Mom’s World

So you’ve just wiped up spilled milk, scrubbed crayon off the wall, threw in your fourth load of wash for the day, wrestled up a quick, nutritious lunch for your hungry brood, kissed a hurt and sealed it with a band-aid! You’ve rocked, and lulled, and sung sweet lullabies, while all the while just wanting to have a spare minute for yourself but you can’t find one anywhere. The day wears on and the hours are tedious and so the same with whines, and cries, and fussiness and wet diapers, and quarrels, and how come no one ever told you that motherhood assigned you referee credentials? So, you’re a mom, and when you signed up for parenthood, you were unaware of its strange mix of excitement, fear, joy, panic, happiness, sorrow, fun, or anxiety. But it is and there you are right up there in the top ranking of it all, and it’s awesome but it’s scary, and it’s sheer delight but it’s frustration, and it’s rewarding but it’s so time-consuming. Oh, so time-consuming!! Yeah, motherhood; there’s really nothing like it on the planet! Its challenges are out of this world and it’s rocked yours to the moon and back. It’s got you booked solid ~ hook, line and sinker and drowning in its many demands! The hats you wear are ridiculous and next to impossible and your sanity? Well, it’s gone south for a break and right now as you think you might go under for the very last time, know that you won’t! You won’t because your job is the toppest of the top-notch jobs in the whole wide world.

You’ve been entrusted with gifts from heaven, all ‘little life’, wrapped up and so tenderly placed in your lap. And there you are!! Smack dab in the middle of days that don’t end and nights that don’t sleep. Those gifts of life are yours to cherish, to love, and to nurture, guide, teach and train and when that journey overwhelms your beautiful soul, remember King Lemuel’s mom had some good words of advice for him in Proverbs 31: 10, 17, 25, 26, 28. She told him exactly how fortunate he would be to find a woman of noble character just like you. You may be tired and exhausted but your value is outstanding… “A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies…….she sets about her work vigorously; her arms are strong for her tasks…she is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come. She speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue…Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also and he praises her.”

God hasn’t promised pastel rainbows for your days of motherhood, in fact, some days might just well be purple and red, but He has promised joy to the mom who seeks Him and grace for the one who walks the ho-hum of the daily journey by His side. No, your rewards won’t necessarily be seen nor given out today there in your little kitchen nook, but your loyal works and your tedious steps will etch their memories into little hearts that will grow big and strong to become mom and dads of their own little gifts of life. So mom, take heart! Your tasks performed faithfully today will navigate back and will find their way into your seasoned heart of hearts when all you have left are the memories of the long lost, good old days. So yeah, beautiful Mom, enjoy these joyous but trying days of motherhood. They’ll be gone all too quickly.

Rest For The Weary

Sometimes it’s just one little thing that haunts you and keeps you from joy in that soul of yours. Sometimes it’s just something small but so overwhelming that it takes over your thoughts, your focus and ~ your life. You can’t live without thinking about it and you certainly can’t live comfortably with it in your every moment.

What is it that has you so fixed in its bondage that you can’t get free? A health issue, a financial strain, a bad choice, a child, a prodigal, an offence, a job, maybe a relationship or a relative that has your heart and soul so tormented that it seems to stalk you relentlessly, hounding your every day and your every sleepless night? Where does it end and where is relief from the torment? Matthew reminds us of the Lord’s words in Matthew 11: 28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Friends, there is no other place to rest your weary, troubled mind but in the Lord’s care! He’s got you and He’s got your problem. So let Him take it and then ~ oh soul, find rest and find that joy that comes in that simple trust and that sweet, child-like faith.

Jeremiah 31:25
I will refresh the weary and satisfy the faint.”

A Life God Can Use

A ‘Daniel’ life, out there and exposed to God’s glory, quickens every nerve ending. It’s not a pain-free life! There will be fiery trials; maybe not the literal fiery furnace noted in the book of Daniel, but hard things that try the very soul of us to see what we’re made of and how deep our faith really goes. A ‘Daniel’ life is not a ‘safe-at-a-distance’ life! There will be lion’s dens to be thrown into and lions roaming about to take us down in defeat! Yet, the thing is, it is the life most alive and most abundant life because in all the things that come and go, our Lord is present in the fires, and floods and walks there always to deliver His own.

Daniel represents more than character. He represents a life God can use wildly in the worst of circumstances…

What role does fear play in your life? Does it keep you at a distance? The enemy will tangle with us as long as we let him. so, beautiful one, go out on a limb for the Lord who presents in our struggles. Fear God and nothing else. Set your mind on Him. Let Him lead!

#Lovedandbroken #Safeinahardplace

Sweet Peace

Peace? That unexplainable “Letting it all go” feeling that transcends all understanding. How can we do it? How can we let the big things that exhaust our minds just fall away from our thinking? So much ‘stuff’ overwhelms and so many issues are at stake. Still, we are called to peace and trust; trusting in a God that we can’t see!

Because in His presence is peace

We need a firm faith both strong enough and transparent enough to “see Him” through His past faithfulness as He reached to us in our past moments of conundrum. Yeah, He was there all the time ~ through it all ~ through the thick and thin of it all. He was there when the heart was torn, when the fears where real, when our spirits were crushed and when even the slightest hope had dissipated from our shattered world! And now ~ this moment He still is ~ right there at your blind side, ready to give you insight for the next step and ready to give that peace we will never understand in our humanness. He has that for you too! Step into it and let all the issues go ~ Drop them into that pierced hand and into His care. He’ll take it from there and He will serenade you with perfect peace that you won’t comprehend. That’s what He does! I love how He does it.

“Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” John 14: 27
#brokenandloved