....or is it just YOU?!?

I just read this and boy did it step on my toes.  To be very honest I have had a lousy attitude lately in this department.  I obviously have lots of work to do.  If you are struggling to figure out exactly what your role is and really want your husband to take on that leadership position, you just have to read this post.  It is bathed in the Word.  Ok, I gotta get busy.  I'm motivated.  Gotta figure out what I can do right now that would please my hubby the most. 

By the way, READ THIS POST !!!

This morning I sat down to do some reading in the book of Esther.  Before I had even begun the Lord spoke to me.  I have been struggling with my schooling (mostly because of fear and feeling inadequate) and have been feeling very convicted about it.  So, today the Lord showed me this:

My girls are going to emulate me.  If I am not consistent with our homeschooling, they will not be consistent with schooling their children.  It is my job to show them the value of homeschooling.  They will never see that value if our schooling does not take on a major place of importance in our lives.  The same can be said for so many things : submission, Bible reading, prayer, housework, servanthood, faith, etc.  After He showed me this I read this verse "...women of nobility who have heard about the queens conduct will respond to all the king's nobles in the same way.  There will be no end of disrespect and discord. Esther 1:18"  How I behave will also dictate what my son looks for and expects in his wife.  If I want the best for my children, I must give my best to them.  As I continued to read I had another revelation (maybe just a reminder that I am equipped) "...And who knows but that you have come to royal postiion for such a time as this. Esther 4:14"  So often I feel inadequate to prepare my children for what God is calling them to and what this world is becoming.  I must remember that God's timing is perfect and He has placed me here in this family with these children, "for such a time as this." 

Be blessed today and know that you are equipped and more than adequate (with the Lord's help) to accomplish everything He has set befor you!

A couple of my friends and I are going to be spending the next 31 days praying some specific things for our husbands.  I thought you might like to join us.  You can find the list at the link below.

http://www.reviveourhearts.com/topics/downloads/index.php?id=9473

I think I am also going to re-read (or finish, not sure if I ever did before) "The Power of a Praying Wife".

I also wanted to share this verse with you.  "You ask and you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures."  James 4:3  A year or so ago the Lord really used it to convict me, because I was asking for things for my husband that he needed and I know the Lord wanted him to have, but I was asking for the wrong reasons.  I was praying that things would change for my benefit.  The Lord showed me that I should be crying out about those things, but with an unselfish motive, a motive that only wants what's best for my husband.  I hope that makes sense. 

May the Lord guide your steps today!

The marriage retreat was awesome.  Definitely an answer to prayer and God showed up!  We learned so much greatly needed info.  and had some really good fellowship.  My hubby and I definitely did some reconnecting.  We had fun together.  Seems we had lost fun somewhere.  We could have fun as a family, but our time alone had become awkward and boring.  Anyway, it was great!

I want to share with you a couple of things that the Lord revealed to me in my time alone with Him while I was there.  1st - read Ephesians 4 as if it is speaking of how you should and should not treat your spouse and 2nd - We took the 5 love languages test, which is very useful info (we're about to read the book) and I realized that it is important for us to know so that we know how to speak each other's love language, but it is also important so that we know what things hurt them the most.  For instance, if your husband's love language is words of affirmation (praise) and you do the opposite of that by criticizing him then that makes him feel unloved.  Or if his language is acts of service and you fail to serve him he may feel unloved.  I hope I explained that well enough.  I know it was very eye opening for me.  I pray it helps you, too!

I have been so blessed with well behaved children.  I would love to think that it is all parenting, but I know that so much of it is just who they are, who the Lord made them to be.  I also know that I am only the parent I am for two reasons:

1) By the grace of God.  I did not inherit good parenting skills, while I love my mother very much and have a very close relationship with her, she just did not have time to do a lot of parenting, between dealing with my dad and working, we just didn't get as much of her as she would have liked to give us.  I do believe if she had more time with us I would have learned much from her, she had an amazing upbringing.  My dad has had major depression and anxiety issues my whole life, so I didn't inherit any parenting skills from him either.  He mostly parented out of anger. 

