Ladies, Ladies…All the Ladies!!

I am sooo tired tonight… we’ve had a LONG and exciting week.  My husband turned 30 on Tuesday and my oldest son turned 4 TODAY!  Here are some pictures from his party at school today….. 

                                   Four years to this day I became a mommy and boy has that rocked my world–yes, I’ve had difficult days–but for the most part…it’s been the greatest thing that could have happened to me.  The Lord knew that it would only take being a mommy to strengthen me in ways I needed to grow me closer to Him.  I’ve learned so much and I learned so much from Will, my first.  When I was hit with so many devastating and disappointing struggles like having to have a C-section and breastfeeding not going well…I realized from that moment that I would need Christ to drive this woman around.  I couldn’t do this on my own.  the Lord gave me one of my heart’s DEAREST verses, Deut. 8:3, during this time:

“He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord.”

I remember as if it were yesterday, sitting upstairs in our little Charleston home reading this verse that just ‘happened’ to be on a daily devotional reading…….and weeping.  It was as if the Lord, himself, sat down beside me and said, “Jenny… you want to be super mom… you have in your head everything you are going to do with this child and you are going to be perfect and you are going to make him perfect…. and most of all… you think you are going to do this all by yourself…. but you are not looking to ME…. you are not realizing that these things you are idolizing (labor, delivery, breastfeeding, mothering….) are nothing.  I am going to show you my glory in this… I am here… and I am going to teach you the greater things.”

That was my first lesson in motherhood.  And I praise the Lord that He instantly gave it to me.  The best things I will give to my family is “everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord.”  I learned that I am NOT in control… especially over these precious little children…..especially over their hearts and their attitudes.  And I can never be ungrateful for the way He has given them to me and the way he has ordained me to nourish them.  He has taught me that the most important nourishment they could receive is not in the quality of their milk…or bread…. but in the knowledge of the Lord. 

It’s funny… just tonight I begin reading on in that passage and I am moved.  It is so fitting that the Lord had me stop at verse 3 for so long.  Now, four years into my ‘mommy career’… three children later…. I read on: 

“Your clothing did not wear out on you, nor did your foot swell these forty years–or four years, for me– Thus you are to know in your heart that the Lord your God was disciplining you just as a man disciplines his son.  Therefore, you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God, to walk in His ways and to fear Him.  For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing forth in valleys and hills;”

Don’t you see?  Can you see how God is growing us.  Have you taken time to really look back at your life and see the person you were then and who you are now.  I pray with all of my heart that you are different… if you aren’t make today that day.  Let yourself be humbled…so that you may begin to learn that man CAN NOT live on bread alone!!!    Let the Lord take you to those dark places… into those pits… through those tunnels…. so that you may come out –four years later, perhaps— and see that your clothing did not wear out on you!!!….you survived!!  and you are all the better for it….Keep His word people… walk in His ways… I am preaching this more to myself than anyone else… I have REALLY had some difficulty this week….. “For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land…”….. Christ is the good land!!!  He is shaping us into his image…. he is making us Christ-like!!!  Yes, these years in parenting young children can be SOO overwhelming… but God promises to enable and equip us for this task when we follow Him.  Keep walking my dear friends… yes, our feet are tired…. our shirts worn…our hands calloused….our bodies dirtied (i mean…who gets a shower every day?)… but with every mile walked in faithfulness with Christ and in His strength–we are being led into a “good land.”  Once again… a promise, people.  May we bathe in the brooks of forgiveness from our failures, drink from the fountains of grace, and extend forth springs of mercies to our husbands and children this week as we journey on into the good land.