord, be merciful to our children, for You are gracious. Show them what it is to be slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. Father, forgive our children for their sins. Your love toward those who fear You is as high as heaven is above the earth! Show the depth of Your love and mercy toward our children by removing their transgressions from them as far as the east is from the west, as they fear You and repent. Show Your compassion to our children, and remember their frame of dust. Lord, our children’s days are busy as grass, but You and Your love endure for all eternity. Because of this, Lord of our family, we boldly ask You to remain faithful to our children and our grandchildren and our generations after them who keep Your covenant and do Your commandments, because You are indeed faithful and show us Your steadfast love. (Psalm 103:8-18) Forgive all of us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

According to Your great grace, our God and Father, be pleased to bless our children. Cause them to walk in Your ways so that they will eat the fruit of their labors, that they will be blessed—bring them spouses of unique valor and give them faithful, industrious, beautiful, creative, singing, dancing children. Give our children a zest for You and fear of You—in Your mercy, bless them from Your holy mountain, show them prosperity, allow them to see their children’s children, enable them to spread peace abroad. (Psalm 128) Delight our children with Your law, and be ever on their hearts and minds. Establish our children, for the sake of Your everlasting love, like trees planted by streams of water. Make our children fruitful in their seasons, and make them green with strength and integrity. O Lord God, for the sake of Your Kingdom and the testimony of Your people, in all that our children do, give them purity and make them prosper. (Psalm 1:2-3)

Our hearts exult in You, O Lord God, in You alone are our horns exalted. We laugh at our enemies and rejoice in Your salvation. There is none holy like You, O Lord, no one beside You—no rock like You, our most faithful God. (1 Samuel 1:1-2) Hear our prayers and show Your faithfulness so that we can glorify You anew and again. Yours is the Kingdom, the Power, the Glory—always and forever. Amen.

March 11, 2015

Thinking Big, Together

Think big. Great cooking is not the work of small minds.
~Robert Farrar Capon, The Supper of the Lamb: a Culinary Reflection, p63~

Family time means interacting with each other.
Every night will not go perfectly and be a beautiful picture of The Children’s Hour.
The idea is to have a goal to aim for:
“If you aim for nothing, you’ll hit it every time.”
The Christian family is one that loves each other,
takes care of each other,
and is the salt of the earth and a light to the world.
It is hard to build relationships with each other if we aren’t doing anything together.
~Kim Brenneman, Large Family Logistics, pg248~

March 9, 2015March 9, 2015

Prayers of Psalmody in Motherhood

Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord,
the fruit of the womb a reward.
Like arrows in the hand of a warrior
are the children of one’s youth.
Blessed is the man
who fills his quiver with them!
Psalm 127:3-5 (ESV)

My dear sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ, and most particularly today, the ones who are raising little ones for the Kingdom of God; how we need to cover not only our children in prayer but also ourselves as their mothers! I find it so much easier to pray for others than to pray for myself—but, oh, how naïve and simplistic that is! How prideful, to even pretend to think that I can get by without praying for myself. Because I need so much prayer, and especially in this wonderfully huge but terrifyingly small work of motherhood. Oh, Lord have mercy upon us!
Sisters who are mothers, please kneel with me at the feet of our Father while we bring Him our motherhood… and sisters who know mothers, please kneel alongside us and pray for us as well. We need Jesus and His grace, and we want to walk together in this journey of seeking the Kingdom to come on earth and specifically in its manifestations in the work of motherhood. Pray with me now, inserting your own personal tweaks, requests, and names as we go:

Lord of all creation, Father of all mercies, King of our hearts and homes,
Please hear us as we bring our petitions before You, and as we seek Your face today in our calling of motherhood—in all of its joys, challenges, enormity, smallness, victories, defeats, the miraculous and the mundane. You who once were knit inside Your mother, O Lord Jesus, (Luke 1:31, 35) You know what it is to dwell in a womb, to nurse on a breast, to cry in the night, to need food and clothing and snuggles and teaching—to need a mother. Hear us, Jesus, and grant that our requests would be heard and holy in the ears of Your Father, our Father.