2)  My husband taught me.  As you probably have realized he was married before and already had a child from his first marriage.  He is very good about learning from his mistakes, so he brought to the table what had worked with his son and what didn't and lots of patience.

Many times people comment on our children or ask what we are doing that is working.  So, first I want to let you know that we are no experts.  We still have battles all the time and it isn't uncommon for me to dig out some books and have to try to figure out how to deal with it.  Know that we will never be perfect here, so though we may improve our parenting skills we will never be perfect parents.  But, we can work at it and learn as much as possible so when they are grown our good will win out over our bad.  I wanted to share some parenting books that I have found to be very helpful.

Parenting with Scripture (A Topical Guide for Teachable Moments) - Kara Durbin                          This book works with topics.  For instance the first topic is anger.  First it gives you the definition of the word then it gives you scripture.  For anger it gave Genesis 4:6-7, Psalm 37:8a, Proverbs 15:1, Proverbs 22:24-25, Ephesians 4:26-27 and James 1:19-20, each of these has the verse already printed on the page.  There is a see also section that gives you verses to look up.  There is then a discussion section that gives you ideas of how to talk to your kids about it.  Then there is a take action section, essentially a challenge, something to do to work on the problem (i.e. For one week Take a deep breath and count to ten when you feel angry, use the time to think how you can handle the situation calmly).  I love this book and really use it.  Yesterday the girls were arguing about really silly stuff that easily could have been worked out if they had not been being so selfish.  I had them sit and write the definitions of the words self-centered and compromise and then a couple of verses to go with each one.  I read and discussed them with them before they had to write them.

Creative Correction (Extrodianary Ideas for Everyday Discipline) - Lisa Whelchel                              This book also gives scripture, but my favorite thing about it is the object lessons.  I am not naturally very creative, so it's very helpful to have a resource for this.  I do believe that children learn more when they are doing something.  For instance when her son was using hurtful words toward his sister, she had him go outside and hammer nails into the fence posts, then she had him pull them all out.  She told him those nails were like his words, that even though the nails were no longer there, there would always be a whole left where they had been, just like our words.  (I hope I explained that well enough, I told you I'm not creative).  She also gives prayers for them to pray when they are dealing with something in particular.

To Train Up a Child - Michael and Debi Pearl                        Okay, I really like this book.  I think it packs all of the important aspects of discipline and training into a pretty short, but very wothwhile read.  I will caution you that I don't agree with every single thing that they say and do (as a friend of ours says "Even a mule knows to chew around the briars") I do believe that this is a very biblical perspective on raising children and I believe that with consistency it will produce very godly children.  A word of caution the first few chapters seem to only deal with discipline and can make the pearls seem pretty harsh, however when you get on into the book (chapter 4 I think) they begin to talk about tying the heart strings, about how important having a close loving relationship with your children is.  He will tell you that discipline without relationship and training will only produce angry children.  I encourage you to read it and tweak it to fit your family.

Also check out www.raisinggodlytomatoes.com .

I also want to add that no matter what you do, it will not be fruitful if you are not consistent.  I believe that consistency is one of the hardest parts of parenting.  I go in spurts.  I will do really well for a while, then I will begin to feel like my home is getting out of control and that is always a sign to me that I have dropped the ball and need to regain some consistency.

I pray that you will find this helpful.  Be blessed!

You Can't!!!!!  The only person that you can change is yourself.

God has really been laying this on my heart lately.  I tried for years to change my husband and I blamed all of my problems on him.  Lately God has been really prodding me to share this.

We are responsible for our own behavior, that's it.  We can't even change our childrens behavior.  However, their behavior is dictated by ours (i.e. am I being consistent with discipline and training, am I equipping them with the knowledge that they need to choose right behavior, am I living a life worth imitating, etc.).

