Quiet Time for Moms

Image courtesy of David Castillo Dominici at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I'm sure a few of you saw the title of this post and just groaned. Maybe you even tossed in an eye roll for good measure. I can relate. Here I am a mom in my early 40s and I still struggle with being consistent in my quiet time with the Lord. Yes, I know how important it is. Yes, I know I should do it first thing in the morning before the rest of the day gets away from me. I certainly know it's the most important thing I can do each every day. And I always seem to make time for all my other tasks each day.

But let's be honest. It's hard to get in the routine. So I'm not going to sit here and tell you all the things you should be doing. I simply want to encourage you to find a way that works best for you. 

Oftentimes as a young mom I would hear people say to get up before your children. That way you could have your quiet time when the little ones weren't being loud and vying for attention. However, if like me you are so not a morning person but birthed a child who is a morning person, you know how difficult that can be. I would have had to be up at about four in the morning in order to beat my middle son out of bed each and every day. He arrived in the world that way and at age 13, he's still the first one out of bed every morning. As a sleep deprived young mom of three active boys, there was no way I could have been up that early every day and been able to function adequately.

I remember trying one time to get up before my early bird child. I thought if I could get up around 6am, I would have time to exercise and do my quiet time before 7am. My middle kiddo was about 4 or 5 at the time. I placed a Thomas sticker on his clock on the number seven and told him that when the little hand reached that number, he could get up in the morning. 

The very next day around 6:30am I heard loud wailing coming from his bedroom which he happened to share with his two year old brother who was also now awake. The problem? "Mom, the hands are never going to get to Thomas!!" <sigh> So I understand the difficulty, ladies, I really do.

So here are some practical tips that you may find helpful.

• Use naptime to your advantage. Yes, it's very tempting to clean the house or chill on the computer during that time, but take a few minutes and give those to the Lord first. If your children have outgrown naps, I recommend implementing a quiet time for them as well. Have them in their rooms looking at books or playing quietly on their beds. Remember, children model what they see. Make sure they have a picture Bible to look at and begin teaching them how to do their own quiet time. 
• While mornings are best, if you are a night owl like me, you may find giving the Lord some time in the evening is what works best. Just make it consistent. I would also recommend not doing an evening quiet time while laying in bed. That always ends with me snoozing!
• Find a Bible study to attend. I was very blessed when my boys were young to be able to participate in a wonderful mom Bible study. We took turns in the nursery watching the children so all the rest could enjoy some mom time and study time. Being accountable each week to others for having done my homework helped me to find the time each day to complete it. 
• Mothers of Preschoolers or MOPS is a fantastic support group for moms of young ones. There is typically a book that is read and discussed each year. There is typically a nursery and MOPPETS for the children to participate in as well. I was active in my MOPS group for a few years when my youngest was small and I have some very found memories of that time and made some lasting friends as well.
• Proverbs31 Ministries leads online an Bible study if the thought of getting out of the house with lots of little ones is daunting. In fact, their next study starts on this Monday, September 22nd. They will be going through Lysa TerKeurst's new book, The Best Yes. 
• Include your children in your study. Read out loud from the Bible while you have lunch and then discuss what you just read. Do you have very young ones? Read a picture Bible and then talk with them about what you just read.

There is no right way to do a quiet time. The most important thing to remember is to make the time to just do it. Give your best to the Lord first and the rest of the day should go just a bit easier.

Lisa is a wife to Bob. They just began their 21st year of marriage. She is also a mom to three boys (ironic, no?). Her oldest will soon be 18 but still has one more year at home. Her middle son is 13 and her youngest is 10. She also stays busy by homeschooling her children and watching a two-year old (a boy of course) full-time as well as other assorted children as the need arises for family and friends. She is very active in her local and state homeschooling community. She is also a very avid reader, enjoys writing, loves dancing at Zumba class, and checking Facebook a little too often. Lisa strives daily to become more Christ-like. She is reminded often of the Lord's mercy and grace and is thankful that He is so gracious to extend to her on a much needed basis. She lives in Maine on her own piece of "no-where land" with her family.

Family Ministry

My advice to you, Dear Daughter, is to choose a family ministry when your children are very small and work, serving the Lord together, at this ministry throughout their childhoods.

Ask the Lord's help in determining where He wants you to serve and bear in mind advice from those who know you about what your gifts and callings are. Then, commit the work to the Lord and follow.

You may have a heart for the homeless and make it your family's mission to provide for them. Maybe you and your husband love to work with children? Perhaps your family ministry is to run children's outreach events together.

It's important to pick something in which your children can be included. Often, churches call parents to important evening meetings, which involve leaving children behind with baby-sitters. This never seemed right to me. Such work can never be as important as your primary ministry - to your children. Families don't need to separate in order to serve God. In fact, when they work together as a team, they demonstrate God's faithfulness to them, as a family, in a unique way.

