Saturday, November 27, 2010

Walking By the Spirit.


The Lord has been reveling His awesome power to me daily, when I really get on my face before him and pray and dig into His word he is so faithful to show us more of Himself.
We have been super busy around here with Christmas preparations, Chris and the older 2 boys got the outside lights up while the younger children and I did some indoor decorating. The tree will go up next Saturday. The kids have been busy everyday creating Christmas card, pictures, and snowflake cuts outs. Today we started some of our Christmas baking despite the head colds going around our home.

I am so grateful that our children have an opportunity to be home and develop so many creative and practical skills. Even more than that I am thankful for the family unity it creates.

I was wanting to write about the Holy Spirit's awesome power in our life. It makes me so excited what He is doing and what He will do in the future!


Everything that I know and live today is because of what the Holy Spirit has taught me. It's a beautiful thing. He's been really showing me how He has anointed me as a perfect mother for these seven children. It's truly an incredible thing that when I full lean on him he shows me how I can meet each different need of each individual child. I think our culture becomes so accustom to looking to all the "experts" for advice - myself included. But as I move into a new season of mothering I am seeing how this can cripple what God has already placed within us. The world does not have better answers than God has for our families. Of course there are times when it can give us some practical help but I am seeing when we turn to Him alone His mighty wisdom will NEVER fall short. It's difficult when we live in an culture that has many voices coming at us claiming they know what is best.

I often hear mother's talk about how hard it is or how they are not cut out for this or that. The truth is nobody is and never will be if you don't submit to your heavenly Father and have a teachable and mold able spirit. This kind of mothering takes huge sacrifices-dying to yourself-laying down all your wants for the spiritual well being of your family. We must love our children with God's love, humble and gentle. Repenting to God and our families of our fleshly and worldly hearts. You can tell if these things are present in your life by the way you treat your family. When the Holy Spirit is dwelling in your life there is continual conflict in your soul. It's a truly beautiful thing to know He is at work. The Holy Spirit and our flesh can not be one. I am daily laying on the alter all outside influence from culture and trusting the work of the Lord in my life. With out this constant humility to our Father I can't even begin to mother my children in a Godly way, it will always fail. I see in my life applying this one very thing has brought be much peace with raising my children. I have the amazing blessing of seeing God first hand answer many prayers and I anticipate many more. And I give Him all the glory.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Psalm 123:3


The thing of which we have to beware is not so much damage to our belief in God as damage to our Christian temper. "Therefore take heed to thy spirit, that ye deal not treacherously". The temper of mind is tremendous in it's effects, it is the enemy that penetrates right into the soul and distracts the mind from God. There are certain tempers of mind in which we never dare indulge; if we do we find they have distracted us from faith in God, and until we get back to the quiet mood before God, our faith in Him is nil, and our confidence in the flesh and in human ingenuity is the thing that rules.


beware of "the cares of this world," because they are the things that produce a wrong temper of soul. It is ectraordinary what an enormous power there is in simple things to distract our attention from God. refuse to be swamped with the care of this life.


Another thing that distracts us is the lust of vindication. St. Augustine prayed - "O Lord, deliver me from this lust of always vindicating myself." That temper of mind destroys the soul's faith in God. " I must explain myself; I must get people to understand." Our Lord never explained anything; He left mistakes to correct themselves.


When we discern that people are not going on spiritually and allow the discernment to turn to criticism, we block our way to God. God never gives us discernment in order that we may criticize, but that we may intersede.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Waiting for snow..


Natalie had big plans of singing the snow to come....

Having many children in violin and piano leaves you never void of Christmas music around this time of year.

Friday, November 12, 2010

Morning






This year we decided to join our local homeschool groups co-op. I offered to teach a little unit study on *Farms* for the children ages 3-5. It's a cute little class. I have had amazing helpers, which I humbly admit I need at this point. All the older children are loving there classes. Spanish and drawing seem to be the favorite's. But there is a down side to committing to a 6 week program...... Getting out the door with 6 children and my pregnant self poses some challenges. More the battle with in myself. I tend to not naturally be a *morning* person. And all my children have fallen into a natural morning routine. I tend to take a good hour to wake-up. Almost sounds really selfish of me. But I find it very humbling for my friends to see me at my not so cheerful self at 8:30am when I am still trying to wake my brain up. I have noticed my whole countenance has been awful for 3 weeks on Friday. While out this morning I became more and more convicted of my stinky negitive additude and realized I have let it become a habit to complain. I do know better!!! And I do know that a joyful heart is also a habit. When I choose to have a good additude it frees me to succeed and thrive. I even phoned up two homeschool friends and apologized for being so rotten.
Thankfully my friends are so gracious with me they "pretended" like they had not even noticed. When I got home and laid on my bed while my little one fell asleep I got thinking, when I am truly busy I don't have time to stop and moan. I really can’t picture Mother Theresa complaining about how tired she was or turning away another child.