My life is proof that changing yourself can cause others around you (your spouse) to desire to make changes in themselves.  But, it will never work if that is your goal.  You cannot change yourself for the sole purpose of getting what you want from other people.  And, no matter how hard you try, no change done in your flesh without God's help and out from under His will, will ever last or be effective.  You must make changes only for the purpose of becoming who God has called you to be.  We must realize that we don't deserve anything (i.e. I deserve to be treated better than this, I deserve more help, etc.).  We are born sinful, deserving nothing and it is only by Christ's act on the cross that provides us with righteousness through Him, but we will never obtain it on our own.  I know that sounds depressing, but the point is that we should look to God to meet all of our needs and that must be enough.  When it becomes (more than) enough, you will be willing to wait on your husband to allow the Lord to change Him and if he never does that has to be ok.  Your focus has to be on you and the Lord.  Are you living a life worthy of the calling God has placed on your life?  Are you seeing people through God's eyes and loving them more?  Are you spending time in your word and in prayer?  Are you allowing Christ to live in and through you?  Are you dying to your flesh daily?  When we meet the Lord He is not going to say well done you managed to change your husband.  He is going to be looking for how we lived in spite of our circumstances.  Were we joyful no matter what He placed before us?  

There is a lot of really good stuff in the book of James about the way we ought to be living.  First, I want to point out some things about our walk in general.  (But let me remind you that so much of this book should apply to our marriages.) 

 "Dear brothers and sisters, whenever trouble comes your way, let it be an opportunity for joy.  For when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow.  So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be strong in character and ready for anything."  James 1:2-4 

"God blesses the people who patiently endure testing.  Afterward, they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love Him."  James 1:12

"My dear brothers and sisters, be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry.  Your anger can never make things right in God's sight."  James 1:19-20

"If you claim to be religious, but don't control your tongue, you are just fooling yourself and your religion is worthless."  James 1:26

"So whenever you speak, or whatever you do, remember that you will be judged by the law of love, the law that set you free.  For there will be no mercy for you if you have not been merciful to others.  But if you have been merciful, then God's mercy toward you will win out over His judgement against you. "  James 2:12-13

Ok, too uch there for one post.  I will add more really good (and rather convicting) verses to a later post.  But here is the big one that I wanted to get in:  "What is causing quarrels and fights among you?  Isn't it the whole army of evil desires at war within you?  You want what you don't have, so you scheme and kill to get it.  You are jealous for what others have, and you can't possess it, so you fight and quarrel to take it away from them.  And yet the reason you don't have what you want is that you don't ask God for it.  And even when you do ask, you don't get it because your whole motive is wrong - you want only what will give you pleasure."  James 4:1-3

So are you slaying your husband with your tongue to get what you want from Him?  Are you praying that God will change Him because it will make your life easier or because you love Him so much that you want God's best for Him?  What are your motives?

Do you read books about marriage or being a wife and say to yourself "He needs to read this book, I think that was written for him, etc."  Do you think about things he needs to be changing while your reading the Word?  If you do, you need to check your motives?  If you don't know them ask God, He will show you what they are.  Don't read another book on marriage until you are ready for it to be all about you, until you are ready to be who God has called you to be, regardless of your circumstances.  I hope this helps someone.  I know I wish I had understood this much earlier than I did.  I highly recommend that you sit down and read the book of James and really examine your behavior and how each verse applies to you.

Also, while we were away for anniversary we read a really good Marriage book.  My husband usually has trouble getting through these because they are often very dry and a really heavy read, but this one was light and funny, but it touched a lot of major points.  We just ordered it for ourselves.  It's "Clues for the Clueless: Marriage"

Be blessed today!

I just want to share something that is on my heart about parenting.  Ok, here's the major revelation...........It's not easy.  Shocked aren't you?

