Motherhood and Leading By Example

Motherhood... what a blessing, huh?

A terribly exhausting, kinda sorta frustrating, usually food deprived, and sometimes smelly, but a wonderful, glorious, blessing.

As I sit here on my sofa, watching my kiddos go from happily playing to pushing and arguing, I have a moment of wonder. Who am I that God has blessed me with these two beautiful children?? Who am I that He has given me the responsibility to take care of these two little humans? These two eternal souls are in the hands of my husband and I.

Wow.

Motherhood is such a blessing, and such a challenge all at once. What a blessing to be able to raise these little arrows, these little humans to praise the Lord and seek Him. This verse in Proverbs 22:6 has been one that I have committed to my memory and put into my heart. "Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it." Now, my parents did the best they could, but I was not raised in a home that was 100% Christian. We espoused and lived many values that are 'Christian', and I remember being dragged to church (sorry Mom and Dad haha) but I didn't learn verses growing up, I didn't go to church regularly or youth group or Awana (if you are familiar with that) and this is something that I want my children to grow up in. I want them to be so filled and so permeated with God's Word that they can't help but turn to God, they can't help but to have verses flood their minds during hard times, or glorify our God when they are blessed by Him. I want them to be so filled with Christ and have their minds overflowing with His love and truth.



I want to create a legacy; a new legacy of following Christ with every fiber of our being.


But I'm realizing that for a new legacy to be created, for their minds to be overflowing with truth and Christ, that I need to be completely immersed and overflowing from Him as well. I can't expect my children to just somehow magically learn truth and learn about Christ and God without me living out my faith and teaching them and telling them about who He is and why He came.

I'm told that children learn a lot from what they see and hear around them. I've seen this true, with my kids picking up rather adult words like "freak out" or "actually" or "I'd rather not". I've also seen this true with watching how they pick up after themselves, they didn't learn to clean on their own, they saw Matt and I clean and learned by watching. This is so so important to remember. Children pick up so much of what they see and hear rather than say, what you just outright tell them. Children learn by example.

What are you teaching your children by example?

If you and I are similar, we want to teach our children what following Christ looks like, what dieing to yourself looks like. We want to show our children grace and truth and love, and what glorifying God with your heart, mind, soul, and body looks like in a day to day life.

I know this isn't easy, we all have those days where it is crazy and hard and you reach the end of yourself. You snap, or react through anger in a situation instead of responding in a grace filled way. I've been there, actually I was there two days ago! Lily walked in, and woke me up saying that she was going to tell me the "truef" haha and proceeded to tell me she put shaving cream all over her brother...it turned out she slathered Leon with diaper rash cream! Lets say I took the kids to their grandparents for a bit..my version of witness protection hahaha! We all needed a break and spending time with Grandma was such a relief after a crazy morning.

What I'm getting at is this, we are all in this together, we are all sinful, fallen human beings trying to follow Christ and die to this "old creation". So what are you spending your time on? What you put into your mind and heart is what comes out. Are you putting in Facebook and twitter and expecting Galatians and Philippians to come spurting out? What are you doing to ensure that your children will grow up knowing they are loved by God and loving Him?

Just something to chew on.

Xoxo,

Samantha

Free To Fail...

Hey,

Today I am learning a very hard lesson. One that I have been learning since I came to know of Christ. A lesson that is difficult but is also very freeing once you understand and accept it. 

This lesson is in Failure.

Let me just tell you that I tend to learn the hardest lessons over silly little mistakes and mishaps. For example, today I was trying to do a million and one things after I came home from work. Lily, our beautiful and sweet baby, was fussy and didn't want anything to do with being put down. For some reason she wanted to be held and nothing else would do. 

For those of you with children or who have had to care for children, you know how difficult it is to get anything done when both of your hands are tied up in baby pants and keeping their fingers out of your hair...Anyway, to continue with our story, I worked very hard on making two homemade loaves of bread before my wonderful Hubby came home. I listened and tried to soothe Lily for nearly an hour as I prepped and made the dough and held her while I let it rise. After three excruciating hours of work, the bread was ready to bake. My AMAZING ( I did tell you he was amazing right?) Hubs put the bread in the oven for me while I was doing my workout. 

When we pulled out the bread we buttered it thinking it would harden a little. That the crust would get crispy. Unfortunately it didn't. We realized that it was still doughy and tried to put it back in the oven to cook a little longer. Lets just say that trying to bake buttered bread isn't wise... butter smokes.....a lot. 
This doughy, smoking bread caused me to cry in frustration and anger. I basically estranged myself from my wonderfully amazing Hubby because he was being "too reasonable" and didn't want to make the house smokey by baking the bread. It's moments like this that remind me that God probably, most definitely made Matthew with me in mind. 

Matthew showed me patience, understanding, and love in these last two hours than I could begin to tell you. This man right here... sitting next to me actually, is an amazing Man of God. As I laid on the bed talking to him about failure and unrealistic expectations, he said something to me... something I don't think I can ever forget. 

He said, "Christ died for us so that way we don't have to try to be perfect!....I don't want a wife that is perfect, I want one that will make mistakes with me."

My friends, I want to leave you with this idea, this Truth. We are free to fail. You are not defined by what you do.. you are defined by Who He is.

I am not defined as the girl who ruins loaves but rather the daughter of the Most High.
I am not defined as the person who can do nothing right but rather as the daughter who is a new creation. 

We are Free to Fail because that is not who we are..we are Children of God, loved and treasured. We are forgiven and redeemed, washed in the blood of the Lamb. We are defined by what Christ has done for us, not the things we have done.

So remember this when you learn this lesson, failure isn't who you are..your identity is found in Christ. 

xoxo

Samantha