Tuesday, June 30, 2009

God gets the credit (Part 1)

The longer I'm married, the more years I've homeschooled, and the more children I have make me realize how God has made this Christian walk thing work itself out. It's through the daily, real-life stuff that our testimony is made known. Of course there are so many other variables and life lessons learned along the way too that contribute to my testimony. But in this blog, I will focus on these wife and mothering issues that are so close to my heart as I prepare to welcome our sixth precious child into the family. I adore my family! I love my husband and children so dearly that sometimes it overwhelms me to think about it. I also love being a stay at home mom, and homeschooling. It's my dream life. But I want to take a moment to give some perspective on how Christian wives and moms have to rely heavily on God's working through us to be able to be good at what we do.

It's funny how people can watch our lives from a distance and guess how things must be for us in our family's life. So many times people have made comments to me about my choice to homeschool that revealed their "perceptions" about me. People assume that you must homeschool because it's easy for your particular personality, or that your children were born obedient and eager do multiplication drills, or that must you not have any desires like they do for appreciation, time away from home, and goals met from a career or even just the freedom of running errands without kids, having lunch with girlfriends and lots of "me" time.

The truth of the matter is that I decided to homeschool because I felt that it was God's plan for my life as a mom and for my children. That's the beginning. Then comes the growing! This is what makes my life a testimony. I absolutely do not have what it takes to be a homeschool mom. I am so flawed, so human, so selfish. But the growing that I've had to do to be the kind of wife and mother God wants me to be is what makes me more like Christ... the ultimate goal. It would be easier to make choices that would free me up from these "growing (in spiritual maturity) pains". But then what would I be accomplishing for God's kingdom?

Isolate yourself in your home with your children and try to do character training, school work, and the usual cooking, cleaning, and kid-friendly recreation, and see how long it takes you to figure out you need God's help in this venture. Learning to deal with your children using the fruit of the spirit is truly a miracle that proves that the Christian walk is all about becoming more Christlike from our daily challenges. Just about every day I feel like I'm still learning how to deal with my "moments" in ways that make the Lord proud. Honoring God with my actions and attitude is a constant struggle. But each small victory is becoming part of my testimony.

Each prayer prayed for direction and guidance with a particular child and the struggles I see them facing is an investment in God's kingdom and our story. Every deep breath taken before a whispered call for help from me to my Heavenly Father becomes a prayer of thanks given to Him for doing the work that my humanness was inadequate to perform. All good things that have come from my life... especially my life as a wife and homeschool mom have been God working through me, in spite of me. He deserves the credit for those comments people make about not knowing how I do it, because they think they couldn't. I can't either. God can though.

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