Barbara Rainey's Blog, page 3

The Phantom Mom

We women know well that comparison is a constant nemesis.  But did you know that our daily measuring of ourselves has created a collage of ideals, an image of perfection, a phantom “me” within that can haunt us?

One day I pulled a cute shirt out of the corner of our closet where my spring/summer things are stashed, tried it on, and sadly found it was too tight. Ugh.

“This should still fit,” I thought as I took it off.  “Shoulds” have plagued me for decades.

I should be able to handle this challenge at work, I should be able to come up with a solution for my kids’ constant bickering, I should be able to control my anger and my other emotions. And most important I should pray more often, and should want to read my Bible more. Mark my forehead with a giant scarlet letter F. Thousands of times I’ve scolded myself as a wife, a mother, a Christian because I failed to live up to this phantom image of what a godly Christian wife and mother should be like.

Does this sound at all familiar to you?

Years ago I made a list of the perfect Christian wife and mother. It helped me recognize the phantom expectations of myself that enslaved me and made me feel like a failure:

·      She is always loving, patient, and understanding.

·      She is well-organized, maintaining a perfect balance between discipline and flexibility.

·      Her house is neat and well-decorated. She is never embarrassed if friends drop by unexpectedly.

·      Her children obey her every command.

·      She never gets angry with her children, even if they forget to do their chores.

·      She is energetic and never gets tired, even after getting up five times during the night to care for her children … with a smile on her face.

·      She manages her workload with her home tasks well and is always in the school pickup line at 3 p.m. waiting on her well-dressed, happy children.

·      She reaches out to her neighbors and takes meals to the sick and needy.

·      She looks fresh and attractive at all times.

·      Her hair does what she wants it to do.

·      Her fingernails are never broken but filed smoothly and painted with polish.

·      She plans healthy, balanced meals for her family. She would never dream of feeding her family prepared foods like canned ravioli, frozen pizza, or hot dogs.

·      She doesn’t get sick, lonely, or discouraged.

·      She is always ready for and even initiates sex with her husband.

·      She prays without ceasing. She chooses to be grateful for difficulties like a husband who is late for dinner or the neighbor’s dog chewing up her son’s new tennis shoes.

With a phantom like that, it’s no wonder so many of us women feel like failures as wives and mothers.  Even though we know we can never live up to this perfect image, we still tear ourselves down when we fail to be perfect as we imagine it to be.

We believe deep down that we can become more perfect in our own power. This is a self-view inherited from our ancestors, Adam and Eve.

What impossible standards would be on your own list? What is your internal voice speaking to you about what you should or should not do?  Make your own list because seeing those thoughts and shoulds in black and white will make it easier to recognize them when they whisper “failure” to you.

Also ask yourself these questions:

·      When you compare your body to another woman, what do you expect from yourself?

·      Have you ever compared your marriage to someone else’s? Write what you are expecting from your husband and yourself.

·      What pressures do you feel with your child or children? Is it outside activities like sports or music lessons or grades? Identify what shoulds whisper negative words to you.

·      In this digital world, parents must make hard decisions about screen time and smartphones and internet access. What pressures do you feel here?

·      If your kids are grown, have you compared their achievements and “success” to others of their age?

Phantoms are crushing.  My repeated failures to live up to my phantom expectations of myself left me exhausted, without confidence, defeated.

Here’s the good/bad news. Recognizing the impossibility of reaching any of your standards is the bad news; it’s hard to accept being limited and incapable. We resist giving up all our shoulds. Though I desire to be competent and strong and capable, seeing my inability is very good news for it forces me to recognize the truth of Jesus’s words, “apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).

Jesus Himself, God incarnate, depended completely on His Father. He said, “I can do nothing on my own” (John 5:30). He chose to be dependent. I must also choose to be dependent. And knowing that truth about myself, as hard as it was to learn, has set me free to be who He made me to be and to experience His ability in my lack.

Begin to kill your phantom by thanking God that you will never measure up on your own and it is good because it can send you to Jesus.

Thank Him that He is able.

The post The Phantom Mom appeared first on Ever Thine Home.

My Favorite Prayer

Do you ever feel like I do … weary, broken, bewildered?

Do you ever feel beat up by the world, by circumstances, by life in general?

Do you ever feel like your brain is clogged, in a fog, unable to form words, at a loss for what to pray to God? No words make sense?

I do.

Often when these questions describe my life, a day or a season of days, the words of the old hymn, “Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah” come back to me and each time express perfectly what I can’t say with words of my own.

“Guide me.” I so often don’t know what choice to make of the seemingly dozens of things I could do with my few minutes of time. Or the decision we need to make is about as clear as mud; not enough facts, not enough money, not enough time to see the way ahead clearly. I need guidance.

“O Thou great Jehovah.” When I say “Jehovah” I picture the God of the Pentateuch who led the children of Israel through the desert. They had no idea where this promised land was. They had no maps, no GPS.  But Jehovah God, the One who named Himself Provider, Healer, Shepherd, Banner, Peace, Presence and our Righteousness, promised to get them there. I need this same Jehovah to guide me.

 

“Pilgrim through this weary land.” When I’m feeling lost, bewildered or confused, I am reminded that this earth is not my home. I am a pilgrim or, as Hebrews 11:13 says, a stranger and exile on earth. The land itself and all it contains is weary as creation waits eagerly and groans longing for its freedom from bondage to corruption (Romans 8:19-23). Always when I pray this prayer I too am weary, a directionless wanderer, and eager to be released from the constraints of this broken world. I am a pilgrim.

