Joy to the World Posted on December 24th, 2011
May you and your family rejoice in the Lord. And may His steadfast love be ever a reminder of His great mercy.
Joy to the world! the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare him room,
And heav’n and nature sing.
Joy to the earth! the Savior reigns!
Let men their songs employ,
While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains,
Repeat the sounding joy.
No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make his blessings flow
Far as the curse is found.
He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of his righteousness,
And wonders of his love.
-Isaac Watts
True Christian Motherhood Ebook Winner Posted on November 15th, 2011
The winner of June Fuentes’ wonderful new book is Kaylee from A Day in the Life: Missionary Wife.
Congratulations Kaylee!
For everyone else, you can still buy June’s book at TrueChristianMotherhood.com.
I highly recommend it!
True Christian Motherhood Ebook Give-Away Posted on November 7th, 2011
Several years ago when I first started looking for encouraging “Titus-2-type” blogs, I came across June Fuentes’ A Wise Woman Builds Her Home. It was such a breath of fresh air to read her posts about beautiful femininity, the blessing of children, being a godly wife and building a godly home. June’s writing has continued to bless me as her writing illustrates a hopeful picture of family life.
Over a year ago our family was blessed to meet the Fuentes family and spend some sweet time of fellowship together. Meeting June and seeing her interact with her family made everything that she had written that much sweeter. I could see the wisdom that the Lord had given her being fleshed out.
What a treat to now offer to one my readers June’s new eBook called True Christian Motherhood.
This ebook is a heartening work that will inspire you to follow the Lord, build your home on His truths, help you to develop a vision for beautiful womanhood, and how that will effect the culture of your home.
There are so many chapters that I thought, “Oh, this is my favorite chapter” and then I would read another chapter and think the same thing. So needless to say, I found the entire book a true joy. This book is timeless in it’s exhortation and would make a great gift for a new wife or mother, a wonderful guide to mentor another woman with, or to use as a bible study.
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Winner will be announced on Tuesday, November 15.
Choose the Better Things, Part 2 Posted on October 25th, 2011
Illustration Courtesy of BreezyTulip’s Studio
We have been given our assignment: the wise woman is to build her home (Proverbs 14:1a).
As I mentioned in Part One, this means “nurturing and training our family. Building relationships that will endure and thrive in this chaotic world. Making the Lord Jesus Christ the center of your home.” But how does that look in the day-to-day life?
Well, since each of us are in different stages of life with varying ages and numbers of children it will look different in each home – but the principles in God’s word can be put into action in each of our homes.
Put Jesus Christ at the center of your life and everything you do. If you belong to Christ, you are not your own. Die to selfishness and live for Jesus Christ! This isn’t something that you do once and then have mastered. It is a daily decision, hourly and yes, at times, second by second. Selfishness tears down your house. Dying to yourself builds your home.
Titus 2:2-3 and Ephesians 5:33 talk about us respecting our husbands and showing Christ’s unconditional love. We need to work on this daily. Ladies, if you are having a hard time respecting/loving your husbands then you need to be praying for God’s help and asking Him to not only help you respect/love your husband more, but to reveal to you your character flaws so that you can begin dealing with them. Usually when we are having a hard time respecting/loving our husbands, our own attitudes are pretty rotten and we are not very lovable.
Then decide to respect/love your husband! Put it into action! Your children are watching you and taking notes on how to put that in practice in their own families one day. That should be enough of a motivation right there to get you headed on the right track. You are building your home every time you choose to honor your husband instead of getting frustrated.
Love those children that God has blessed you with. Spend time with your children. Speak words of life to them with kindness (Proverbs 15:1-2, 31:26). Talk to them about life, read great books to them, train them how to work and to be diligent. Not only what you say, but how you say it will reveal your heart attitude toward God and your children. These times of talking with your children can become wonderful times of growth for your children and yourself. With your husband, discipline your children biblically so that they understand right and wrong and what it means to respect authority.
If you find that your children are driving you crazy, then you really need to look at how you are disciplining them. Are you being consistent and teaching them to have a servant’s heart? Again, you need to model a servant’s heart toward every member of your family so that they will see it lived out and want to copy you. Well, they will copy you rather you are doing a good job or not. Again, great motivation!
Let your family see you being joyfully submissive and content. Be quick to ask forgiveness when you fail, and be quick to offer forgiveness when others sin against you.
Putting all these things into practice takes time and diligence. It is not a quick fix. It is a life-style founded on the Scriptures. It is a healthy dose of both stabilizing law and sanctifying love. It is the way to building up your home. It is being a wise woman.
“But the Lord answered and said to her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things; But only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.’” —Luke 10:41-42 (NASB)
This was originally posted at Raising Homemakers.
Choose the Better Things, Part 1 Posted on October 18th, 2011
Illustration Courtesy of BreezyTulip’s Studio
Thinking about homemaking brings to my mind many different ideas, but the main thing that stands out is the need for us mothers & wives to build our homes. The kind of building that you don’t see immediately with the eyes, but the kind that you understand with your heart.
Our homes do require a lot of work on our part to keep them running orderly and to be a healthy and thriving place to live, but let us not get so caught up in the workings of the home that we forget or neglect the better things. (Luke 10:40-42)
What are the better things? Nurturing and training our family. Building relationships that will endure and thrive in this chaotic world. Making the Lord Jesus Christ the center of your home.
We need to be building strong families that will serve the Lord and do the kingdom work that He has called each of us to do. As wives and mothers we have been given our assignment. You may want to run or hide from it like Jonah, but don’t—your family needs you.
If you are struggling in this area ask God to give you the desire and contentment that you need to see your job through to the end.
It will be well worth the eternal results.
Practical tips coming in part 2!
This post was originally posted at Raising Homemakers.
Always influencing Posted on October 13th, 2011
“Every woman, whether rich or poor, married or single, has a circle of influence within which, according to her character, she is exerting a certain amount of power for good or harm. Every woman by her virtue or her vice, by her wisdom or her folly, by her dignity or her levity is adding something to our national elevation or degradation.”
- John Angell James
Do Not Grow Weary Posted on September 15th, 2011
Today on Doug’s Blog there is a very disturbing video exposing Pat Robertson advising a man to divorce his wife because she has Alzheimer’s. Basically, he says that since she is not worth anything to him now, he can dispose of her to the care of someone else and move on with his life.
There are always going to be those who give wicked advice and who point you in the wrong direction. Pray for wisdom and discernment everyday so that you will not be swayed or influenced by them.
At the bottom of the same post there is a second video of a man who has chosen another path with a wife who has Alzheimer’s.
Watch these videos and let your heart be encouraged. While the wicked seem to have a voice, there is still the love of Christ abounding in hearts. Hearts of husbands who would lay down their lives for their wives.
This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. John 15:12-13
And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. Gal. 6:9
*the above photo was taken by my daughter, Emily Rose, at our friends’ wedding. May the Lord bless them as they lay down their lives for one another!
Growing in Wisdom: Food + Give-Away Posted on September 5th, 2011
One of the areas that I have needed to grow in wisdom has been our diet. For most of our lives our family has eaten a typical Standard American Diet. When we saw our parents’ health decline several years ago, we made a few changes, mainly by making our own whole-wheat bread from freshly ground wheat berries. Oh, that was so good and satisfying!
Then about a year and a half ago something came along and rocked our world……………….read the rest over at Raising Homemakers and enter to win one of my favorite books, Health for Godly Generations by Renée DeGroot