We chose music, since my husband was a musician and I had been, long ago, a singer. We invested in music for the children, paying for lessons, giving thought and time to their musical development, encouraging a love of musical worship, going to worship music training events and conferences together as a family, eventually serving together on Sunday mornings and at outreach concerts in the evening in our own band, Life-Songs.

Of course, there will be times when the children resist a little; perhaps your teens will need to express themselves in some other way, outside the family ministry. That's okay. The skills and compassion you have helped them develop will be used by God elsewhere.

It's starts like this.

 

Janna, my granddaughter, with her instruments, joining in a family music session.

 and it progresses to something like this...

Team Stewart leading worship on a Sunday morning.

You will be blessed by serving together, Dear Daughter!

Laying a good foundation

In Matthew we are told to build our house on a rock so that when the storms come we have a good foundation. Proverbs teaches us to train up our children in the way they should go so when they are old they will not depart from it. An important part of raising our children is to help them lay that strong foundation, train them to know, love and serve the Lord Jesus at an early age so that when they are older and on their own they have that strong foundation already built and can lean on it. There are no guarantees in this life. God has no grandchildren. And there are no magic formulas. But with out good faith education as a child, it is harder for our children to navigate through the stormy times of living in this world. Our children have a better chance of accepting Christ and loving and serving Him if they are introduced to Him at an early age.

We have used many different methods to give our children this good foundation, church, family Bible Studies, Biblically centered curriculum, etc. It is good to model and live this faith at home. It's also good for them to have positive role models outside the home.

One tool we have used to help us build this foundation in our children is Awana Clubs. Our children started when they were 3 years old, learning simple truths and scripture and now as teens they are digging deeper and serving right along side the adults, training up the younger kids. Awana is an international organization whose goal is to train children to know, love and serve Jesus. They model their age 2-18 clubs on the life of Joseph and teach children the principles of respect, wisdom, and grace. At the youth age, their focus is on teaching the young people that their destiny is in following the call and will of God  and to trust God's sovereignty in all things. They make club nights fun and exciting to come to so that it draws kids in, but scripture memory and service are also very key.

Awana may not be for every family. But for ours it has been a huge blessing. My kids have grown up, since they were very little, learning and loving the Word, getting good strong Biblical teaching, learning to serve and having a lot of fun and meeting kids who are being raised with the same principles. My children love to serve and I enjoy getting to serve with them each week. They enjoy working with the younger clubbers and they have a lot of fun with their friends. I love that they have a place that they look forward to going to that is a positive place with good friends. I pray that this foundation will last through out their lives and help them to grow into strong adults ready to weather any storm.

Awana also has many resources to help families to train their children at home, including books, games and Awana at Home curriculum. Just last year they even started offering their materials through Awana Homeschool so that families can do the same books that church clubs offer in their homeschools.

If you are interested in learning more about Awana, visit Awana.org

My kids with their Grand Prix cars. 

Alex as a Student Leader
with one of her Cubbies.

Awards night. Awards won for all their hard work learning the Word. 

Alex as a Cubbie.      

Be Jesus

Image courtesy of Arvind Balaraman / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Many times as young moms we feel like we are doing all we can just to keep our own children fed and well cared for. I remember the days when I would fall in to bed and couldn’t remember a single thing I had accomplished that day. However, my children were well cared for, happy, and apparently had run me ragged – something three young boys are very good at!

One thing I wish I had learned to do better when I was a younger mom was to do all things as if doing them for the Lord. 

Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the

Lord rather than for people.

~Colossians 3:23 (NLT)

Oftentimes I would be so tired and so caught up in the day-to-day aspects of raising three little ones that I would forget to go to the one source of strength I needed on a daily, if not a minute, basis - Jesus. I understand how it feels to be so focused on simply raising our children that we forget to go to God for help.

I just finished reading the book Kisses from Katie by Katie Davis. If you’ve not heard of the book, it chronicles the journey of Katie who heads to Uganda on a three week mission trip while still a senior in high school. The country captures her heart. After graduation she goes back for what was supposed to be a year-long adventure teaching kindergarten in the village. Her class ended up with over 100 students! During that year the Lord shared what it was He had in store for her. Katie is now 26 years old and lives full-time in Uganda. She has adopted 13 orphaned girls. If that wasn’t enough, she also started an international organization called Amazima that helps women in the village earn money to help feed their families as well as helps the children by providing school supplies and funding to attend school. Those are just some of the things this amazing young women does on a daily basis. 

So why am I sharing about this book? What does this all have to do with “doing everything until the Lord?” I was struck by one very important lesson that I felt applied not only to my own life, but to the lives of everyone…

Be Jesus. Even if it’s to just one person. Build on that. That can mean so many things. I’m certainly not telling everyone reading this post that they must leave all they know and move to a Third World Country! However, Jesus calls us to help the least of these in His name.