“I am weak.” My senses are not what they will be one day. I strain to hear God’s voice, His whisper, to see His clear path before me. I am weak.

“But Thou art mighty.” Remembering the limitless mighty power of my God lifts my eyes, my heart to believe I will be led in the right way. He knows I am weak, and He loves me anyway and will guide me! He is mighty!

“Hold me in Thy powerful hand.” What a comfort it is to be reminded that He holds me in His hand. And not just any hand, but a powerful one that will not let me go. Jesus told us, “no one shall snatch them out of My hand … and no one is able to snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one” (John 10:28-30). He is powerful!

“Bread of Heaven.”  From the first pages of the Bible, through the captivity in Egypt and the journey through the desert, to the words of Jesus, God has made it clear He is the source of our life and our sustenance. He gave His children manna and Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life” (John 6:35). In hard times or challenging days I’m more aware of my need for His provision and it is always a good reminder that He is my food. He is my Bread of Life!

“Feed me till I want no more.” This ending line of the hymn’s chorus declares my heart’s desire to be filled with all of Him. What I possess in wisdom, intelligence, talent, or strength is never enough. In fact it is nothing at all compared to His infinite everything! He will feed me and sustain me!

After singing “Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah” several times in my head (never out loud because I scare myself), I begin to relax and remember He can be trusted again today, in this new situation in which I feel at a loss. He is not surprised, not bewildered, not afraid, not confused, not overwhelmed.

Nothing about my life is impossible for Him.

Amen.

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Small Stuff, Big Stuff, and the Power of Beautiful Belief in Marriage

In high school, I discovered watercolor painting. It was love at first practice. I eagerly invested time, lessons, and supplies to become like seasoned watercolorists whose extraordinary works of art I admired.

Though I was passionate about this medium, I soon discovered it wasn’t as easy as it looked. Too much or too little water create two different problems; too much paint makes the sparkle of the white paper disappear; and wet paint that bleeds into other still wet colors can create what artists call mud. Coaxing purity and luminosity from paint and paper took more practice than I ever dreamed.

I saw hints of another kind of purity and transparency when I began dating my husband. The invitation to an authentic relationship—to be known and loved, to create beauty on the clean white paper of marriage—was what I’d longed for all my life. I eagerly said, “I do.”

A few years ago my youngest daughter, Laura, said “I do” with similar excitement. Her gorgeous autumn wedding was preceded by a couple’s shower, generously planned by friends and family. Most married five years or less, the attending couples shared their newly acquired wisdom with Laura and Josh.

Collectively, their repeated advice was “Don’t sweat the small stuff.” Last to share were our son, Samuel, a marriage therapist, and Stephanie, his wife of 16 years. He and Stephanie locked eyes, knowing their words would flip the others’ wisdom upside down, and then in unison they advised, “DO sweat the small stuff!”

Who was right?

This morning I walked into our kitchen to find my early-rising husband cleaning the island, his favorite landing strip for backpack, file folders, keys, and mail as he flies into the house after his day at work. Never mind that his office is literally three steps inside the front door—the kitchen, a dozen steps into the house, is where his wheels touch the ground.

Years ago, I made known my request for a tidy island. After it went unanswered for far too long, I made a choice. I decided I’d rather have my husband and his messes than have a perfectly clean island. He mattered more to me than the messes he creates (as if I never create my own … ). I also realized I had my own idiosyncracies. I decided to sweat the small stuff this time.

This small attitude of superiority in my heart, if ignored and not confessed, would have become a veil between us, clouding the transparent purity of our hard-earned marital intimacy.

Dennis and I are not beginner artists anymore. Experienced, yes, but not exempt from ongoing difficulties in creating the beautiful art of our marriage. Our union is our own unique painting of God’s image in us—the mysterious sketch of Christ and the church. This high and holy art must be nurtured daily.

And so I chose to confess my small but potentially hurtful attitude, knowing it wasn’t pleasing to the One I love most, my divine Artist. My husband never heard the brush of dark, ugly paint that almost made mud. The small stuff ruins daily intimacy and oneness. And it adds up over time, dulling the Light of the World, who longs to be seen in us.

For a long time in our marriage, I did not understand how easily His light can be hidden, nor did I understand how brightly He can shine when the dark big stuff comes uninvited to our lives. One day I remembered a principle of art: The light of pure paper or white paint shines brightest when it is contrasted with the dark. Master artists use deep, dark colors next to, even touching the lightest lights.

In marriage, it means trusting the Master Artist when He executes this technique, adding dark, to reveal more beauty and luminosity in your marriage and in mine.

Over our fifty-plus years of marriage, we have experienced more dark paint on our canvas that I ever imagined, including near-death experiences, handicaps in our children, a prodigal, financial setbacks, the death of a newborn granddaughter, and many agonies known only to God.

The big stuff, the dark swaths of deeply pigmented paint, can kill many marriages.

But the truth is that hardships and suffering often reveal transparency already dulled—oneness already compromised, the light of Christ already hidden behind layers of silt.

When the small stuff of marriage isn’t diligently attended to, then big-stuff crises provide plenty of reasons to quit an already muddy marriage. Marriage, like watercolor painting, is much harder than we thought. Singer-songwriter Andrew Peterson penned these words about his marriage: “It was harder than we dreamed of; that’s what the promises are for.” 