We praise You and we bless Your name, for we know that You sit high in the heavens and that all things are under Your feet, including the daily and repetitive things. Oh Lord, You are the One that designed the daily rising and setting of the sun. You ordained repetition and routine, so please help us to embrace it and glory in it, resting in Your sovereignty even when the daily threatens to weigh us down. You look down upon those in the dust and those who are needy—even us, Father—and You lift us up, build us up, equip us, strengthen us, give us joy and promise and victory. You are our hope! We trust You, we praise You, we hope in You for every act of motherhood. Thank You for being our God, thank You for being God to our children not because we are faithful but because You are faithful, right from the womb. (Psalm 71:5-6) Thank You for the gift of children—thank You for filling wombs, filling arms, and for the various ways You do these things. It is hard to be thankful for things like infertility, miscarriage, and long roads of complicated pregnancy or adoption. But Father, in whatever ways You have accomplished our motherhood, thank You. Thank You for knitting children in wombs, for creating DNA strands and dividing cells. Thank You for secret work, for wonderful work, for intricate work. Thank You for planning each day of my life—and each day of my children’s lives. Thank You for the knowledge that I do not have power over their lives. (Psalm 139:13-16) Thank You for taking a woman and making her a mother. Thank You for making me a mother. Help me to praise You rightly for this gift, this responsibility, this joy, this mercy every single day. (Psalm 113)

Please give wisdom and kindness to my mouth, so that I will not speak harshly to my children but wisely and kindly. It is so easy to be snappy or snarky—please give words of mercy and grace in their place. (Proverbs 31:26) Please grant me a compassionate nature to remember that, like me, my children are but dust. Make me a mother who remembers the frame of my children, so that I build them up rather than tear them down. (Psalm 103:13-14) Please make me a woman that could justly be praised and blessed by those whom I serve as well as lead. (Proverbs 31:28)

Lord God, please teach me to love my children as I ought. (Titus 2:4) Be with my hands, my feet, my mouth, my ears, my eyes, my womb, my breasts—to use every part of me to love my children as You want me to, genuinely and truly. (1 John 3:18) Show me how to walk in love, so that I would lay down my life for my children not just sometimes but all the time. (Ephesians 5:1-2) Give me diligence to discipline when and how You require and desire. Allow me not to be swayed on my conviction against sin, but give me the eyes to see sin for what it is, where it is, and how it needs to be addressed. Give me the strength to love my children with discipline so that they would increase in wisdom. Please give me rest and delight rather than shame. (Proverbs 29:15, 17) Please teach me true forgiveness, so that I would forgive as I have been forgiven. (Psalm 32:1-2)

Please give me the industrious nature that I need to accomplish the work You have put into my hands. Gird me up, so that I can press on in faith, love, and holiness in self-control. (1 Timothy 2:15) When I labor to love my children, to feed them and clothe them, to educate their minds and nourish their souls, to make them happy and cover them with peace—allow me to do this in accordance with Your will, O God. (1 John 5:2-4) Cause me to obey Your commandments, to grow in my own faith so that I will always speak of Your glory and teach Your laws in ways that are true and winsome and inescapable. (Deuteronomy 6:7)

Please enable me to seek the good of my children, in their humanity and in their eternal souls. Convict me to pray for them regularly and specifically, night and day. (2 Timothy 1:3) Please remind me daily that their spiritual growth is more important than anything else, and give me the grace to preach the Gospel to my children through my actions as well as my words. Cause me to proclaim Your deeds and Your faithfulness, which You have taught me and proven to me repeatedly and continually. God who has never left nor forsaken me, allow me to rightly show forth these things to the next generation of those who love You! Give me the words and the wisdom to proclaim Your power and might. (Psalm 71:17-18) Please give us joyful praise together, to praise Your holy name! May each member of our family praise You, knowing that You are high above all things and You alone are to be exalted! Please give me the strength to teach this praise by genuine, diligent example. (Psalm 148:12-13) Be pleased, O Lord, to grant Your grace to continue on to another generation, and allow my faith and the faith of my mother and mother-in-law also to bolster the faith of my children. (2 Timothy 1:5)

Please, in Your merciful kindness, remind me that these beloved children belong to You, and help me to praise You for Your kind gift of life & appreciate the blessing of being entrusted with these little saints. Allow me to rejoice and be glad! (Proverbs 23:25) Please give me the bold strength to be tenderhearted, to imitate You in how I gather, carry, and gently lead my young ones. (Isaiah 40:11) Thank You for hearing our prayers, for remembering our frame, for loving our children, for drawing us to You by Your covenant love and faithfulness. We thank You, Lord, for Your steadfast love and Your faithfulness to our children. (Psalm 107:8, 15, 21, 31) We praise You for Jesus, our Prophet, Priest, and King, in whose glorious and saving name we pray these things at Your throne. Amen.