Musings From a Mother

• Dough pretzels are more fun when everyone makes his own “snake” in the shape he likes.

• Speaking of snakes, nothing brings the study of reptiles to life quite like finding a live subject in the school room floor!  (Call to husband while standing on chair:  “What?  Is it poisonous?  How would I know!  Righhhht.  You want me to look at its eyes.  Small problem….I HAVE TO GET CLOSE TO IT TO DO THAT!“)  Thank Heavens for boys with pellet guns looking for adventure.

• There is a small window of time when children actually love to do dishes…let them!

• I can’t get enough of naked babies.

• Homemade cinnamon rolls are worth it.  Quality translates to dollar signs in my brain, so we’ve printed fliers to sell them to the neighbors–it should pay for a few violin lessons.

• Simple, homemade play doh can save us on a hot, summer day.

• My first baby…that blessing that began and remains a miracle though born out of sin, is a woman.  And though she is my daughter, please allow me the liberty of saying that I couldn’t be more proud of who she has become.  She is my best friend.  She isn’t perfect, but praise God her heart seeks Him earnestly and she is committed to allowing Him to mold her more and more into His image.  And though she has many gifts and is full of ambition, I will not glory save in the work of the cross in her life.  All else is rubbish.

• My little boys and girls are quickly growing into men and women.  What a privilege to get to spend my fleeting days with them!  And every day counts…I want to soak them in, look long into their eyes, love deep into their souls and treasure each minute–the hard ones and the easy ones.  I want to impress deeply into their hearts the things that are noble, right and true.  I want to be the one who shapes them, soothes them, teaches them and sends them into the next generation to do it all over.

I am a mother.  It’s what I do.

The Secret to a Husband’s Love, Happy Marriage

“My husband won’t take me on walks.”

“Have you asked him to or told him you would like to?”

“Oh, no, I’m not going to do that.  If he loved me he would volunteer.”

My friend was asking me how she could help her neighbor who seemed to be suffering from depression because of her “bad marriage”.  (She kept the woman’s identity anonymous.) But as she prodded for descriptions of said marital problems, she saw a completely different picture than what her neighbor seemed to see.

She described the neighbor’s countenance as she foamed about her husband.  Narrow eyes, a tight mouth, and a 2-hour conversation riddled with criticism and negativity.

“He just doesn’t show me love.”

The husband provided for the family and the wife mentioned that he almost always cooked breakfast and would cuddle with her at night.

My friend said, “to be honest, if she’s half as critical at home, I give her husband Kudos for as much as he does for her”.

Description after description of her “problems” revealed a constant critique of “what he doesn’t do for me” as opposed to any thought of what she gives him or what he does do for her.

Listening to my friend, I realized how common this is.  I’ve heard this story so many times before.

The tricky part is, this wife, and others, literally feel “abused”.  This woman talked about “the deep hurt” but couldn’t produce a reasonable piece of evidence that her husband did anything to purposely hurt her.

Standing from a distance, I think of several factors that have caused this cycle many wives describe–factors of which we all need to be wary.

• Artificial men. From romance novels to soap operas to the latest Twilight series, the entertainment industry has fed our lustful desires for husbands that don’t really exist.  The smooth-tongued, at-your-beck-and-call, romantic, say-all-the-right-things guy is rare.  But, he’s in our books and tv and so we indulge in our own “emotional pornography” and it’s just as degrading and hurtful to marriages as the husband who compares his wife to that filthy picture in his magazine.

• Feminist men. To spur the aforementioned image, the feminist movement has done a great job of planting seeds of discontentment into the hearts of women.  As gender differences are spurned, our men have been told to act more like women, in so many ways.  And if they don’t, there’s a barrage of criticism waiting to be launched against their character.

• Our right to pout. In keeping with the feminist propaganda, women were told they have a right to demand and get the things they want.  So, if hubby hasn’t chucked enough of his masculinity to meet my expectations, I deserve to punish him with my coldness, criticism or indifference–a recipe for marital disaster.

In the end, there is a bitter, unhappy woman crying on her friend’s shoulder about how her husband doesn’t bend over backwards to show her love.  Meanwhile, he’s about to go insane.  He thought he was being a good husband.  Most husbands want to please their wives.  They just aren’t women.  They have unclogged the toilet, killed the bugs, taken out the trash, repaired the car, noticed the tread on the tires is getting dangerous, brought home a paycheck faithfully for years, been a faithful father and husband, all for a woman who complains that he doesn’t do enough.  (By the way, this hurts me to write it.  I’ve been this woman.)