Here's my point.  Yes, there are people who are just naturals at it, but they too have bad days.  You know we even think it should be really easy to have a close relationship with our  children, that we should know them better than anyone else does just because we carried them and gave birth to them.  Here's the problem with that concept.  It doesn't take into account how busy we are, especially as homeschooling mom's.  You know, I have recently shared with you that I am having to work on winning my children's hearts, because at some point along the way I began to lose them.  I know why it happened. It happened because of busyness and responsibility.  Between, cooking, cleaning, homeschooling, bill paying, errand running, training, disciplining, mothering, wifing (don't think that's a word, but you know what I mean), laundry, refereeing, etc. I began to lose their hearts.  Does that mean I wasn't being a good mother?  Of course not, they are very well taken care of.  All of their physical and spiritual needs are met, just not their emotional ones.  So what does that all mean?  It means I have to work at it and that's ok.

My point is, don't look around at all the "supermom's" who seem to have it all together and measure yourself.  For years I felt insecure in my role as a mother.  I felt totally inadequate.  I had a messy house, depression, problems in my marriage (my fault) and major anxiety, but my friends thought I was "supermom".  They said they would never have guessed what I was actually going through.  From the outside our marriage seemed to be working better than just about anyones (I do have an amazing husband, Thank you Lord), my children always looked so cute and were so well behaved and I always seemed so put together and like I had it together.  Obviously, looks can be deceiving. 

Just don't let the enemy make you think, that because it doesn't all come so naturally and that you acutally have to work at it and don't always get it right, you are not a good mother.  I don't know if that was clear or not or if anyone needed that right now, but I felt like it was what the Lord wanted me to share.

Just remember that God blesses obedience and sacrifice (and He knows our motives), and obviously if you are home with your children you are sacrificing and being obedient.  Don't let the enemy steal the peace and security that comes from the Lord!

Have a blessed day!!!

Here are some things I already knew that were reinforced and some new things that I learned at the homeschool convention about capturing the hearts of our children.  The speaker was Christie Berry, see more from her at www.homeschoolblogger.com/cberry .

- The only person I can change is me.  If I don't have their hearts I need to evaluate what I am doing.

- Get involved, do what they want to do and make sure my heart is in it.  They will be able to tell if it's not.

- What behaviors do I see in my child that I don't like are behaviors that I have taught them?

- If I am not obedient to the Lord my children will not be obedient to me.

- If we want to encourage them to change, we should court them and encourage them.

- Don' react to their misbehavior, respond to it instead.

- Let our children see us learning from our mistakes and always say we are sorry and admit our faults to them.  If we are not real with them, they will not be able to relate to us.

- Pray for them, pray about how to parent them, pray for there future, PRAY, PRAY, PRAY!!!!!!

- For every negative word you say to them, they need 10 positive ones to make up for it.

- It will be easier for God to win their hearts if I have won it first.

- We should work on having their heart before our focus is on education.  They will be much easier to educate if they love and respect us because they know that we love and respect them.

I hope this is helpful.  Some of it was convicting for me.  I will definitely be working more on this now.  If we don't win them while they are young it will be much harder to do it later.

More on the conference soon!

Submission.  Sometimes that is a tough word for us to swallow.  I know it was for me.  All I had ever seen and heard most of my life made me feel like it was not anything that i ever wanted any part of.  As a matter of fact I went through about 9 1/2 years of marriage doing exactly the opposite.  As far as I was concerned, no man would ever tell me what to do and I told my husband that.  I tell you, it is by the grace of God that he stayed with me through all of those years.

Well, about 2 1/2 years ago, I went through a major transformation.  I went to counseling and dealt with a lot of stuff, but most of all I learned how to have an authentic relationship with the Lord and I learned what submitting really means.  There is no way that topic can be completely covered at once.  But, I am going to share a few major things that God revealed to me and how it changed my marriage.

