Thankful Thursday

This November I am making an effort to put feet to our thankfulness by creating acts of gratitude for our family to participate in. Really this is something I want to make a more regular part of our life, not just something that we think of seasonally. After all, thankfulness and gratitude are qualities I want to model and grow in my children as well as see continue to grow in my own life. Let me share what we have been doing this week to show those around us that we are thankful for them.

I started by giving my boys a project. I asked them each to pick one person outside of our household that they were most thankful for. I talked abut how it is important to show thankfulness to the people inside of our house but that we practice that on a regular basis so I wanted them to think outside of that to someone they may not take the opportunity to thank as often. Once they decided on a person, I gave them supplies to make a card and encouraged them to write out (or dictate to me what to write out) words of thankfulness. Jordan chose his teacher and Isaiah chose one of his grandma's. Nathan chose not to participate and while understandably disappointing, we honored his choice and encouraged him to think of his own way to show his thankfulness to someone. We will continue to model these actions and pray that they speak to his heart and inspire him to do the same in a way that makes sense to him.

The act of thankfulness we chose as a family was actually repaying a family that had blessed us numerous times when we had the twins. We had been talking about ways to bless them in return and I strongly felt God leading us to specifically follow through on a date with dinner. We ordered pizza for our family and their's (thank you Papa John's for 50% off every time the Seahawks win which made it possible to feed two families for the price of one!) and when we called to tell them we would be bringing it by they shared that it was an answered prayer as the mom of the family had hurt her back the night before and could use help with dinner. It also happened that her injury fell on pizza night and they ended up missing out on it so the kids were extra excited by our delivery. Doesn't God work in such fun ways?

There are more fun things in the works already so you'll have to come back next week to see what we have been up to. And not that this necessarily needs to be said, but I hope my heart for these posts is clear. It isn't about bragging about what my family has done but instead is meant as an encouragement and a resource for ideas that might get your family involved in acts of thankfulness. If you are already ahead of me and have some great ideas you are willing to share, I would love to hear what you've been up to. It's the best part of writing this....getting to share what I do and hopefully learn a little bit about what you do too. Don't be shy!

Motherhood is a curse

Yup, you read that right. I said motherhood is a curse. Shocked? Did you expect that sentence to end on a more positive note - like say, with a word like blessing? If you know me, you know that I believe that. That motherhood is a blessing. It is an amazing gift and one I am fortunate to have experienced 5 times over. And having experienced it I can also confidently say that my first statement is also accurate. Motherhood IS a curse. It also causes you to curse..but I digress.

I can give you some pretty solid reasons why I think this to be true but let's just go straight to the source. Genesis 3:16 says, "To the woman he said,"I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children.Your desire will be for your husband,and he will rule over you." God told us that our curse for disobeying Him by eating from the tree of knowledge would be pain during childbirth. And what is a result of childbirth? Children. And motherhood. While all great sources of joy they can also be great sources of pain. And the kicker is that God designed it that way. At first it's enough to make you shake your fist toward the heavens but when you stop and spend some time looking into it more, it makes sense and I am quickly reminded why God is God and I am not.

Let's look at a man's part of this curse - he is cursed with laboring the land. What was once supposed to be a haven, a place for man to rest and be fulfilled became a constant source of turmoil and back breaking work after Adam disobeyed God. They must work to eat, work to live, work to provide for their families. Men are to faithfully and obediently serve God through their work. In that same way, we as mothers are afflicted by bearing children. The misery of pregnancy, the threat of miscarriage, the agony of birth and all of the tribulations of child rearing. It's enough to make you wonder why we bother! We bother because it is one way to faithfully and obediently serve God.

I don't know about the rest of you but I know I have learned so much since having my children. It revealed things to me I couldn't have seen without first becoming a mother. It has given me so much insight on my own parents. My relationship with my kids has also given me a glimpse of who God is and how He feels about us. It made me look harder at myself and taught me so much about what I want in this life and what is truly important. It also points a big fat blinking light-up sign at all my insecurities and weaknesses. I have never felt so incompetent in my life! But through that weakness and insecurity I have been forced to lean not on my own understanding but to instead trust God in everything. To let Him come through for my children where I cannot. It's not easy (hence the pain part of it all!) to realize I am not ultimately in control, and that I don't have all the answers, that they aren't even mine to try to control in the first place.