The promise of “I do” that we made at our wedding ceremonies matters. But here is the best promise of all: Nothing is too hard for God (Jeremiah 32:17). God knew we’d need this promise from Him, because our promises fail. 

No marriage, no spouse, no circumstance is too hard for His redemptive resurrection power.

Our marriage has been harder than we dreamed but so worth it in the end. Because we haven’t stopped believing in each other or in our Savior, we’ve beheld the beauty of God’s transformational power. I want to shout this truth from the rooftops, to proclaim it as loudly and widely as I can: The art of marriage is worth the effort, worth the work! Like Jesus, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross (Hebrews 12:1-2), we too can find great joy and fulfillment, even happiness, in marriage if we believe in God like Jesus did. 

And so often when a spouse decides to quit, it’s a refusal to believe. He or she is saying to God, “You aren’t powerful enough to fix my spouse and my hard circumstances.”

Quitting on our wedding promises is ripping up God’s glory, throwing the mud of unbelief on His painting in you before it’s complete. It’s refusing His arm of love reaching for you!

Oh, where would we be if Jesus had given up?

Where would we be if He had quit?

The good news is He didn’t!

I’ve seen miraculous proof in thousands of marriages stained with the most egregious sins, yet resurrected by a God for whom nothing is impossible.

May you courageously, tenaciously believe in Jesus’ Resurrection power for your life and marriage, in the small stuff, in the big stuff, and till death do you part.

This post was originally shared on Ann Voskamp’s blog. 

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5 Ways to Grow Creativity in Your Children

You know the name George Washington Carver, right? You know he invented a crazy number of products from the lowly peanut. But do you know that he talked to God constantly as he worked in his laboratory?

His conversations went something like this: “Lord God, you made the peanut. You know every molecule. You know all that can be done with this little nut. Give me Your ideas and help me make many uses from it.”

Learning George’s story has inspired me to imitate him in my creative endeavors. I pray now more than ever about every word I write, every idea I imagine, and every creative task, knowing any ability I have comes from the God of creation. It’s great fun to cooperate with God in creating.

Since creativity is important to me, I also looked for ways to nurture creativity in my children as they were growing up. Being creative is a very messy endeavor. I worked to encourage creativity in my kids and the resulting mess was an ongoing challenge!

In spite of my angst over the constant disaster in my house, my kids “wrote” books, made homemade cards and gifts, and created forts in every room of the house and even in our backyard. They imagined themselves as ballerinas, thespians, and superheroes as they staged plays or recitals and they charged a quarter for admission to us parents to attend their performances.

Do you want to nurture creativity in your kids?

Imagination is the well-spring of creativity, and thankfully it is a gift given to every person as part of our “made in God’s image” genetics.  My kids had it and so do yours.

Here are five suggestions for nurturing creativity:

Remember that your kids’ imagination is a God-given gift, even though it comes with messes. Your encouragement is crucial for their creativity to grow rather than become dulled. Give thanks for their gift. It will help you keep perspective. Make your home inspiring. Put posters of paintings or God’s creation on the walls, play great music, and keep plenty of supplies on hand for experiments. God put His first children in an inspiring, wonder-filled environment, so we can follow His model.

Enhance your home with trips to the zoo, local museums, concerts, and hikes in the forest or mountains. Play concert music in the house if attending one is not possible. The more you can expose your children to lofty sights and sounds, the more their creativity will flourish. 

Model creativity. It’s not just for your kids, so experiment with new foods, take an art or pottery class, or begin spending some time each week writing. It will be easier for you to encourage your kids if you, too, are experiencing the joy of creativity. Ask God to give you new ideas so you can be more like George Washington Carver! Be okay with the chaos that creativity can create. The hardest part for me was the ongoing mess in my house. Part of my wiring is a love of order, which does not coexist well with creativity. I frequently had to coach myself “this too shall pass,” and of course it did. You have your children for a season. There will be decades, if God wills, for you to live without floors encrusted with Play-Doh. Give thanks for this season of your life. Limit their exposure to television, smartphones, and iPads. These can kill creativity. Kids need to climb trees, make forts and cars and dishes out of clay or mud, and collect bugs and flowers in jars. George Washington Carver had a limited supply of equipment, but he had the Creator at his side and that was all he needed.

A favorite verse of mine is Exodus 35:35: “He has filled them with skill to do every sort of work done … by any sort of workman or skilled designer.”

May you have an imaginative, creative experience exploring new ideas and experiences to enrich your children and your own life as their mom.

It’s worth the extra messes! I promise.

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Learning to Trust God in the Midst of Darkness

At age 28 I experienced my first significant encounter with a side of God that was as unknown to me as the dark side of the moon. Up until that day my life had proceeded “normally” in the light … until one fateful June morning.

One bright summer morning in early June, enthusiasm for a new quest had me up early and the kids fed and settled with toys in the other room. I was pumped to begin my new workout routine to regain my pre-baby-number-two figure.

On the carpeted floor of our bedroom I began the first set of exercises when suddenly my heart began to race wildly. I tried to stand up but instantly knew that was not happening when I almost blacked out. Something was very wrong.

Somehow I managed to crawl to our bed and call Dennis from the other room, grateful he hadn’t yet left for work. Lying there I became more afraid with each minute as my body refused to calm from catastrophic overdrive. An unknown congenital heart defect was loudly declaring its presence: My heart was beating dangerously at over 300 beats a minute.

