Parenting with Scripture

-
I often struggle with comparing myself to other mothers. I'm often disappointed in myself when I read other mom's blogs or talk to other moms who say, "My child was struggling with such and such, and instantly this scripture popped into my mind and we were able to have a heart to heart discussion about it and apply it to the situation."

Obviously, this will change as my children get older, since mine are still quite young, but I do want to be speaking scripture to them when we go throughout our day. But, to my shame, it's not always on my mind.

I've been praying for more opportunities and wisdom with my girls. God answers prayer. Today, my eldest was having an attitude issue. I was reflecting on my response to her attitude, and I realized I was probably making it worse with my lack of patience. Then, as we were driving to our appointment, this verse popped into my mind:

Pslam 19:14, "Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, Oh Lord."

We had already talked about how God hates griping and complaining, but it wasn't getting anywhere with her. She was having a very rough time of it. So I brought up this verse, quoted it to her a few times, and we talked about what it meant. I even sang the little song I've learned using the verse to her. I focused on helping her see that her complaining words came from focusing on negative things in her mind and heart. I tried to remind her of all of the good things she had to be thankful for, hoping that would spark some positive thoughts in her mind. It's a process Mommy needs to work on too.

I can't say that it was an instant change or anything like that, but I was pleased to see God answer my prayer to bring scriptures to my mind. I'm learning with my eldest that she doesn't say much the first time someone talks to her about something spiritual, but sometime in the future it will come up again. She's thinking about it, even if it does not appear so.

Comments

Gretchen said…
Have you heard of Ginger Plowman? She has this little chart called "Wise Words for Moms" that has Scripture that applies to different discipline situations. It's to help moms out when they are in situations when they can't think of a verse to use. It's only $4. Her book "Don't Make Me Count to Three" is good, too.

Thanks for this post!
August 26, 2010 at 9:40 PM
Michelle said…
Praise the Lord! He gives us the wisdom we ask and seek for! Keep asking, keep seeking, keep knocking!
August 27, 2010 at 5:13 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Hard Questions

-
Today, we were in the car and Natalie was listening to some Christian music. She blurted out, "I don't want to go to Heaven!" What? You heard that right. I said a quick prayer for wisdom, turned the music off, and asked why. N: "I don't know, I just don't" M: "Are you afraid ?" N: "I don't know." M: "Are you afraid because you don't want to die?" (For some strange, creepy reason, my child is obsessed with death and dying) N: "Yes, I don't want to die." M: "Well, most people don't want to die, but when we die if Jesus is our saviour, we go to heaven. There are mansions there, which are like beautiful palaces (remember, princess mode here), and Jesus is there and we can see what God looks like." N: "I don't want to go there Mommy! I don't want to die!" I tried hard to assure her that unless God had another plan, she wasn't going to die for a really long time, and when
Read more

My Story Begins

-
Image
I am participating in a really fun project that is the brainchild of my friend Janna, who regularly blogs at The Adventure of Motherhood . Her project, entitled Mommy's Piggy Tales , encourages moms to blog about their childhood in 15 weeks. Here is the button if you want to learn more or consider joining. My dad, my mom, and me. My daughter, N, has that quilt now. Every year for Christmas my brother and I received our very own holiday ornament. Starting with the “Baby’s First Christmas” ornament, these ornaments usually reflected something we accomplished or did during the soon-to-be-past year. For example, the year I got my driver’s license, my ornament was Daffy Duck in a shiny new car. Every year we enjoyed putting “our” ornaments on the tree. It was a wonderful time to reflect back over our lives and the memories we had made. Sometimes we asked the reason behind the ornament, and learned a little more about our histories. When I married, I got a box with my ornaments in it to
Read more

Christmas Miracle

-
Image
Natalie was hamming it up for Tim the other night. Well, a lot has been going on in the past two months. About a month or so after the miscarriage, I was noticing something wasn't quite as it should be. I took a pregnancy test, and it came back positive. That was strange to me, because we were trying to prevent that as requested by the doctor. They called me in for blood work, and everything was indicating that I was pregnant. I was quite confused, as you can probably imagine. Two weeks ago we went in to have an ultrasound. That was eight weeks after the miscarriage. In that ultrasound they found what appeared to be a baby developing at 5 weeks gestation. We were quite perplexed, of course, because in our minds it should be about 8 weeks. The doctor asked us to come back today because at 7 weeks they should be able to see a heartbeat. The doctor said there was a good chance that there were just leftovers in there because of the earlier miscarriage, but that my numbers (hormone leve
Read more