Thursday, February 26, 2009

A Good Mother...

I know I write about being a mother often... I must confess that much of my life is consumed with my title of "mother"... I love it, I struggle with it; I seek the Lord with it, I often forget to seek the Lord with it and take a stab at it with my own strength (guess how well that works out for me? :) ; I have moments of triumph with it, I have equally as many moments of failure with it; I long for it, I sometimes find myself wanting to run away from it... It is my greatest joy, It is my greatest sorrow; It makes me aware of my strengths and equally aware of my weaknesses...

I read the following this afternoon about being a good mother...

"I wish I could wave a magic wand and make the term “good mother” disappear forever. Not because it’s wrong for us to want to be the very best we can be, but because I believe we as mothers have allowed ourselves to be sidetracked by an impossible standard of “good”.

We keep a checklist of mothering perfections, yet overlook one ironic fact - which is that God doesn’t ever really call us to be “good mothers,” at least not as we tend to define it. Instead, He calls us to love Him, to become more like Him - that is, to be “godly” mothers.

God doesn’t want us to be “good mothers”; He simply wants us! He wants us to be His children, to draw on His strength, to learn from Him what it means to be a successful human being." (She's Gonna Blow By Julie Ann Barnhill)

I just love this last paragraph... "He wants us to draw on his strength"... NOT OUR OWN... when did I start trying to rely on my own strength?? I'm thinking that doing it on my own just might be one of those "BAD DECISIONS" that I didn't even realize that I was making, until I read wonderful reminders like the one above...

Lord Help me to be a GODLY mother towards my many small children... Oh, How much I need YOUR strength... Everyday... Every moment... Every thought... every action... Lord, I just need YOU!!! Please help me to get over myself and into you! When other mothers see me, I pray that the first thing they would see, is You...

Me and My MSC (Many Small Children) on Valentines Day this year... My MSC just love taking pictures, can you tell? :) (Especially Siah :) Siah and Hal just kept asking me "are we done yet? are we done yet? You gotta love trying to "capture" the moment... I'm starting to conclude that sometimes memories are better kept in our hearts than on camera. :)