Ministry of Motherhood by Sally Clarkson has been a wonderful read and a bit of an uncomfortable read all rolled into one. Right off the bat, the gift of grace is tackled and sadly this is one of the areas that I really struggle most {personally} with in our family.

In chapter four, Sally talks about encouraging words and the power of words and our tongue:

“From the same mouth come both blessing and cursing.”

James 3:10

…we must be careful not to discourage {our children} through nagging, criticism, and reprimands. Even more important, we must balance our correction with words of encouragement and affirmation, words that our precious little ones will treasure in their hearts throughout their whole lives.”

p. 45 Ministry of Motherhood 

 

I may not literally curse our children, but more often than not the words that I use {or the tone of my voice, etc…} are not encouraging, uplifting or affirming to them. Definitely not something that they will treasure for years to come.

I’m just sayin’.

So today, I’m going to take more deep breaths. Think before I speak {or yell} and do all that I can to encourage the four little hearts put in front of me, remembering that I have been extended an immense amount of grace from my heavenly Father…and He will pour out through me when I rely on Him.

During the month of May I’m reading along and participating in the 31 Days to Clean Challenge hosted by Joyful Mothering. As I was reading Day 12 in 31 Days to Clean about imperfection, this quote from the book really has stuck with me today:

“Striving for excellence motivates you; striving for perfection is demoralizing.”

~ Harriet Braiker

There are so many different ‘sticks’ that I can try to measure myself up against {and I’m guessing that some of you feel the same way}. There is a BIG difference though in striving for excellence in the things that I do and striving for perfection.

Striving for perfection is guaranteed to frustrate me and cause me to feel that I am of little worth. When I do that, I’m putting a burden on myself that I will NEVER be able to carry!

Striving for excellence is still challenging, but a much more manageable goal. I desire to be more excellent in all things ~ my marriage, my parenting, the care of my home, the education of my children and so much more. I will never be perfect in the things that I do, but I can work toward doing things to glorify God.

And glorifying God is something that I do want to strive toward!

If you haven’t downloaded either the pdf file of 31 Days to Clean or have it on your Kindle, it’s a great look at balancing the Mary/Martha in each of us in relation to our homes. Each of the 31 Days focuses on the vision for caring for our homes and then gives two daily challenges:

• a Mary Challenge ~ something that encourages and engages your heart
• a Martha Challenge ~ specific cleaning task for the day

Over the last two months, I’ve been spending time most mornings reading from Sally Clarkson’s book Seasons of a Mother’s Heart. It has truly been a most encouraging book for me on so many different levels, challenging me in ways and providing ‘lightbulb’ moments in others.

There are so many times that I am asked the ‘why’ behind our homeschooling. While there may be different things that trigger responses at different times, when reading the last chapter in Seasons of a Mother’s Heart, this passage brought tears to my eyes and made me pull out my underline because it IS MY heart {verb tense changes and emphasis mine}…

“I {know} deep in my heart that God designed me, as a mother, to be at home with my children. To even think of settling for something else would be to step out of His will. No matter how difficult the homeschooling lifestyle might become, my commitment {is} to do God’s will, not my own. Even though I could selfishly choose an ‘easier’ lifestyle, I would have to disobey God to do so. I know in my heart that God has called me to homeschool…”

Sally Clarkson, Seasons of a Mother’s Heart, p. 224

Sometimes it’s so difficult to put the above into words, although Sally did it so eloquently.

Deep in my heart I know.

Seasons of a Mother’s Heart by Sally Clarkson has been such a wonderful encouragement to me lately. Here’s a little something that gave me a bit of conviction and encouragement all rolled into one.

“…accept and affirm the unique personality that God has given {your child"}. Believe it or not, God did not give your child that personality just to help you grow! He gave it because He has a purpose for that child to fulfill, and He needs your child’s personality strengths. God did not make a mistake in giving you your child his or her personality, so don’t make the mistake of being critical of it. Learn to appreciate God’s handiwork in each of your children.”

~ Seasons of a Mother’s Heart, p. 138-139 {emphasis mine}

Lord, help me to appreciate the amazing gift that you have given me in my children and how to best cultivate their individual personalities and not curb them to my own desires!!

I’ve been reading Sally Clarkson’s book Seasons of a Mother’s Heart and the chapter on building our house {Proverbs 14:1} and there was a passage in it that just jumped out at me…

“Sometimes…I have made the building process more costly than God ever intended it to be. Like other homeschooling mothers who live under the fear of not doing enough, I expected more of myself than God did. Consequently, I set unrealistic goals and higher standards for my children than God required. It shouldn’t be surprising then that I burned out trying to pay the cost God never required. I burned out, not because God was asking more of me than I could do, but because I was asking more of me than I could do. As a wiser woman now, I know that God’s goal for me is that I build a good house, not the best one. After all, if I become spiritually exhausted because I try to build more than God expects of me, then I soon won’t be building at all.”

Sally Clarkson, Seasons of a Mother’s Heart, p. 89