Here’s my question of the day, one that regularly challenges me. How am I different from the best secular mom out there?
It’s the question that begins my mom’s book Parenting with Wisdom (formerly titled Precept upon Precept). I am going to be studying from this book with a small group of ladies in town, and since I started reading yesterday it is fresh in my mind.
I don’t want to be satisfied with traditionally Christian or moral. I want to be biblical, and that takes work. I have discovered that the exercise of writing regularly forces me to examine myself, whether I’m leaving the Bible out of my parenting or not. As much as my husband might laugh when I tell him that I need a blog to be appropriately introspective (because I’m introspective enough on my own), writing has been useful in keeping my introspection profitable.
And… I read some of Ecclesiastes.
It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart. Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth. Ecclesiastes 7:2-4
Being a godly mom isn’t for the faint of heart. It is hard work, rewarding to be sure, but nonetheless one of the bigger challenges we face in life. If it were easy, would we be crying to the Lord for wisdom as much? Would have more, or less, confidence in ourselves, and more, or less, confidence in God? Would we know the sweetness of God’s blessings as much if we didn’t taste some of the bitterness of life?
In the last week, Laurel has started wearing underwear (and actually using the toilet). I feel rather foolish for the joy of having all three children out of diapers. But the end of our labor in all of life is coming. We must not grow weary in doing good, because we will reap in due season. Our outer self is wasting away, but our inner self is being renewed day by day, as the Apostle Paul says. “For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” (II Corinthians 4:16-18)
monica says
Interesting how you say that being a mom isn’t for the faint of heart. I find that everyday, God makes my faint heart able to be strong. Motherhood makes faint hearts lean on Jesus for everything.