Goal: Being a whole parent so that I raise whole children

After yesterday's post I have been thinking about how important it is for us as parents to be whole and healthy so that we show our children a good example of how to live healthy lives.  I am speaking more about emotional and mental health than anything else.  One thing that my husband and I have come to realize time and time again is that low self esteem and lacking confidence often times come from "daddy issues."  So many men and women that I know have had experiences with their fathers that have left them hurt and seeking some kind of approval elsewhere.  Let's face it, dads have their work cut out for them.  We need them to esteem us, guide us, protect us, encourage us, and love us unconditionally.  We also can see God through the way we see (or saw) our father.  If we have ever been hurt by our father and haven't dealt with that hurt, let it go and even beyond that, taken responsibility for our own lives regardless of what was done to us, then we are, often times, stuck in a miserable place.  How can we be good examples to our children when we ourselves are walking around broken and defeated?  I challenge you to examine yourself.  What are the hurts that you have been carrying with you for years?  How does that affect your parenting or the way you treat your spouse?  We need to have our eyes wide open and be willing to dig deep.  It may be painful to relive the past but it will be even more painful to see the generation after you continue to struggle the way you have.  We need to identify our "daddy issues" (or mommy issues too) and deal with them.  Pray that God will reveal the hidden things to you and heal those hurts.  Just think of what your children can become when they learn to live healthy, whole lives without being burdened with unnecessary baggage.  It has to start with you though.  Otherwise they will have mommy or daddy issues too!

Goal: Deep, lasting relationships with my kids

Short and sweet today.  I am working on an idea that actually came to me in a dream.  I will share that soon but one thing that has come out of it is spending extra time with my kids really listening to their hearts.  When one of my "tween" daughters started having attitudes a lot when I would correct her I knew that a sit down meeting was in order.  I thought that I just needed to help her see the error of her ways and that she needed to correct this attitude business pronto!  Turns out that she was having a hard time hearing correction from me because I had said something out of frustration one day that hurt her.  She didn't know how to talk to me about it and was starting to harbor unforgiveness and I was oblivious to it.  I had completely forgotten about the incident soon after it had happened and didn't think that she would take it the way she did.  I was really grateful for the opportunity to share with her about the importance of forgiveness and that I really desired for her to share with me when something I say or do hurts her.  I believe that it is so important to teach our children to come to us, at a time of non conflict, and let us know if we have said or done something to hurt them.  I pray that I am the kind of mother who can be humble enough to hear it and respond in love.  I make it a point to apologize to my children when I know that I have wronged them but I know there are times when I don't realize it or just move on and forget.  I don't want these things to be an open door for them to believe lies about how they are loved and accepted.  So I pray that I will be sensitive to these unintentional signs that show something is just not quite right between us and, even more, I pray that my children trust me enough to come to me with their hurts and let me make it right.  I am aware that there will be times when they do just have bad attitudes or they think they are right when they are really wrong. I am not afraid of them not liking me for teaching them and disciplining them, but I do want them to understand that I love them forever and always.  I believe that my heart to heart with my daughter was a beautiful moment in our relationship. 

Staying Purposeful

I am giving myself a bit of a pep talk today. Deciding to be purposeful in life doesn't mean that you change everything overnight. Once you decide on something then you have to act on it and sometimes old habits (ways of thinking) try to creep back in. Sometimes life just gets busy and we let the business just take over without considering that there may be no purpose behind the business but we do it all anyway because it presents itself (and who can say no?). There are lots of "good" things out there that we are going to have to say no to to reserve our time and energy for the best things.

I am finding that this quest to be intentional about how I live my every day life is a challenge.  Sometimes my body is too tired or a new distraction presents itself.  I am determined though and because of that I find myself continually asking the question "Is what I am doing now working towards my goals or is this a distraction?"  Sometimes I think "This is a distraction and I don't care. I want to do this right now."  Usually that is short lived though as I have been given a new perspective and I fully intend to look at life with that eternal perspective in mind.  It is work but if I don't work at it I know that I will look back one day and regret that I didn't live with more purpose and intention.

I am qualifying for myself, and everyone else, that there are some worthy distractions in life.  Right now I am planning my husbands 40th birthday party and I think that is a pretty worth while thing to pour some additional time into.  However, I have a tendency to go over board with things like this and spend hours (or days) researching ideas and how to get the best price on things, etc...  So this is where I must refocus and decide how much time I should take on this and what other areas so I need to pull back from while I have this additional thing on my to do list.  Another distraction that I have had lately is that both of my twins have been suffering with major allergies this Spring and have both had asthma attacks at different times.  So I have been having to pour myself into ER and Dr's appointments, researching bedding purchases and air filters, etc...  Some times these distractions are God's way of interrupting and teaching us something new along the way.  Some times the lessons may not be for us but for our children or someone else that crosses our path.  I am learning to seek wisdom and allow the good distractions to teach me what they are meant to teach me.  After all, I don't want the purpose that I seek to be my own purpose but rather the purpose that He has for me.

Happy Mothers Day

I love being appreciated on Mother's Day and it often makes me reflect on my role and how I can do a better job at it. I have really learned this year that being a great mom starts with being a great daughter. I am not talking about being a great daughter to your parents but rather to your Heavenly Father. God wants us to walk in freedom from lies and shame that we often times just learn to live with and then pass down to our children an inability to recognize living in defeat. When we allow God to work in us He is so faithful to heal us and to teach us the best way to be a mother to our children. When I submit to Him and allow Him to work in me He helps me become the best I can be. I need to be at His feet learning all I can from Him and serving Him. If I want to be a great mom then I need to become just like Him.

Goal: Getting My Priorities In Order

I wanted to share about my list of priorities that I now have stuck up on my computer monitor.  I realized one day that I really needed a list in a place that I would see them often and be reminded of their importance. 

My life as a wife and mother tended to be one distracting adventure after the other. Often I would get to a point of feeling so overwhelmed and I would look for ways of doing things that would take some of the burden and stress out of my life.  Usually I would read a book or talk to friends or watch a show on a topic that would give me the tips I would need for more efficient and stress free living.  The problem is that there are a million books, a TV show on every channel and a lot of the time my friends advice would conflict with another friends advice. All of those things were taking up so much of my time and leaving me feeling even more overwhelmed and stressed.  

Don't get me wrong, I value each of those sources of knowledge and absolutely appreciate the wisdom of a woman with experience. I learn so much from other women that I respect and admire.  I think it only becomes a problem when we begin to idolize that advice.  We can be ever seeking the wisdom and forget to seek the wisdom giver.  We begin to spin in circles and get so distracted with trying to find the answers that we miss the point of having questions to begin with.  God created us without all of the answers because He wants us to seek Him.  He wants us to realize our need for Him and His hand in our daily lives. 

As I began to allow God to be the one I went to first for the answers to my questions He spoke to me very clearly about priorities.  I have so many things that creep into my day and demand my attention but what are the priorities?  These are the things that, in spite of everything else, I desire to be very intentional about and God has put it on my heart to make sure that I make time for them above everything else. 

My list is very simple.  It is 5 things and that is it.  Simplicity equals freedom for me. It is like a weight lifted off of me. It means that every day I am working towards the goals I have and the calling that has been given to me.   All of the other things can pile up but these things matter for eternity. 

When I didn't have this list the less important things tended to rule my days.  It has been absolutely amazing that when I focus on this list of priorities I somehow seem to get so much more done in a day.  I also don't seem to get stressed as much about getting it all done.  I am confident that God's to do list for me is far more important than my own and if His list for me is this simple then I can rest in knowing that I am walking obedience and His yoke really is easy and His burden really is light (Matthew 11:30).