The Power of a Positive Mom - Week 5

Life has again gotten in the way of me maintaining my blog.  I am again going to try to get back on track to blog at least once a week.

I'm still working on the "From Grumbling to Gratitude".  That's a big challenge for me.  If anyone would be willing to pray for me, and with me, in this area of my life, I would greatly appreciate it.

Here is the Week 5 entry...

"The Beauty of God's Love"

Key Scripture:  Deuteronomy 7:7-9

The LORD did not choose you and lavish his love on you because you were larger or greater than other nations, for you were the smallest of all nations!  It was simply because the LORD loves you, and because he was keeping the oath he had sworn to your ancestors.  That is why the LORD rescued you with such amazing power from your slavery under Pharaoh in Egypt.  Understand, therefore, that the LORD your God is indeed God.  He is the faithful God who keeps his covenant for a thousand generations and constantly loves those who love him and obey his commands.

Journal Prompts:

1.  My Thoughts:  Do I live my daily life with the constant awareness that God deeply loves me?

No, I don't.  I struggle every day with self-esteem issues.  I often feel like I'm not good enough to do what needs to be done in the different roles I play:  wife, mom, daughter, educator, cook, housekeeper, etc.

2.  My Choices:

• This week I will choose to relish and reflect on God's great love toward me.
• This week I will choose to show God's love to others in my words and actions.
• This week I will choose to help my children understand the beauty of God's love.
• This week I will choose to:

I will spend the rest of this week seeking out Scriptures that remind me of God's great love toward me and try to memorize some of those Scriptures to pull out when I am feeling low.  My prayer is that in learning more about God's love for me, I will be able to express God's love to others and help my children understand the beauty of God's love.

For Further Reading:  Deuteronomy 6-7.

The Power of a Positive Mom - Week 4

From Grumbling to Gratitude

Key Scripture:  Numbers 14:26-30

Then the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, "How long will this wicked nation complain about me?  I have heard everything the Israelites have been saying.  Now tell them this,'As surely as I live, I will do to you the very things I heard you say.  I, the LORD, have spoken!  You will all die here in this wilderness!  Because you complained against me, none of you who are twenty years old or older and were counted in the census will enter the land I swore to give you.  The only exceptions will be Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.'"t

Journal Prompts:

1.  My Thoughts:  In what areas do I need to change my grumbling into gratitude?

I need to stop grumbling about money.  God has always provided just enough for our needs to be met.  We don't have a lot of extras, but God makes it possible for us to live comfortably. I also need to stop grumbling so much about my daughters' behavior and fighting.  God blessed us with 2 children.  I need to be grateful for them and help them to see God's blessings, which includes their sister.

2.  My Choices:

• This week I will choose to take my eyes off what is wrong in my life and look at what is right.
• This week I will choose to replace my grumbling with gratitude.
• This week I will choose to encourage my kids to see God's blessings all around us.
• This week I will choose to:

I'm going to try to do all three of these things.  I need to do them all.

For Further Reading:  Numbers 14

The Power of a Positive Mom - Week 3

The Grace Challenge

Key Scripture:  Leviticus 19:16-18

"Do not spread slanderous gossip among your people.  Do not try to get ahead at the cost of your neighbor's life, for I am the LORD.  Do not nurse hatred in your heart for any of your relatives.  Confront your neighbors directly so you will not be held guilty for their crimes.  Never seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone, but love your neighbor as yourself.  I am the LORD."


Journal Prompts
1. My Thoughts - In what ways do I need to show God's grace toward others in my life?
This week I am having a rough time with being Mom to my oldest.  I need to remind myself that she is young and will make some poor choices.  I am much older and make some poor choices as well.  I need to forgive her just as Jesus has forgiven me.  I also need to help her ask for forgiveness for the choices she made.

2.  My Choices

• This week I will choose to focus on God's great love and grace toward me.
• This week I will choose to show grace toward others.
• This week I will choose to ask God's help in guarding my heart and mind.
• This week I will choose to...