Thirty minutes later I was in an ambulance.  Alone, surrounded by machines, a siren blaring outside. I was terrified.  While the driver whizzed in and out of traffic, Dennis was frantically calling friends to keep our two kids, ages 2 ½ and 18 months. Then he called our parents and others to pray for God to have mercy. Finally, he left and drove to the hospital.

Denied access to intensive care, he sat in the waiting area with his fears. Alone in the ICU room I lay with my own; eyes wide, fixed on the ceiling, my world suddenly narrowed to the space between two white curtains outside of which lay a dark unknown. We both wondered if I would survive the day.

Eight hours later God touched my heart and returned it to a regular rhythm. A dear widow’s all-day prayers were answered. There was no other explanation.

Barbara will begin sharing a 5-part podcast series drawing from the book she is currently writing next week. Become a Friends & Family member to access all five!

 

I remember the immediate relief and gratitude, but after that moment I have no memory of anything—not seeing Dennis come back, not getting out of the hospital or seeing my two kids again. Only one memory remains: I was not me anymore.

Shaken to my core and on high alert with every heartbeat, my life became robotic, responsive only to duties. The sun no longer shone. I had lost my bearings under the shadow of a heavy dark cloud. All that I trusted was shattered by the aftershocks of this near-death experience, including my ability to trust God as I once did.

I spent the next three months in and out of cardiology offices, taking different medications then switching to other medications as they tried to figure out what in the world was wrong. My life revolved around doctor’s offices, living with side effects of dangerous drugs. And then in spite of birth control we found out I was pregnant with number three. A whole new set of fears for my unborn child took up residence alongside the fears that stalked my own life.

Finally, a name was given to my heart condition, Wolfe-Parkinson-White type 2, the worst of this usually mild condition. And it was incurable.

Niggling in the back of my mind constantly for the next nine months until our son was born healthy and normal and into the years beyond were questions like: Why did God allow this? What was He doing? What did He want me to learn? And why couldn’t I sense His nearness as I’d heard other people talk about in testimonies of the miraculous?

I was both young in age and young in faith and had not yet read the fine print in the Bible where Jesus said to His disciples, “In this world, you will have trouble [or tribulation or hardship]” (John 16:33).

I did not see God or sense His presence near me in that first year. In fact, if anything I felt terribly alone for a long time. I had lost my youthful optimism, my joie de vivre, my expectation of remaining healthy until I got old.

A favorite author on the subject of loss, Dr. Gerald Sittser, says, “Loss is universal, but it is also a solitary experience.” I felt very alone. My experience was uncommon; not a single friend or family member could relate. And because they didn’t know what to say most said nothing, which furthered my isolation.

My unspoken soul questions were these: Who am I now? Who is this God? What is He really like? These queries were unvoiced and unwritten and only synthesized this succinctly years later. In the confining capsule of this life-altering experience I was in survival mode.

Even my husband, who experienced his own crisis of faith as he sat in a waiting room alone, wondering if he was about to be a single father of two couldn’t really understand the nagging fear I lived with every day that at any moment my heart could start racing again. In hindsight I was suffering from PTS and probably other shock waves from that traumatic experience.

And yet, in my solitude, in the dark quiet awake moments in the middle of the night, I was doing business with God. Somehow I knew He was with me, though I had no sense or feeling of His presence.

Though I couldn’t have articulated it at the time I believe now that God, as He so often does, was working in the hidden places within me. He wasn’t absent even though it felt that way. He was testing the soil of my heart, readying it to plant and grow endurance, and other unseen virtues. But mostly He was invisibly growing my faith as I invisibly and wordlessly surrendered to a God I did not understand but somehow trusted.

God was also waiting for me. He was watching to see how I’d respond. Would I continue to believe even without any answers? Would I continue to trust a God who just turned my world upside down?

Today I’m grateful for this difficult experience because I have seen God’s mysterious ways and though I don’t fully know all He planned and purposed, I do know I saw God as unpredictable, unconfined, working above and beyond what I could possibly understand.

Like Job I saw a side of God I didn’t know was there. And like the Pevensie children in C.S. Lewis’ Narnia books, I saw then and have seen many times since that Aslan is not safe, but he is good.

This is an early excerpt from a book I’ve been writing about disappointment with God. This topic has been a theme in my life, and I’m enjoying the opportunity to share what God has been teaching me. If these words encourage you, be sure to let me know!

The post Learning to Trust God in the Midst of Darkness appeared first on Ever Thine Home.

Your Home Matters … And So, Dear Woman, You Matter

Opening an old journal I found on the shelf, I found these words in my handwriting:

“I really wanted to go to the meetings this morning, but here I am being a mother. Mothering doesn’t stop. Their needs don’t stop. Sick kids can’t be delegated. So once again I’m isolated and he, my husband, is not.”

I felt again those challenging, relentless days of my motherhood when my six kids were between the ages of six months and 10 years old.

Following this brief entry I wrote this prayer:

“Father, I pray you will teach me more about my identity and my call as a mom.  Teach me, too, the value of that call because so much of my work is inside these walls—unseen and immeasurable.”

It was an honest plea for help to the one who made me and made me a mother. I needed the Lord to confirm His purpose in me. I needed to hear Him say: You matter!

Feeling trapped as a mom is not uncommon. The needs of a family are endless and relentless and consume our waking hours. Another journal entry of mine expresses the smallness of my world and the confusion about my purpose.

“There are times when I feel I’ve given up everything; that there is nothing left of me. My interests are all shelved. My world is outside of the mainstream of adult life. And I wonder why a lot. Why did God give me creativity, interests in art, color, beauty, if I can’t use them? Is it a matter of finding the right expression? Is it all a matter of timing? What does it mean to lay up treasures in heaven?”

