Sacrifice

I started reading this book called, "The Mission of Motherhood" by Sally Clarkson.

It has transformed my outlook on being a mom.

We mothers have the opportunity to influence eternity by building a spiritual legacy in the lives of our children!

Yes!

As we tenderly care for our children, meeting their needs, teaching them and guiding them, praying for them and modeling our faith, we are also anchoring their hearts to our home, our values, and our beliefs.

Instead of seeing fusses and messes as irritations in my day, for instance, I am more likely to see them as opportunties to train my children to be peacemakers and to learn to be responsible for their own messes.

Instead of resenting the interuption in my schedule, I am more likely to accept them as divine appointments. More and more, I have learned to see my children through the eyes of God and to accept the stages of growth through which he has desgined them to grow.

I've learned that when I serve my family even when I am doing the most mundane of things (like laundry, dishes, making beds...something we do over and over and over again) I am serving God. I am being what he created me to be.
He created me to create life, to nuture, love & protect but also to raise them up to love him and to share his love.

I see this now.
And it's not about being a perfect mom, because we just can't be. But it's taking those imperfect moments and building something beautiful.

It's the way you respond to your children in everyday moments that gives you the best chance at winning their hearts. If I have integrity and patience in the small moments of life that are so important to my children, and if I approach them with a servants heart then I have a far better chance of influencing them in the larger and more critical issues of life.

"Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord and you are right, for so I am. If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one anothers feet. For I gave you an example that you also should do as I did to you." (John 13:4-5)

I literally can feel a change in my soul.