This week I will work at showing grace toward others.

For Further Reading:  Ephesians 4:28-32

The Power of a Positive Mom - Week 2

"I Will Help You"

Key Scripture:  Exodus 4:10-12

But Moses pleaded with the Lord, "O Lord, I'm just not a good speaker.  I never have been, and I'm not now, even after you have spoken to me.  I'm clumsy with words."

     "Who makes mouths?"  The Lord asked him.  "Who makes people so they can speak or not speak, hear or not hear, see or not see?  Is it not I, the Lord?  Now go, and do as I have told you.  I will help you speak well, and I will tell you what to say."

Journal Prompts

1.  My Thoughts - Do I trust God to be my strength in my weaknesses?  What "I can'ts" do I need to give over to him?

My most recent "I can't" is that "I can't stand it when my girls fight with each other or whine."  I teach school all day, so the last thing I want when I get home is to listen to the two of them fighting.  I need to give it over to God and maybe send each of us, both girls and myself, to our rooms for a little bit when we get home to just relax a bit and unwind from the day.  

2.  My Choices

• This week I will choose to focus on what God can do, not what I can't do.
• This week I will choose to seek God's leadership and guidance.
• This week I will choose to ask him for help in all the tasks I undertake.
• This week I will choose to:

This week, I will ask God for help with being Mom, being a wife, teaching music, practicing music for praise team, laundry, cleaning, cooking, running.

For further reading:  Exodus 3-4

The Power of a Positive Mom - Week 1

Created in His Image

Key Scripture:  Genesis 1:27-31

So God created people in his own image; God patterned them after himself; male and female he created them.  God blessed them and told them, "Multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.  Be masters over the fish and birds and all the animals."  And God said, "Look!  I have given you the seed-bearing plants throughout the earth and all the fruit trees for your food.  And I have given all the grasses and other green plants to the animals and birds for their food."  And so it was.  Then God looked over all that he had made, and he saw that it was excellent in every way.

Journal Prompts

1.  My Thoughts - "In what ways do I see myself as a unique and special creation of God?"

     God has given me a passion for music.  I have been playing piano for over 30 years.  When I began piano lessons, my goal was to play at church.  Whenever I thought I wanted to quit lessons, my parents asked me if I was good enough to play at church.  I said no, so I continued.  For the past 15+ years, I have played piano and sung on one of our church's worship teams.  I also lead hymns on a rotational basis.  Often when I read the Bible, I have at least one praise song or hymn go through my head because I have spent so much of my life experiencing God through music.  I also am a professional music teacher in a public school, as well as a private piano lesson instructor.

     God has also created me to be a dedicated and devoted person who is emotionally connected to others. Sometimes I do not appreciate my emotions because they are difficult for me to control.  I get intensely emotional when I am frustrated.  I am working on this to believe that I my emotional response to situations is one of the ways that God created me to be unique and special.

2.  My Choices -

• This week I will choose to rejoice in the fact that I am created in God's image.
• This week I will choose to encourage my children to know that they are made by God in an excellent way.
• This week I will choose to enjoy every person who crosses my path as a unique creation of God.
• This week I will choose to:

     When my children get frustrated with school work, I will choose to tell them that God created them in an excellent way.  God does not make mistakes, so we need to appreciate how God created each of us.  If we are not satisfied, then we can work to make improvements.

If you would like to read more on this topic, read Genesis 1-3.  Have a great week.  I look forward to continuing our journey next week.

The Power of a Positive Mom - Introduction

Starting today, I am embarking on a journey for the next year.  I am going to be reading Karol Ladd's book "The Power of a Positive Mom:  Devotional and Journal".  It is a series of 52 Monday Morning Motivations.  Yes, I realize that today is Wednesday, but we had an unexpected day off of school, so I'm going to start today.

Once a week, hopefully on Mondays, I will blog the scriptures that Karol uses for her Monday Morning Motivations.  I will also list the journal prompts that she uses so we can be thinking together about how to be more positive moms for our kids.

