Grandscape!

Hey girls...
If you missed our last meeting... you missed a good one!  We visited our last MOMOLOGY dvd lesson!
We listened to Shelley Radic talk on how God wants to have a personal relationship with us, and walk through motherhood while holding our hands!  Pretty awesome stuff!  We also had two lovely ladies give us their testimonies on how they allow God to permeate their past, present and future in mothering!  Tuesday we heard from Kelli Shelton and Wednesday we heard from Kelly Switzer!  I also put down some of my thoughts on this subject on my personal blog here!  I am so thankful for these girls and their transparency!  First up... here is Kelly Switzer's words!!!

 When I first attended a MOPS meeting, I expected to make some friends and get some parenting advice. I never expected the most valuable parenting advice I would receive would be to honor God in the way I raise my children. Proverbs 22:6 states, “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.” Since then, I have made an attempt to include God in all aspects of my life, especially in trying to bring my girls up to love, honor, obey and glorify God in all that they do. The best way that I do this is to invite God into my home and my heart every morning.



I try to wake up early so that I have some quiet time with God before my girls wake up. I spend time reading God’s word and praying for the insight and wisdom so that I can understand how these words written so long ago are relevant to me. I have a Mom’s Bible that has devotions for every day of the year spread throughout. Sometimes I focus on a devotion that speaks to an issue in my mothering that is heavy on my heart. Other times I search out scripture by what is familiar, and sometimes I just flip blindly and pray that God would show me what to read. The devotions spread through the Bible help me to understand a particular passage and how it relates to my role as a mother. Then I pray. I try to pray specifically for my mothering and different aspects of my children’s lives. I have to remember that I need to pray for God’s will, turn it over to Him and stop telling Him what I think is best because He knows better than I do. On the days where I need just a little more sleep or I want to check my email before the girls get up and I skip my time with Jesus, I find myself struggling in my relationship with my girls. I am prone to lose my temper or to just ignore poor behavior because I don’t feel like dealing with it at the time. This isn’t fair to me or to my family.


I am also trying to teach my children about the power of prayer. We pray before meals, at bedtime, sometimes in the car, and when the need arises. I love the times when I find Maggie praying on her own without prompting. Sometimes she prays for a toy she wants but sometimes she prays for other people and for her family. Even Molly who isn’t 2 yet sits down to eat and starts saying Amen. These are some of the sweetest things!


Another thing we do is read the Bible as a family. Maggie has an illustrated children’s Bible that they love me to read from. Even when we aren’t reading together, she will look at the pictures and tell the story from memory. It is so fascinating to me when she is retelling a story that she learned at home or church. We also look for children’s story books with a lesson. The book that stands out the most is Mad Maddie Maxwell. This is a story about a little girl who lost her jump rope and accuses all of her siblings of stealing it. She isn’t so nice about it and her oldest sister helps her to find it in her messy room. After they find the jump rope, her sister teaches her to pray to God for forgiveness and then to go to her other siblings and ask their forgiveness also. We have turned to this story countless times because its message is so pure and it is a story that my girls love. We have even retold it as Mad Maggie Switzer.


I am still so new in my walk with the Lord and I question if I am really able to be a godly mother and if I am equipped to teach my children about a Lord and a Savior that I am still learning about. It is in these moments of doubt when I need to rely even more on Jesus. I am comforted and can feel the love that Jesus has for me. He died for me, He loved me even before I was born, and He loves me despite my sin and imperfections. He loves me even on the days when I don’t give my day and my mothering over to Him and if nothing else, I can teach my children about this love. “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” 1 John 4:7-12

I hope you are all having a blessed week!!!