Would that husband be a little more eager to show affection or surprise his wife with romantic flair if he came home to a smiling, thankful face?  If she expressed a bit more gratitude?  If she made the home a pleasant place to be?  If she actually tried to make his life easier?

I pray we would all let our men be men and watch how a thankful heart may be the secret to drawing him out.

How to Raise a Spoiled Child

• Don’t expect too much of him too young, assuring yourself that “he doesn’t understand”.

• Laugh at “how cute” it is when he throws his food down from the high chair.

• Comfort him when he throws a fit; at least give him the thing about which he is throwing the fit.

• Make sure he gets to do/have “what everyone else does/has”.

• Don’t ever make him earn money to buy things he wants.

• Make excuses for him when he misbehaves.  This will help him learn to blame his problems on everything or everyone else.

• Wash all his dishes, make his bed, clean up after him and keep telling yourself that “childhood is just for fun–he’ll grow up later”.

And above all else, to successfully raise a spoiled child, let him think the world revolves around him, his food preferences, his recreational needs and his whims.  Do whatever you have to do to keep him in the center of the universe, including but not limited to refusing any more children from God.  After all, spoiling one or two is difficult (and costly) enough.

A Mark of Regeneration: Habits of Holiness

The Regenerate man is a holy man.

He endeavors to live according to God’s will, to do the things that please God, to avoid the things that God hates. His aim and desire is to love God with heart and soul, and mind and strength, and to love his neighbor as himself. His wish is to be continually looking to Christ as his example as well as his Savior, and to show himself Christ’s friend by doing whatever Christ commands. No doubt he is not perfect. None will tell you that sooner than himself. He groans under the burden of indwelling corruption cleaving to him. He finds an evil principle within him constantly warring against grace, and trying to draw him away from God. But he does not consent to it, though he cannot prevent its presence.

In spite of all short-comings, the average bent and bias of his ways is holy—his doings holy—his tastes holy—and his habits holy. In spite of all his swerving and turning aside, like a ship going against a contrary wind, the general course of his life is in one direction—toward God and for God. And though he may sometimes feel so low that he questions whether he is a Christian at all, in his calmer moments he will generally be able to say, with old John Newton, “I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I want to be, I am not what I hope to be in another world—but still I am not what I once used to be, and by the grace of God I am what I am.”

~ J.C. Ryle

Ask Yourself This Question if Your Children Don’t Obey

I never thought I’d live to see a day where professing Christians scoff at the idea of parental authority and what has been traditionally accepted parenting methods for centuries.  But as many reject authority themselves, it’s only natural that they would transmit that to their parenting.

Kevin Swanson gave a super-charged and brilliant lesson on child-training last week in Texas.  The thrust of his message was, “If your children don’t obey you it’s because they don’t fear the Lord”. And he went on to ask the obvious question:  “Could it be that if my children don’t fear the Lord it’s because I don’t fear the Lord?”

Be the Police Officer

To make the point, he described how silly it would be for a police officer to pull you over for speeding and give you a high-pitched tongue-lashing:

“WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?!  YOU KNOW BETTER THAN TO BE SPEEDING!  I CAN’T BELIEVE I’M EVEN HAVING THIS CONVERSATION WITH YOU!!!”
Read more »

First Sign of a True Christian

A Regenerate man does not commit sin as a habit.

“He no longer sins with his heart and will, and whole inclination, as an unregenerate man does. There was probably a time when he did not think whether his actions were sinful or not, and never felt grieved after doing evil. There was no quarrel between him and sin—they were friends. Now he hates sin, flees from it, fights against it, counts it his greatest plague, groans under the burden of its presence, mourns when he falls under its influence, and longs to be delivered from it altogether. In one word, sin no longer pleases him, nor is even a matter of indifference—it has become the abominable thing which he hates. He cannot prevent it dwelling within him. “If he said he had no sin, there would be no truth in him” (1 John 1:8)—but he can say that he keenly abhors it, and the great desire of his soul is not to commit sin at all.

He cannot prevent bad thoughts arising within him, and shortcomings, omissions, and defects appearing, both in his words and actions. He knows, as James says, that “In many things we offend all.” (James 3:2.) But he can say truly, and as in the sight of God, that these things are a daily grief and sorrow to him, and that his whole nature does not consent unto them, as that of the unregenerate man does.

Reader, I place this mark before you. What would the Apostle say about you? Are you born of God?”

~ J.C. Ryle