I found a quote that glorifies motherhood and debated whether it is self-glorifying. I decided it praises the office of motherhood, not any particular person, and is beneficial to consider, I think, so here it is.
I’ll be speaking at a home schooling convention this weekend and must finish my PowerPoint slides, iron, and who knows what else, these next three days, so you’ll excuse me if I’m absent, I know. I’ll likely have time to reply, but not to post. If you get too bored, do not forget to slip over to the new site: TheConqueringMom.com, and leave a comment or suggestion! Thanks!
“A mother…by her planning and industry night and day, by her willfulness of love, by her fidelity, she brings up her children. Do not read to me the campaigns of Caesar and tell me nothing about Napoleon’s wonderful exploits. For I tell you that, as God and the angels look down upon the silent history of that woman’s administration, and upon those men-building processes which went on in her heart and mind through a score of years;—nothing exterior, no outward development of kingdoms, no empire-building, can compare with what mother has done. Nothing can compare in beauty, and wonder, and admirableness, and divinity itself, to the silent work in obscure dwellings of faithful women bringing their children to honor and virtue and piety.” Henry Ward Beecher
ABC-TV has decided that it can take direct aim at Christians with what amounts to hate speech. This is the premise of its new program GCB (which stands for Good Christian B****es).
This program ridicules Christians, Christianity, the Bible, and Christian symbols in ways that would be unthinkable if aimed at any other religious group. For example, in the official Facebook page for GCB it said that “cleavage will help keep your cross straight.” Can you imagine the reaction in the Muslim community if that kind of message (complete with a highly suggestive photo) would have been made aiming at a symbol of the Islamic faith?
To read more of this, including who sponsors it and why it affects home schooling, go HERE. It’s an amazingly scary world out there, still filled with hatred but aimed in a new direction.
I recently mentioned resenting interrupted Thanksgiving Days, but today’s post begins the tale of two interrupted Thanksgivings and their attending blessings. Hope you enjoy them.
The first one was when my youngest two sons were about 8 and 6. We were about to leave for our annual “over the river and through the woods”.
Our children had laid out all their clothing according to the master list I provided years ago and stored in each suitcase. (Remember, I was a home-school mom.) Last minute details on cleaning the house before we left were panning out nicely. (I was a bit OCD about coming home to a dirty house.) (Okay, I was a bit OCD about “what if we had a wreck and someone had to come into our house . . . “)
Anyway, we were near completion on everything. The only thing remaining was supper, baths, and sleep, during which I would pack all that nicely laid-out clothing and then sleep during the trip.
I was on schedule and smiling at myself on the inside. In a carefree voice, I told my kids to go out and play, that all the biggest chores were done.
In a few moments they came back inside, the 8-year-old with his arm broken.
My husband had a late meeting that night, so it fell on me to drop all packing chores and take the poor babe to the doctor. It was so late, I called first, and our wonderful family practitioner said if I came straight there, they would stay open for me. That was blessing #1.
One x-ray told all: My son’s injury was the type of break that would require an orthopedist to finish breaking, which was a surgical procedure requiring an overnight stay in the hospital. So after a couple of calls to my husband and to our house, we traveled on to the next town and succumbed to the ministrations of ER. Once there, the inevitable questions came, about who and how this child could be so severely injured. It was a downer, but along came my husband’s close friend, who happened to be the ER physician on call that night, to vouch for me, and to give me his own phone number for “who to call in case of an emergency” when I could not remember my own mother’s phone number. Blessing #2.
(That poor ER nurse was certain I was a childbeater, but what could she say?) Blessing #3.
Anyway, our family doctor had called ahead to our preferred orthopedist, who dropped everything and came to our rescue. Literally, he arrived in the ER in a tux. When I apologized for calling him from such a special occasion, he said, “Are you kidding? I would have taken any excuse to get out of there!” I count that as blessing #4.
Sure, enough, our son had to remain in the hospital overnight, and our entire plans for Thanksgiving were canceled. Our families, 500 miles to the north, were totally disappointed, as we were, too, of course, but we all were more concerned about this little boy and his well-being. Hard to recognize blessing #5. Hey, not everyone has this kind of understanding in their families.
If you’ve read many of my posts, you know we take Thanksgiving Day quite seriously in our family. I immediately began thinking about the get-together our small Bible-study group had planned, for celebrating Thanksgiving, that we had thought we would miss because of going to be with family. I made a couple of calls and we soon had a very special celebration lined up with these other people we loved almost like family. Blessing #6.
The boys sign the cast (Photo credit: samwebster)
Our son was mending, but still woozy from pain killers, and even then, still in some pain, but we all went to celebrate with these friends in one of their homes. They took us in like the orphans we felt we were. All their children treated our injured son to amazing understanding and rare privileges children reserve only for those times when life pleads that we be kind. (Blessing #7)
We were glad to be there, to be thankful for blessings we knew of, never realizing that God was busy, preparing other blessings not so obvious, indeed, of which we could never have even dreamed . . .
Everyone who comes to God must believe these two things:
That He exists
That He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
This is truth, according to His Word, which is what we must accept if we accept that He is there to deny, to hate, to dispute, to blame, to doubt, to question, to quote, to copy, to seek, to find, or to acknowledge.