The fear of living out thankless, obscure lives links us as women across generations and reminds us we are not alone.

But today our image-driven culture makes it more difficult than ever for women to feel our worth. We turn to social media for connection, but that only reminds us our homes aren’t decorated well enough, our bodies aren’t toned tightly enough, our kids aren’t dressed cute enough, and on it goes.

We start to believe we don’t even matter as a woman, as a wife, as a mom, as a person. But that comparison is lethal if our heart identity isn’t anchored firmly in the value Jesus places on us.

Here’s a little truth to remind you that … You matter!

Your life is not an afterthought. With careful, loving, predetermined foreknowledge, the Creator-designed beauty in you as a woman. He even added God-like qualities: creativity, intelligence, leadership (to name a few). He instilled all that you need for relationships: the ability to communicate, feel, reason, dream, imagine, and love. Life would not have continued on earth without women.

It is a gift that you are made “a little lower than the angels” and not like the animals who can build but who can’t create, who can grow physically but not spiritually or intellectually. You are who God made you to be. You are living with the people He gave you. He makes no mistakes. Dare I say, “Get over it and say, ‘Thank you, God’?”

Most importantly, giving you invaluable worth as a woman is the indescribable honor that you can be the dwelling place of the Spirit of God.

You matter! The most-High God resides inside you! And when Christ indwells you, He is able to work out a God-ordained purpose for your life.

You’re the only one who can do what God has planned in your home. Erwin McManus explains in his book, The Artisan Soul, “We have no control over the gifts and talents given to us, but we have every responsibility for their stewardship.” So rather than mourn what we don’t have or aren’t recognized for, thank God for what God has given. Then ask Him how He intends for you to use what He has given for His good and glory.

Here are three challenges for you:

1. Remember the “season principle.” You go through seasons in your life when you may need to give something up in order to focus on priorities. But seasons change!

When I was young I thought motherhood could co-exist with my other loves. Though my children were my priority, I still tried to reserve energy to foster my personal love of creating art. Motherhood wasn’t my only dream.

But while I painted, untied laces tripped toddler feet, hungry stomachs growled, and siblings squabbled. Cries of “Mommy, mommy!” regularly interfered with artistic aims, and I knew something had to change.

Exhausted and overwhelmed, I boxed up my art supplies and prayed, “God, I give you my art stuff, and if you want me to have it back someday, great. But for now, I’m focusing on my kids.” I knew that my kids were more significant canvases that needed to be painted with love, God, and the beauty of discipleship.

That season of my life lasted for years. At times I wondered if my tiny artistic talents and interests would ever find growth and development, but I learned to trust, knowing God wanted me to teach and create art in the lives of my six children.

And after 25 years of waiting, when my youngest daughters were in high school, I began painting lessons. They felt like a scrumptious, long-awaited feast after a long famine. This time I could fully enjoy the sweet delicacy of art without regrets.

And when my empty nest season began, my love of art combined with a desire to help other moms pass on biblical truth to their own children. My lifelong interest in history, my love of art and everything beautiful, and my passion for God’s Word finally came together in the ministry of Ever Thine Home.

2. Be strong and courageous. To be what God designed us to be requires courage to refuse to be like everyone else.We all claim we want to be unique, but we constantly try to fit in, blend in, and conform. Comparison gets us every time.

Being who God made you to be means swimming upstream. It means thinking not only about why you are doing what you are doing, but also constantly asking God what He wants you to do.

Like you, I’ve struggled with comparison all my life. I too look at social media and feel my house isn’t as cute as others or that my work isn’t as important as others. So when you feel the pull to compare:

Resist the temptation to settle for mediocrity, which means becoming like someone else.Read your Bible every day to realign your thinking with the only One whose opinion matters. Keep Scripture before your eyes. Memorize verses God uses to speak to you.Run to Jesus with your fears and worries that your life doesn’t matter. Listen to Him. Listen to music about Him to fill your mind with the truth.

3. Believe that your life is a work of art. We women share many of the same colors on our palettes, but we have individual differences in quantity and combinations. My lack of certain colors, which I see as limitations, is part of God’s design.

Bible teacher Jen Wilkin said, “Our limits are to point us to worship our limitless God.” When we chafe at what we can’t do, we are telling God He made a mistake. We are rejecting part of what makes us unique. Therefore, we miss becoming that one-of-a-kind design that only we can be.

You matter. You’re the only one who can influence your family, your home the way God intends. And because we can’t be who God created us to be on our own power and effort, I offer a prayer from Hebrews 13:20-21 for all of us women:

“Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant,   equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.”

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20 Reasons Your Home Matters

Each of you woke this morning in your version of home: a two-story townhome, a one-level ranch, a fixer-upper, an urban high-rise, a studio apartment. Whatever it might look like to you, it’s a place called home for everyone living there.

Here are 20 reasons that the work you do within those walls—morning after morning, midnight after midnight—truly does matter. Keep it up!

1. Your home is, most importantly, the birthplace of faith.God created marriage and designed the family as His best formation center for faith to grow. Not only should you teach and train your children in the ways of the Lord, but you also should let your children see you following Jesus. Let your children see you reading the Bible and using it as your standard for life. And let them see you modeling your life after Jesus. (See Deuteronomy 6:4-6.)

2. Home is where you write your family’s story. As the nucleus of your family life, home is where all the experiences outside the house are processed, healed, and given to God for His purposes and transformational work. Home is where your family interprets life.

