Something to think about…

When you’re angry, you’re motivated to solve problems, confront offenders, or make a change in your life. It’s how you make changes, however, that determines the final result in relationships. Good and Angry, Turansky and Miller

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It’s going to come early!

Make the best use of the time!

Ephesians 5:16 says “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.” The time we are given each day is not ours but is a gift from God to be used to glorify Him as in everything we do (1 Cor. 10:31) I can not help but think about what a precious gift it is, time and it is most valuable of any material possession we own as well as the most commonly taken for granted. I intend to “make the best use of my time” and for me that begins with rising early as did the example of the Woman who Fears the Lord in Proverbs 31, we know that she was a wise woman who did not eat the bread of idleness and who rises while it is yet night. We to should be women who according to our own personally circumstances walk carefully in wisdom, determined as mothers, wives and homekeepers to make the absolute best use of our time for the glory of God.

Good night my friends… 5:16 is going to come early :0).

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Organizing Peace

My house and mind are in the process of being de-cluttered and re-organized. I have some major projects going physically and mentally and my brain feels stretched beyond capacity. The funny thing is I love to organize although I am not very good at it, but I love to research it and fantasize the magical tranformation of my home. Here are some things I am working “magic” on…

Dining Room: transforming our dining room into a room we can eat in a peaceful environment (minus all the papers and clutter), a place we can spend time learning at and a place of inspiration in a homemaking way and homeschooling way… not sure how that can work out.

Master Bedroom: Find the perfect desk to put against the wall, re-arrange furniture so desk will fit, find a cute chair to put by the window and eventually organize closet. The desk is mostly for me to have a private space to keep all of my homeschool and home materials in order. Here I will begin a new journey into some serious organization, serious… a little too serious for this fly by the seat of her pants homeschooler and home manager. I am excited about it all and just pray that He will guide me and give me the endurance to follow through. Also, this area is for my money management. I find it very hard to do the bills and paper work at the kitchen table or bar due to the lack of space and hiding places for all the lingering papers, which leads me to…

Papers: my goal with the typical paper monster is to have a place for every piece/sliver of known and unkown of paper that comes from the mail, printer, friends, books, jotting notes, little creations from little hands, notecards, gift cards… ect., the list could go on but you get my point. Nothing will be left to linger but have a little home to journey to until I can get to it.

Peace. My hope in all of this is to bring an aroma of peace into my home from knowing where that bill is when it is due in 2 days, or that very important insurance paper that came in the mail and is now needed or for just the little proud artist who wants to show his or her masterpiece off to Nana when she comes over tonight that they made last week. Seriously I would love to beable when asked “where is ____?”, I can with confidence say “Oh, tucked away safely in it’s own special place.” and then very promptly present it to the requester. Oh, what peaceful bliss! I also am hoping this same kind of peace will come when the end of the school week or school year comes and I have every piece of school work material stored away safely for future reference and also the help planning go much smoother. I can only imagine.

I am going to try to keep you all updated on this so stay tuned, and if I don’t please remind me to post updates.

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Motherhood: Loving them

A mother’s relationship with her child begins with love, continues with love, and ends one day on earth with love. God’s plan is for His children to know deep, abiding, unending love from at least one human being in their life, and that person is Mother.  ~ Barbara Rainey and Ashley Escue, A Mother’s Legacy
 

Oh how I believe this to be true! I have been thinking a lot about motherhood and our responsibility to reveal the love of Christ to them through our daily interactions and that is at times difficult due to their behavior. They challenge me to understand how to love unconditionally as Jesus and bring me to search the scriptures for wisdom in how to gently guide them through correction and discipline in the love of Christ and not in the anger of my inconvenience and frustration. In those moments of a whining child, a out of control child or a disrespectful child we have an opportunity to not just change their behaviour but to lead them to the cross through our loving correction.

I believe very strongly that we shape and mold their image of God. What image am I protraying day to day to my children of God, of their loving and merciful savior? I love my children, God knows that but a question I need to commonly ask myself is “do they know that??”. Is my love for them actively displayed to them when they are being hard to love and difficult? How much did God love me? Isn’t that the kind of love I should be revealing to my children. Studying Jesus has given me confidence in my parenting, understanding Him has lead me deeper into understanding myself as a mother. I want my children to always feel like they are in the presence of Christ and I realize that can only happen if they see Him in their mother, hear Him in their mother, feel Him through their mother and experience Him daily living with their mother.

I pray Jesus that you would teach me how to be a Christ-like mother to my children at all times. May your grace abound in our home, your peace live with in our hearts and your love radiate through out each room. Discipline me when I become more like a pharisees in my mothering and less like you leading them to anger and away from you. Instill in my a vision, an eternal vision for my children and enable me to daily find a “chance to die” to my own will and live to yours.

JOYfully in Him,
Kelli

*quote above is taken from this article, A Mother’s Legacy.

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Lead by Emotions

As my mind and heart draw nearer to the image of Christ and seek to be further conformed  into His image, the more it becomes obvious that I have a long way to go. It has been a painful journey to be so conscious to His image and to constantly look through the lens of Christ’s character as you make daily decisions in seeking to honor Him. Something that I know the Spirit is having me examine with in myself as I search to only find myself in Him is that of my interaction with in relationships. I have been learning so much about myself and the routines I have formed over the years of responding to situations and people. Rationally, removed from the situation I am able to be sobered minded but within the situation I become very drunken by my emotionally minded reactions. 

I have realized that I am very emotionally responsive. I allow my emotions to lead me in my decisions and thought process. I allow them to overcome my mind and heart and overtake me, and I no longer can see clearly through Christ tinted shades.  And as I have been just examing Jesus and looking to His example I asked myself “Did Jesus respond emotionally as well” and my initial response was, yes. But as I examined Him I found the opposite, He was very emotional in His responses but there is also a very distiguishing  difference in the way Jesus responded emotionally and the way I respond emotionally. Jesus was always led by love, self sacraficing love,  a love that is beyond understanding and mine is almost consistently always: self imposed. Jesus was always very conscious of His Father’s will and I on the other hand am more likely to be more biasly conscious of my own self imposed will. I find it very hard to find my way out of my emotional battle within a realtional situation and usually only finally climb out of it through repentence.

Looking to Jesus has been enabling for me in finding my way out. I believe that my many years of fleshly reign has made it nearly impossible to overcome the emotions that consume me in those moments but I know that as I come closer in understanding Jesus and submitting to His will and His Spirit, the emotions will become less and less consuming until more often than not I am able to lead them in the Love of Christ instead of allowing them to lead me into sin away from Christ.

John understood what we all need to understand “He must increase, but I must decrease.” (3:30) He must increase, but I must decrease. What does that look like for me, well right now I have 2 main areas in which He must increase and I must decrease….

Forgiving  before repentence…
Loving before emotion…

I have been a follower of Christ for about 6 years and I feal like just now I am just getting to know Him…

But that is not the way you learned Christ! assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. Ephesians 4:20-24

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