Another truth: all God-haters must admit He exists or their whole life-work has been wasted, right? Same for blamers, questioners, etc. They just miss, entirely, the BENEFITS of His existence, because they do not, also, believe that He rewards, and would joyfully reward THEM.
But He does. He would.
So, it is mandatory to reward our children; we must raise them up in the discipline of the Lord. Reward is one way He disciplines us.
“What?!” you say. “I thought discipline meant things like time-out or skipping dessert!”
While unpleasant consequences are, indeed, a valid part of discipline, God’s Word also shows us that He adds rewards to His method of discipline, which He has commanded us to use.
Why do we fear rewards? I have heard parents say, “I refuse to bribe my children to do right.”
Again, we show our ignorance, because, according to the Word of Him Who requires we do right, bribery—rewarding to do WRONG—is wrong, and rewarding to do right is right.
God’s discipline also includes praise. Consider this: “Well done, thou good and faithful servant . . . ” Or: “This is My Beloved Son, in Whom I AM well pleased . . . “ We cannot deny that He does praise us, also.
So we should praise our own. This is truth.
There is one facet of all this truth that escapes notice, though.
Humility.
His Word says, “Humble yourself, therefore, under the mighty hand of God and He will exalt you in due time.”
His Word says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
As one of His most famous followers said, “He must increase; I must decrease,” and “I am not worthy even to untie His shoe . . .”
We sometimes hear someone who has received great praise saying something like, “Oh, you are setting me up for a fall!” referring to the Scripture that reads, “Pride goeth before a fall . . . “
Still we should praise and reward good jobs, wherever we see them, and especially in our children’s lives. Missing this facet of childhood has caused many adults to grow up warped, never praised, never rewarded, and also never pitied and probably never sent to the corner or switched when they needed that. Undisciplined, they grow up with no self-discipline and probably no healthy concept of God, either, since we learn those from our parents.
Many adults fail to praise or reward other adults, though, and a job well done can make a hurting person jealous. People raised wrong envy beauty, industry, discipline, etc., and often grow snarky instead of praising. We just have to forgive them.
However, it is God, not people, Who watches our ways to give us joy. Humans will praise and reward us, if that is God’s chosen pathway for our praise and rewards to come, but only in due time. He may, though, choose to use His audible voice, instead! Or, our rewards may mostly come in the next life.
But we don’t care. It is a joy to wait upon the Lord. So we patiently seek out His will and try hard to do right, for the joy of pleasing Him, and we humbly wait for that due time, when He will, most assuredly, reward us. Because He IS a rewarder.
And for the snarky-jealous? Maybe we should find some way to give them a bit of the praise they never got during childhood?
How many children would you guess are homeschooling in the US, today?
Two Million.
Two Million.
That’s one in every 25 kids of school age.
What this means is that in every classroom that holds 25 children, one is missing. And it’s because of homeschool.
The schools don’t like us home educators very much because of it.
They feel they are losing too much money because of it.
But they forget two things.
They forget we don’t get that money. Their argument is with their own bought-and-paid-for legislators, not with us, if anything is amiss or missing in public education.
They forget abortion.
Abortion has killed far beyond 55,000,000 since Roe vs. Wade.
That is more than EVERY child in EVERY classroom currently in America.
Missing.
Dead.
We’ve killed that many.
Look around you.
Every child ages 5 – 18 has at least one counterpart who is missing. because he or she was aborted.
They could have doubled their money, had they thought about it.
I look out my window and see dead trees, grass that’s brown and crunchy like Wheaties, cat dish always needing water . . . with all the heat we’ve had, isn’t it hilarious to read these old posts! Enjoy!
DAY OFF #2
Repairmen of streets, wires, and buildings will get our roads safe and everyone back in their places eventually.
In the meantime, we play in the snow.
The day begins with Dad shoveling snow and bleary-eyed offspring wandering into the kitchen to ask, “What is that noise?” We so seldom have the pleasure.
Now our snowman stands watch. Our cars are decorated with snow objects. Lots of hot cocoa has slipped away. I enjoyed the crazy antics of our two home-bound adult kids, playing in the snow as if they were grade-schoolers. How thankful I am for the snow! Realizing they can still find joy in each other’s company is bliss to this mom.
ALSO (here comes the fun part) THEY CAN PUT ON AND REMOVE THEIR OWN WRAPS!
THEY CAN HEAT THEIR OWN WATER AND STIR UP THEIR OWN HOT COCOA!
THEY CAN HANG ALL THEIR WET THINGS TO DRY!
THEY REMEMBER TO SHUT THE DOOR!
THEY THINK ABOUT NOT TRACKING THE HOUSE WITH SNOW AND MUD!
I get all the same fun as when they were younger, with none of the work.
Another amazing thing: No one grumbles today that the Internet is “down-ish”. We all have decided to do traditional snow-day fun and forget about the rest of the world. I love it. Board games, non-electric musical instruments, laundry hanging on wooden racks by the wood stove, homemade food, and wild birds have risen to the top of our most-selected interests list and everyone is content.
And I wonder: How is it in other homes? I hope you and yours enjoy a great day, today. I pray God grant you peace and contentment.
What this means is that in every classroom that holds 25 children, one is missing. And it’s because of homeschool.
Home's Cool! 