It is hard work. I would say harder than laboring the land, but these kinds of discussions can start World War 3 (at least in our house) so I will keep from comparing the two. It requires dying to self in so many ways. Truly a curse! But within that curse is the opportunity for so much blessing. When we choose to live out motherhood in a way that glorifies God we not only receive His blessings in our own lives, but we have the opportunity to spill that over into our kids' lives as well. What an awesome responsibility! One that can easily become a chore if I don't remind myself of what it's really all about. Lately I have needed that reminder which is why I think God planted the seed for this post. Maybe someone reading this needed that reminder too. I think that one of the devil's greatest tools is isolation. He makes us feel as if we are the only one struggling in this particular way and this can leave you feeling lonely, ashamed, and unworthy. What a lie! If this is speaking to you, know that you aren't alone and that it isn't all for waste. There is a purpose in what you do and it is not supposed to be easy on our own. I encourage you to form relationships with other moms where you can be encouraged and supported on your journey. I also encourage you to give the burden over to God and let him carry it for you. Jesus reminds us in Matthew 11:29-30, "Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light." Motherhood is a curse but it is also a huge blessing and my prayer is that you can see the blessing in it today.

The importance of hard work

In the past few months God has been hitting me time and time again with the message of hard work and why it is so important. Yet again tonight in my newest study, this topic came up. As I am diving deep into the book of Ruth, the author of my study is picking apart the relevance of basically every verse in this book. Today we looked at her work ethic. Boy was that convicting! This young woman who has not only lost her husband but has been completely uprooted from her family and her home to go to a land where she is deemed an outcast, still lifts her chin up and does what she is called to do. Not just for herself but for the sake of her widowed mother in law as well. She really sets an example of how to conduct ourselves during times of hardship.

So as I am reading verse after verse in various parts of the Bible about how much God values hard work it got me thinking. It made me realize how far off from God's plan we really are. From the beginning of time, man was created to work. Adam himself was made to work in the garden. This was even before Adam and Eve sinned which tells us that God sees work not as a punishment, but as a blessing.

Now I don't know about you, but I often think of work as anything but a blessing. It is a pain, it means sacrifice, it means doing what I am supposed to over what I want to. Where is the blessing in that? But the more I try and look at it from God's point of view, the more I see what he means. The sheer willingness to work hard opens the door for God to provide for us. Look at Ruth. She was willing to get up at dawn to find a field where she could glean the leftovers all day. This is hard, roll-up your sleeves, sweat producing work. And it isn't prideful. Those leftovers were intentionally untouched for the purpose of allowing the poor to retrieve them. Despite all of that, she did it. And God blessed her by putting Boaz in her path who later turned things around for both Ruth and Naomi.

Hard work also keeps us from being idle. You have heard the saying, "Idle hands are the devil's playground." How true is that? I know that as a kid the dumbest things I did came from having too much time on my hands. Of course this applies to adulthood as well. When we are idle we are usually filling our time with things other than that of the Lord. Besides that, they learn to be idlers, going about from house to house, and not only idlers, but also gossips and busybodies, saying what they should not. - 1 Timothy 5:13.

I know that in my life this is an area that I continually feel called to change. I don't work outside the house but I still have a job. Taking care of my husband, my kids and my home is my work. And big work it is! I should be pouring myself into it each day and I hate to have to admit that more times than not I am just doing what I need to do to get by. The bare minimum. Oh what shame I feel in admitting that. But there is also freedom in the truth. I know that I am not alone in this. As you read this you may be thinking that you could write this same thing. But you want to know the good news? This doesn't have to be your truth. You have a choice and so do I. The choice as I see it is to keep living day to day, fighting all the good things God has in store for me and as a result feeling both guilty and unfulfilled OR to change the way I look at my life and my purpose. To see the blessing in serving my family and working hard in my home.  To know that God only wants what is best for me and that he is just waiting to bless me in even greater ways when I choose to be obedient. When I look at it that way, the choice seems like a no-brainer!

I am going to end this by doing something I rarely do here. But as I type this I feel like someone will read it who will understand, who will feel like I do and want to make a change. So I ask, if that is you, will you pray for me? Pray that I make the choice to be obedient to God's calling in my life to work hard and to find the blessing in that work. And in return I will be praying for you. I may not know you by name but God does so I will lift you up all the same. God Bless!