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

2015 Here We Come!

So I don't know about you guys, but 2014 was a pretty awesome year for our family. It was spotted with hard times and growing seasons, but overall things were pretty awesome. By the way... HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! I hope that this year is better than the last for all of you guys.

Well ladies and gents, we are at it again. Choosing words for our 2015 year. Here are my three words:

Grace, Discipline, and Abide. 

I had grace as one of my words for this past year, and it has been a big help. Remembering to give myself and others grace in face of failure or unmet expectations has made a HUGE difference in my relationships and with myself. Here's a funny story to show you how much God has changed me, I remember getting so angry with Matt over a glass of spilt milk (yes really) the beginning-ish of the year. It caused a lot of trouble and I think it was our first real argument. Yeah, yeah I know.. no use crying over spilt milk right? 

Anyway in comparison, Matt and I locked ourselves out of our house and had to break in..goodbye window..and guess what?..I laughed.... yeah! Matt locked the keys in the house and we had to break a window (in his defense it was like 80 years old and he barely touched it) and I just laughed. He was surprised as well that I was able to just laugh and say it will make a great story. So God has been working very very hard on me and my learning to show grace. 

This year though I chose grace as my word again because we are expecting baby Leon and with two babies I am going to need to learn how to show even more grace to myself in the face of my inabilities and failures as a mom. Having one baby was hard, especially now that we are hitting the two year mark, but having a two year old and a newborn?? 

I'm expecting catastrophic failures.. no laundry, no clean dishes, maybe missing socks lol. So I need to heap grace on myself and learn how to give up those silly expectations and take in what God really desires for me as a mom. 

And that is also what I am going to need to learn discipline, for my kiddos and for myself. I want to be able to teach them and show them the way they need to go, and for me to do that I need to be disciplined in my life and actions and to show our children discipline. (There's also the actual disciplining part, but I'm still hoping that the "terrible two's" aren't as bad as they sound.) I am going to need to be disciplined to create the safe haven my home is supposed to be and to take care of myself as well as my family. 

I don't know about you ladies, but exercising and taking care of myself is on my wish list..but not always (read: at all) a priority. I'm hoping to slowly change that this year, and put the right amount of emphasis on taking care of myself via exercise and whatnot. That's also why disciple is important to me. 

And for abide, I need to abide in truth. To stay attached to the Vine and abide in Him. The church we are members of is putting out a journal with memory verses in it. They are the verses that the kiddos are learning and


put in the journal so the whole church body can work together to memorize Scripture and encourage each other. I am so looking forward to doing this and ingraining God's Word into my mind. We need to abide in Him first and foremost. 

So those are my words, my resolutions for 2015. 

Grace, Discipline, and Abide.

What are yours?

Xoxo,

Samantha

Sorry For the Delay..Goals of 2014!

I know, it's been a while... more like two weeks to be precise, but as it has been with everyone else, these last two weeks have been really busy. Between Christmas and New Years Eve I like to call "black out." Nothing serious happens and I don't try to plan anything in between. 

Soo now that it's over, WE'RE BACK ON BABY!! (speaking of baby, Lily has officially broken her first tooth! It's in the process of coming through but it's broken through the gum!! Hooray!!!)

So my sister-in-law, Laura, posted a status on her facebook right before New Years Eve asking

 "What three words describe your hopes and goals for 2014?"

I have to admit that this made me stop and think. I've seen a few posts about people deciding to choose one word for their resolution this year and thought that it was a fantastic idea. Laura writing this status gave me the nudge I needed to put this idea into play and come up with my own words for this year. 

Here are my three words and why.

Grace:

I chose grace as my first word because it is not only a reminder of God's grace but the grace that I need to extend to myself and others daily as well. 

First, I need to be reminded of God's unfailing and amazing grace. I have this stupid idea that I need to be perfect in everything including things that I am trying for the first time. If I'm not then my panties get all in a bunch and I'm flustered and give in to my sinful self and tend to continue in this anger driven mood. So this reminds me that I can never be perfect and that's why God's grace is so amazing to begin with, because by definition it is Him giving me what I don't deserve. So if His mercies are new each morning then I need to extend myself grace and mercy as well.

Dedication:

I chose dedication as my second word for 2014 because I have a problem with not seeing things through. I need to learn dedication in not only the small things such as working out, but in the more important things like seeking the Lord DAILY and learning to be a good steward of all that He has provided for our family. 

On that note, I've officially restarted my fitness workouts through a DVD called T25. It's made by the same guy, Shaun T, who created Insanity. It's 25 minutes a day, 5 days a week with Saturday a day of rest and Sunday a stretch day. It's a lower impact than insanity but it definitely kicks my butt!! I started on the 1st and will Lord willing, continue daily until it's complete, wherein I will probably start over ;) 

And I've started going through the Psalms for a devotional, using Nancy Leigh DeMoss's book 30 days in the Psalms as a guide. I have to say that spending quality time in the Word and with the Lord every day makes a HUGE difference in my perspective and responses through out the day. I find that my heart and mind seek Him more. 

Transformation:

As for transformation, it's kind of simple. My heartfelt desire is: 

^"And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God." Romans 12:2

Not only do I desire to be transformed through the renewing of my mind in the Word, but I also desire to transform this vessel into something that can be used to glorify Him who made me. In my own convictions, I feel that I need to be healthy and take care of the body that He gave to me. So I can be an example to my family and others, and so that I can better live the life He has so graciously given to me. By taking care of myself I can take care of my family and doing so allows me to keep up with my daughter and show love to my Husband. 


So those are my three words for the year 2014. I would absolutely LOVE to hear from everyone about their goals and opinions. 

Please, Please, Please feel free to comment! 

xoxo,
Samantha