3. Home is where your presence makes a difference. Make the commitment to make time together with your spouse and with your children. Simply being with each other grows marital friendship, protects children’s behavior, and facilitates important social and relational lessons for our kids. Don’t underestimate presence. Jesus didn’t when He promised He will be with us forever.

4. Your home is the incubator of traditions. Make holidays important. Have special seasonal rituals. Serve the same meal on birthdays every year. Sing the same song each Christmas Eve. Commit to a weekly Saturday morning family time. Attend church every week together. The choices are yours and traditions are a great way to express who you are and your creativity. Remember, traditions are a glue that helps hold a family together.

5. Your home is where you nurture your child’s imagination. Imagination is the well-spring of creativity and thankfully it is a gift given to every person as part of our “made in God’s image” genetics. We serve a beautifully creative God and displaying creativity in our homes reflects Him.

6. Your home is where your children get to “practice” being grownups in the safety of your influence. Encourage their steps toward responsibility, maturity, and adulthood.

7. Your home is where you love your spouse and practice divorce prevention. Divorce has a high cost financially, emotionally, physically, and even spiritually on you and your children … for generations to come. Do what it takes to keep your vows. You and your children will feel secure knowing your home will last.

8. Your home is the foundation for who your children will be. Though your biological children inherited your DNA, they are unique individuals chosen by God to be raised by you. Make your home a greenhouse of grace.

9. Your home is where you discipline your children, training them to be dependent on God alone when they leave home. Boundaries are good. They help our children recognize sin and ultimately their need for a Savior to cover their sin. Your authority points your children to God, who is our ultimate authority with a holy standard.

10. Your home is where your kids learn gender roles and identity. They’re never too young to learn that they are God’s wonderful, valuable creation, knit perfectly together as distinctly male or female by Him.

11. Your home is where your children learn to be a wife or husband, a mom or dad. Show them how to love your spouse unconditionally, how you work together, how your masculinity and femininity make a complete whole.

12. Your home is where your children learn to apologize. Are you modeling it? Learning that mistakes are normal but must be acknowledged and repaired is crucial to becoming a healthy mature adult.

13. Your home is where children learn the value of hard work. God gave Adam and Eve work to do in His garden. Work is a necessary, fulfilling part of His plan for us and learning to work serves others. You short-change them if you do too much for them.

14. Your home is the anchor for your family’s security and togetherness. Going home at the end of the school or workday needs to invoke a warm, safe feeling. Can your family exhale when they walk in the door? Your home is a shelter from the storms of life. 

15. Your home is the genesis of new life. Growing little lives into mature adults is the greatest calling God gives. No job is more important. But it’s not just babies but all new life that moms and dads encourage. Like when a teen is rejected by a friend or a club, parents have an opportunity to listen and encourage and coach and provide hope that God has something better in the future.

16. Your home is an embassy. Your home is to be everything an embassy is in a foreign land: welcoming, helpful, inviting, and a clear visible representation of the Kingdom (God’s Kingdom) it belongs to. It is a light to your neighbors.

17. Your home is where your children’s treasure bank of memories is filled. Give your children warm remembrances of their childhood by loving them well, celebrating all the milestones of life, and spending lots of hours reading good books snuggled on the couch together.

18. A happy home directly affects the emotional wellbeing of you and your children. Happiness at home won’t be a constant, but it’s not impossible either. God intends for us to enjoy one another, to enjoy the benefits of home, to experience His peace and rest at home.

19. Home is where a woman lives out her most important female designs and purposes. Even if she is never a wife or mother, a woman is still a nurturer of life. And her home is the place she can love other people, nurture them and use her home as her embassy and outpost of God’s kingdom. Women intuitively know how to make a dwelling a real home.

20. Your home is a place of healing. Sickness and injury are a normal part of life and home should be the best place to be cared for, nursed, and loved as a recovery happens over time. Your home should be “the best hospital in the world.”

Stick with it, dear friend. In the trenches of home life, your work truly matters for today and for eternity!

 

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Your Home Matters … Even When It Feels Chaotic

Do you wish your home were more peaceful?

I sure did when all six of my kids lived at home. Even when only two were left, it still wasn’t peaceful the way I wanted it to be.

You see I wanted everyone to get along and like each other. All. The. Time. I wanted an easy, stress-free life at home. Truth be told, my heart’s desire was for my children to be more like adults even when they were little. And that’s foolish because not even adults get along well, right?

Families are messy because people are broken and sinful and full of flaws. So how could we possibly have perfectly peaceful relationships, especially with family members?

The home that Dennis and I created was not a peaceful home in the way I imagined it to be, but it was a stable and mostly healthy home because we kept the main things the main things.

Our main things were and still are:

Never doubt God’s good, sovereign control, even when life makes no sense. Seek Him and grow in love for Him every day.Keep relationships open and real. Relationships matter more than how my house looks.Always practice forgiveness, even if you have to apologize and help your kids apologize and ask for forgiveness a hundred times a day. Learning how to forgive is more important than feigned peace.Remain teachable, even when you don’t want to learn another thing. To stop growing is to start dying.

My lifelong love of reading books has helped me remain teachable. One of my mentors, via her writing, was Elisabeth Elliot. She said in an interview on FamilyLife Today that submission in marriage was something she struggled with every day! And she was in her 70’s when she said that!

Seriously?