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Time Changes



With the time change this past Saturday it left us all thrown for a loop. All my little ones have been yawning and sleepy at the dinner table and in bed sound asleep by 6:30pm. And the big kids asking Dad to come pray with them at 8:00!


Yesterday was a busy day, my little ones were out of sorts and the whole day was crumbling before my eyes. Everything was happening all at once, my one year old was climbing on the chair that the five year old was doing math on the PC and smacking the keyboard. Every time he was lifted down he would cry, then my three year old would trip and need a snuggle which would make the one year old mad. My big ones tried their best to stay focused on there book work but the noise level was just too much.
I haven't had one of those day in a very long time. My sore tired pregnant self found myself sitting on the wood floors holding littles and reading picture books to keep a somewhat peaceful home. I was not very successful, and found myself counting down to when my husband would walk through the door. I sat on the kitchen counter explaining to him about my day which came out in a fine line between laughing and crying. After dinner he told me to go have a bath and he would clean up. I filled the tub all the way too the top and laid back so my ears were under water. It was quiet. It gave me time to pray and tackle bedtime with grace, it's amazing when you remember to do that how much more smooth things go. I reminded myself of the vision God has laid on our hearts, sometimes it's so easy to forget when your changing diapers, wiping noses, make meal after meal, and all the daily training. Some days you feel like you haven't moved forward at all.
I read in Psalm 145:4 it says "One generation shall praise thy works to another, and shall declare thy might acts"
Ahhhh my reaction to days like yesterday will go far beyond my children's hearts. But will affect their children as well. Boy that makes me suck it up with the "woe is me my day was hard".

Motherhood is not easy. It's a really hard job, everyday day something comes up but I can rest that God is with me. It's so easy to complain about what we are going through, I find the hard thing to do is to remember God's promise to us if we are faithful. It's been such a blessing lately to exercise the words "no I can't" or "no that will not work for us" So often I think us moms feel guilty if we are not involved in everything offered to us. I think in our young years as moms we are offered so many *good* things but that we forget there is no greater way to serve the Lord if you have little ones in your home. He wants us to give ourselves totally to them, I now see we cant do that effectively if so many other good things are pulling our time and energy.


Saturday I spent the day baking all day for the freezer. I didn't get everything I had planned done but I still did alot. Three banana bread, Four pumpkin loaves, 36 chocolate chocolate chip muffins, and 36 apple nut muffins. I love having stuff on hand like that.
It felt so good to stay home and bless my husband a children with all the yummy treats.

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Judgment Hurts, but Is It Really ‘Persecution’?

This was too good not to share... By Wendy Jeub


We sometimes hesitate to share about our life. Seems strange to read this on a blog that exposes our convictions all over the place, but in reality, we pause–especially with our deepest convictions. Particularly with our conviction to love another child.


It may be scary, but we live a life of nonstop joy. Our hearts are free.

We know that some will not understand, grow frustrated with us or even angrily confront us. We already silently suffer through the nosey comments from neighbors, co-workers, church members, etc. And we know that such confrontations will surely increase if we get more vocal about our lives. Judgment already exists for large families like ours, and we’re likely going to get it in the nose more and more as time rolls on. We’re not completely immune! Judgment like this hurts.

Perhaps it is technically persecution to be judged for following God’s conviction and having another child. But we must keep it in perspective: This is light-years from martyrdom. Our life is filled with unfettered, nonstop, compounded joy.

This joy is the direct consequence of having so many blessings running around the house, which is, frankly, a direct result of following our personal convictions. Let the judgments come; our hearts are free.

Perhaps this is what Paul James meant when he says, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds” (James 1:2). I always thought this verse strange, but after 23 years of following Christ, it doesn’t seem so strange anymore. Here I am, surrounded by joy, and the fear of the past seems so petty now.

You know what would be a true downer? Living with a house empty of blessings, knowing full well that God had been calling us to something bigger, something better than the status quo.

So we have no choice. We can’t (nor do we want to) hesitate. Our conviction to “love another child” must continue to be shared.