1) If I was not submitting to my husband then I was not fully submitting (or trusting the Lord).  He called us to be submissive and he didn't give us a lists of requirements.  That means it didn't matter if I didn't think that my husband was as "spiritual" as I was, or if he prayed as often as I thought he should.  As if it is our responsibility to judge our husbands hearts, or that I'm actually qualified to do that.  It amazes me how prideful I was.  The fact is that as long as he was not asking me to sin, I was meant to submit to him.

2) God also showed me that I did not marry a man who would want to control me.  That, my husband loved me and really wanted the best for me and our children.  I may not always agree 100% with his decisions, but sometimes that's because I'm wrong, and other times he wants my opinion so we can make the decision together.  We also need to remember that God blesses obedience, and if we are not submitting we are not being obedient.

3) I also was always griping because my husband wasn't being the Spiritual leader.  Well, God very boldly told me that he wasn't the leader because there was only room for one and I was filling that role.  So, when I stepped out of the way he was actually able to fulfill that role for the first time.  You know, I chose every church we ever went to together.  When we moved and we had to choose a new church, God showed me that I needed to step back and let my husband do it.  I argued with the Lord and was sure that he wouldn't choose the right one.  And, again the Lord told me that if I was obedient he would bless it.  So, he chose and we are in the best church we have ever been in.  All of our children have gotten saved since we've been there and we have all grown so much, have made such good friends and this is the one I would have chosen, but if I had chosen it my husband would have always had a bitter taste in his mouth about it. 

4) I always was telling people how passive my husband was and the Lord revealed to me that he had to be passive to keep the peace.  I made him that way!

5) The biggest one of all for me was that I needed to be in control of everything.  I had been hurt so much that this was my way of protecting myself.  The only problem was when you do anything in the flesh you are going to fail.  So the best of my plans always managed to fail, and then I would blow up!  I was driving down the road one day and the Lord not so gently reminded me that I control nothing.  He controls everything.  When, I was able to release control to Him and my husband, I gained more peace than I ever thought possible.  You know we have had about the craziest year I could have imagined and I've been peaceful through all of it.  Before, I would have been distraught and somehow a lot of it would have been my husbands fault. 

None of that was an easy pill to swallow, but things were so bad I had to try something different.  After all my husband had bent over backwards for me and nothing had improved.  So, I knew I had to trust the Lord and His design for marriage.  Wow, when I did it changed everything.  It opened the door to more spiritual growth for both of us than we have had in almost 12 years of marriage, it has made our home a peaceful place to be and I truly feel like we are back within the will of God and are under his wings of love and protection.

I'm sure i'll share more on this later.  I hope it helps, and if you didn't need to hear any of that let it at least serve as a reminder of how awesome our God is and how much bigger and better His plans are than our own.

I love you all!

I just had a friend over.  The purpose was to talk homeschool.  We are both using Math U See for the first time this year and she is trying to integrate more literature in their schooling.  We talked some about building relationship with our children.  Isn't it interesting that we pour all of our time and resources into our children because we love them so much, but we get so busy that we forget to get to know them.  I adore my children, but I'm not sure they know that.

God has really been showing me how much work I need to do in that area.  My 5 year old so graciously told me the other day that "Daddy is the funnest one".  I used to be fun!  What happened.  I think a lot of things, busyness, strictness, homeschool, etc.  Wow, did it somehow become more important to me for my children to be well behaved, than it is for me to hang out with them and love on them.  Maybe it did, but it's sure not going to stay that way.  Just like any other relationship we have it has to be nurtured.  We need to woo our children.  I need to be likeable to them and show them all my good qualities, so they will not just love me because I am their mom, but be in love with me. 

 Lord, teach me to know my children and make myself known to them.  Help me to be real with them, so they see who I really am.  Help me to be a daily example to them, not just in my words, but even more in my actions.  Thank you for conviction Lord, without it these changes may have come to late.  Thank you for covering my weaknesses.  I love you Lord Jesus and I give all the praise, honor and glory!!!!!     Amen