I invite you to read, reflect, and grow with me in the next year.  I also invite you to share your progress on this journey.

Thanks for joining me.  Please recommend my blog to any mom that you think would enjoy this journey as well.

Godly Living, Parenting

"Now a man of the house of Levi married a Levite woman, and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son.  When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months.  But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch.  Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile.  His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him."  ~ Exodus 2:1-4

Jochebed

by Eugenia Price

     Jochebed's name is only mentioned twice in the entire Bible (Exodus 6:20; Numbers 26:59), but thirty-three hundred years after her death, she is still remembered as one of the great mothers of all history.

     A mother can do nothing higher than instill her own wisdom and faith and character into her children.  In Moses, in Aaron, and in her daughter, Miriam, Jochebed did just this.  A truly creative mother must be an authentic teacher.  Jochebed had taught Miriam well.  The seven-year-old Hebrew slave child conducted herself with amazing maturity and poise before Pharaoh's daughter.

     It seems to me that no one should be surprised at Moses, Aaron, and Miriam--all three outstanding human beings.  Look at their mother!  And the more we study Jochebed, the more evident it becomes that mothers mark their children one way or another.  [Jochebed] made full, creative use of her imagination, as well as her practical mind, when she did not stop with merely frantic prayers to the Lord God to save her baby, Moses.  She was poised even in the face of potential tragedy; she was able to quiet her inner turmoil and think clearly.  The plan she devised was clever, highly imaginative--and she worked with her hands to bring it to a successful ending.  Jochebed was an authentic woman of God, balanced, mature, self-controlled.  Her emotions ran deep, but she was not a victim of those emotions.  God was her Master, therefore she was a master of herself....

    [Jochebed's] life was lived to the hilt--not sensationally, but it's good effects reach us today, teaching us that a woman under God's control is a woman living her life to its highest and fullest.

Taken from Women's Devotional Bible 2, NIV

Proverbs 22:6 - Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.

Proverbs 31:25-31 - She is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come.  She speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue.  She watches of the affairs of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness.  Her children arise and call her blessed, her husband also, and he praises her:  "Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all."  Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.  Give her the reward she has earned, and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.

Romans 12:21 - Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.

Dear Lord,

     I ask that you bless every mother who reads this blog post.  Help her to live her life to its highest and fullest by giving you control over her life.  Help me, as well, to give you control over my life so that I may live my life to its highest and fullest.

     Bless all mothers in our awesome task of teaching children the right paths to follow, so our children will continue to follow you.  Grant joy, patience and faith to those who may be struggling right now.

     Thank you for your guidance and control.

Amen.

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Life in the Last Four Months...

...has been very hectic.  At the time of my last blog post, I was in the midst of musical rehearsals.  The musical, Metaphasia, was performed on November 19 and 20.  The cast did great and had fun performing the show. 

At the beginning of November, I started a new position...JH cheer coach.  For a little over 3 months, I had either practice or a game every day except Sundays with 7 7th grade and 4 8th grade cheerleaders.  We finished our game schedule on February 4, but spent the next 2 weeks assisting the JV and Varsity cheerleaders run a Mini Cheer camp for students in preschool through 6th grade.  The 87 or so Mini Cheerleaders, including our youngest daughter Maddy, performed at the basketball game on Friday night.

My oldest daughter Shauna was on the 4th grade basketball team.  Her games started the same time that the JH basketball games began, so I did not get to watch her play as much as I wanted to.  Her team lost it's first tournament game yesterday, so she is finished with basketball now.

I will be offering some after school programs in the next few weeks as part of our school's 21st Century grant. 

In March, I have 1 piano student who is going to begin lessons.  I am hoping to have about 10 or so students as we just replaced our 12 year old van and now have a car payment again.  I have 10 students, that should cover the car payment and allow a little extra.

In the last 4 months, I have also neglected my business, Miehls Healthy Life Source.  I still use the safer, better, more natural products, but I have not added any more customers.  I am hoping to get the business going again.

Have a great day.  Thanks for following.