I was shocked because I assumed she’d have conquered that marital conundrum much earlier in her life. She was a spiritual giant to me. Her admission shattered an idealistic notion I had of eventually arriving at a level closer to perfection, which would equal everlasting marital peace.

Though I was shocked I was also greatly comforted that my marital struggles at 40-something were not unusual. Elisabeth helped me see some of my thinking was still rooted in the wrong soil.

Pondering that revelation in the days that followed reminded me that learning to follow Jesus, learning to live the Christian life as He intends, is never done. Therefore perfect peace at home is impossible, and that’s okay. Conquering struggles will only happen in heaven.

My responsibility today is to give thanks and surrender to His work in my life, for I cannot produce change on my own. And sometimes I have to surrender to His ways multiple times a day.

My oldest daughter, Ashley, and I were talking one day about how unpeaceful her home is, and it’s not surprising; she has seven boys. Loud, sword-fighting, nerf-gun-warring sons, the oldest ones then in the crazy-schedule days of school sports, clubs and after-school activities.

She told me she was learning that real peace in her home must start in her heart even if it never reigns in anyone else’s. If she is at peace, a moment-by-moment necessity, then she is less stressed by the ever-present chaos. She is also less likely to react selfishly to insults and is more likely to respond in grace when it’s needed.

Oh, I wish I had been that wise when I was her age with one less kid.

Ashley is focusing on the main things: loving God, learning with her kids how to do healthy relationships, and always growing. And her house looks like it too, meaning it’s a mess most of the time. She would agree. Her kids are learning what it means to forgive, to give grace and to trust God in all circumstances, not how to tip-toe at home so they don’t mess up mom’s perfectly arranged living room.

Home matters because it is God’s intended birthplace for faith. The family is God’s favorite school for character education.

Your home matters too. Because nurturing those eternal relationships is the most important work a woman can do.

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When Your Home Doesn’t Look Like What You Want

 

Do you know there are children who have lived all their lives in gutters, in sewer pipes, or other unimaginable places? Children who sleep on cardboard, who sniff glue to numb their pain, who never cry, who fear anyone who tries to help because they have learned to trust no one?

A doctor who has worked for years among these invisible children wrote, “The longer children live on the streets, the more they realize the meaninglessness of words.”* Read this quote again because it is so foreign to most of us that we need repetition for it to sink in.

For these millions—yes, millions—of children in cities around the world, words like “home,” “family,” “mother,” “father,” “love,” and “hope” are concepts that mean nothing. They have never known home or family as it was intended. They are hungry, abused, neglected … and they often die alone.

Home is the birthplace of meaning.

Therefore your “place” … your home … matters immensely. That’s good to remember when you look around your home and you feel everything is messy … or you wish it was larger or more modern and up to date.

As I imagine these sad children I can’t help but see my home in a completely different light. I don’t like Cheerios under foot, but homeless children make me grateful my children (and now grandchildren) have a real floor and plenty of food to eat.

Place matters.

In the story of creation it is written, “the Lord God planted a garden toward the east in Eden; and there He placed the man whom He had formed” (Genesis 2:8, NASB). Of all the geographic options on the globe, God chose one spot as home for Adam and Eve. Eden was a specified place with borders. We know this because after they sinned God drove them out from that place and stationed cherubim on guard so they couldn’t get back in.

Home as a place was also a significant theme in Jesus’ last words to His disciples before He went to the cross. As He talked to them about His coming departure He described their future home: “In my Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you,” (John 14:2, NASB).

As intended, these words of Jesus impart great hope and comfort. Think about God having a house and you’re invited to live there with Him! All for me? I feel loved and cared for at the sound of “a place for you.” Do you, too?

Our experience of home and place today is a preparation for a better home in the future. Living in a structure we call home, even a less than ideal one, gives definition to the concept of a future home in heaven.

Intuitively even neglected street children understand place as they form small units of belonging and find familiar corners where they return day after day for shelter.

Having a place to come home to, a place to belong, gives value to your life and to your children’s. A place that is ours draws us back like a magnet. It doesn’t matter how big or small, fancy or plain; a tiny apartment in New York City, a tin shack in Africa, or an upper middle class “mansion.”

What matters is that your children and you have a home and each other. When we moms understand the unseen value of home we worry less about how clean or up-to-date our place of residence is.

Home is the birthplace of meaning. In the places God gives us each to live He calls us to create stability, encourage peace, foster growth, teach values, model grace and forgiveness, and most of all encounter and experience the living Christ.

In spite of its myriad challenges, abounding disagreements, and the sin that lives in every member, a family’s dwelling place is of immense value.

Be encouraged, moms, single women, empty nesters … your home even with its many imperfections is a place of crucial importance!

*When Invisible Children Sing, by Dr. Chi Huang

For more on how to help orphans, foster kids and invisible children go to Christian Alliance for Orphans at CAFO.org.

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40 Character Qualities We Hoped to Teach Our Children

You’re getting your child’s classroom syllabus for all the benchmarks he’ll be required to know over the next months for science, math, art, and history. Wouldn’t it be nice to know what you needed to teach him for knowing God better?

Dennis and I made a list of qualities we hoped to teach our children before they left home at 18. We worked on our list over many years and in the end didn’t accomplish all of them. But having a list of values, a vision for what we believed was crucial, kept us more focused on what mattered most.

Consider this post a parent curriculum … your teaching syllabus with one lesson plan tucked in to get you started. The course goal is to answer the question, How will you be your child’s primary influencer?

Dennis and I will never forget that incredible moment when our daughter Ashley was born. The doctor cleaned her up and handed her to us. Dennis said he wanted to blurt out, “Thanks for the gift, but where are the instructions?” 

When we started this journey, we had a few ideas of what it meant to be a parent and raise children. We also had lots of idealistic resolutions about what we’d never do! In conversations short and long we talked randomly about what we hoped for: children who respected authority, who knew the value of work, and kids who were kind to others, especially those considered unlovable.

As a way to capture the hopes and vision we had for our children, we began to write our desires on paper. We knew releasing godly, mature children who could stand on their own at 18 would take intentionality from us.

Modeling was crucial, but so was instruction, as Solomon wrote to his son, “Listen my son to your father’s instruction, and forsake not your mother’s teaching” (Proverbs 1:8).

Raising children requires huge chunks of time, prayer, discipline, involvement, and relationship-building. To make the most of all of this parenting love, effort, and privilege, it’s best to know where you’re headed.

Here’s a list of 40 of the character traits we wanted to teach our children. It’s a glimpse into our God-focused values for our kids.

At the end of the list, I’ll give you a practical way or two to begin to teach a few of these concepts to your children.

Above all, fear God.Respect authority – trust and obey your parents.The importance of friendships.Be in love with Christ and focus on your relationship with Him, not just on doctrine or on biblical principles.Have compassion for the poor and for orphans.Believe God for too much rather than too little.Real strength is found in serving, not in being served.The power of moral purity and a clean conscience.How to motivate people without manipulating them.How to handle failure.Keep your promises.The power of the tongue for good or evil.The importance of manners and common courtesies.View life through God’s agenda—the Great Commission (Matthew 28:16-20) and the Great Commandment (Matthew 22:37-38).Give thanks to God in all things.The importance of prayer.The art of asking good questions and carrying on good conversation.How to handle temptation.By faith, trust Christ as your Savior and Lord, and share with others how to become a Christian.Seek wisdom—skill in everyday living. Knowing how to make good decisions with godly counsel.Gain a sense of God’s direction and destiny for your life.Stay teachable and do not become cynical.Truth is best passed on through relationships.Leave a legacy of holiness.Keep life manageable. Prioritize decisions.Tame selfishness—you can’t always get your way.Choices are yours to make and results are yours to experience.Respect the dignity of other people—all people.Be faithful in the little thing.Character is the basis of all leadership.Life isn’t fair—don’t compare with or be jealous of others.Live by commitments, not by feelings.Express grace and forgiveness.A strong work ethic.Surrender to the authority of Christ.How to handle your finances.The principle of remembrance: milestones and landmarks.The importance saying “no” often to keep life manageable.How to lead and how to follow.Love conquers all—better to be kind than to be right. 

Does the list feel overwhelming? It did to me too. It would have helped if Dennis and I had taken the time to synthesize the list, edit it down to the essence, or prioritize the top 10 or even 20. But we were too busy keeping our family afloat to fine-tune this list. Still it was a reminder of our goal and that was its purpose: to keep us going in the right direction.

One of the most important of these for us was #33: Express grace and forgiveness. It’s a value that can be taught to children from ages 2 to 18.

Dennis and I had learned in our marriage the importance of naming our offenses when we hurt one another and then asking for specific forgiveness. So we taught our children the same.

As soon as they could talk and purposefully hurt a sibling, we coached our children to repeat after us: “I’m sorry I [hit you … took your toy … etc.]. Will you forgive me?”  We then coached the offended sibling to say sincerely: “I forgive you for [hitting me … taking my toy…].” Then we made them hug each other.

No parent can change a child’s heart, but we can train our children in the right way to resolve conflict and pray for God’s heart-changing power to work in them. This quality was a must for us because relational conflict will be with all of us for life. Helping our children be specific and name their sin sets them on the pathway to understanding their need of a Savior and establishing healthy relationships.

This lesson on forgiveness was one we repeated thousands of times, and sometimes the lesson got complicated. When one of our sons was about 10, he took his brother’s prized penny from his penny collection. Our first challenge was to confirm that he in fact stole the penny and not someone else, because he denied being the thief. Then we had to deal with his lying about it. Then we had to teach restitution after he’d finally confessed, apologized, and asked for forgiveness. Clearly this instruction elevated to more than “repeat after me.” And it took hours of our time one evening to get the facts and teach the lessons.

“Relentless” is a good word to describe the work of parenting. Too often parents give up or let situations like this one with our son slide by because they are too tired to deal with it. We understand. We felt the same way most every day.

But if you choose to ignore these offences you are missing crucial teaching opportunities God is giving you. And you are undermining another key value, the fear of God. If your child believes he can get away with sin, there is little reason for your child to avoid it. If you don’t pursue the truth and hold her accountable for her actions, all motivation for doing good evaporates.

We didn’t perfectly teach each and every one of these lessons to our kids, but we were committed to being intentional about reinforcing these qualities every time we had the opportunity. For 28 years we never stopped training, teaching, and cheering our children on. As Galatians 6:9 tells us, “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.”

How about writing your own list?  What character qualities and values do you want to teach your children before they leave home?

In our book, The Art of Parenting , Dennis and I write more about the process of writing your own list of values to teach your children. This will make a huge difference in your marriage and in your parenting. If you take the time to create a unified list of values, you will be operating literally off the set of blueprints And nothing is more important for kids than unified parents. If you are a single mom this will be easier for you but especially important because you need their help and working with them as a team for the good of your family will instill great character qualities that will last a lifetime.

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