 “But when the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit upon his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered in his presence, and he will separate the people as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will place the sheep at his right hand and the goats at his left.

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world. For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home. I was naked, and you gave me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me.’

“Then these righteous ones will reply, ‘Lord, when did we ever see you hungry and feed you? Or thirsty and give you something to drink? Or a stranger and show you hospitality? Or naked and give you clothing? When did we ever see you sick or in prison and visit you?’

“And the King will say, ‘I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!’

“Then the King will turn to those on the left and say, ‘Away with you, you cursed ones, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his demons.

~Matthew 25:31-41 (NLT)

How would helping the “least of these” look in your life? As I mentioned, I’m not suggesting you move to Uganda, but there are ways to help in your own community. Here are some suggestions and examples of things I’ve done with my children in tow. 

• Volunteer at a local food pantry or soup kitchen
• Carry “blessing bags” with you so when you see someone in need, you are ready to give them something to eat and drink
• Volunteer at your church
• Grow extra veggies and give them away
• Pass your children’s outgrown clothing on to another family who would find that a blessing
• Bake a meal for someone who has just suffered a loss or a medical incident or just because
• Practice random acts of kindness

Many of these things cost little to no extra money. For about a year, until policy changes prohibited us from helping, my boys and I drove to a food bank about an hour away and helped sort and fill the shelves. Their favorite part though was helping to fill the orders of the folks who came. Even my oldest son who was 16 at the time enjoyed this!

I typically have a “snack box” in my car for road trips. It’s saved me quite a few times! Once while in the big city (we live in the backwoods of Maine), I saw a gentleman standing with a cardboard sign while we were stopped at a red light. I admit to being pretty cynical about panhandlers and oftentimes will turn my head. However, he was slowly walking up past the line of cars and his sign caught my attention. It said, “Homeless but not hopeless!” I quickly grabbed some granola bars and a few packages of peanut butter crackers from the snack box, rolled down the window and asked him if he would like some food. He was gracious and kind and parted by saying, “God bless you!”

It doesn’t take a lot of time, but we need to model to our children how to be like Jesus. Discuss with them why you did what you did. Use it to help them see that helping the least of these is really helping Jesus.

It’s simple. Be Jesus. Show your kids how to be Jesus. Live by example.

Disclaimer: I purchased Kisses from Katie by Katie Davis with my own money. I am sharing about it because I loved the book. No other reason. 

Lisa is a wife to Bob. They just began their 21st year of marriage. She is also a mom to three boys (ironic, no?). Her oldest will soon be 18 but still has one more year at home. Her middle son is 13 and her youngest is 10. She also stays busy by homeschooling her children and watching a two-year old (a boy of course) full-time as well as other assorted children as the need arises for family and friends. She is very active in her local and state homeschooling community. She is also a very avid reader, enjoys writing, loves dancing at Zumba class, and checking Facebook a little too often. Lisa strives daily to become more Christ-like. She is reminded often of the Lord's mercy and grace and is thankful that He is so gracious to extend to her on a much needed basis. She lives in Maine on her own piece of "no-where land" with her family.

Bible-Centred Youth Ministries

 

• Instead of addressing teens’ questions, most church youth groups focus on fun and food.  The goal seems to be to create emotional attachment using loud music, silly skits, slapstick games -- and pizza.  But the force of sheer emotional experience will not equip teens to address the ideas they will encounter when they leave home and face the world on their own. A study in Britain found that non-religious parents have a near 100 percent chance of passing on their views to their children, whereas religious parents have only about a 50/50 chance of passing on their views.  Clearly, teaching young people to engage critically with secular worldviews is no longer an option.  It is a necessary survival skill. —Nancy Pearcey (from her article, How Critical Thinking Saves Faith) 

There is absolutely nothing wrong with having fun. It's something I do a lot and wish I had time to do more! It's something which characterized our parenting style from early on.

There's also nothing wrong with eating  food as part of youth group activities. In fact, there's a lot right with it! It can convey hospitality and help to break down barriers.

I don't want any of you to read this post and set up a false argument about what I am saying. I am NOT about to say that fun and food for teenagers in a youth group context is wrong. I don't think the article says that either.

I do think that with much youth 'mission', there's a serious, gaping hole at the centre, and that's good quality Bible teaching. Without that, your children stand a very good chance of shrugging off their faith, like too-tight, unfashionable clothes, when they leave home, go to university or just grow up.

When you are deciding which church, or para-church activities, such as summer camps, to encourage your children and teenagers to get involved in, look for signs of Jesus/Gospel/the Bible being right at the centre. I don't mean a 5 minute-vaguely-religious talk tacked on to the end of a hectic evening of games and caffeine-laden drinks, either.

In fact, I believe that the 9 Marks of a Healthy Church needs to also apply to a healthy youth ministry. You may not be able to have all 9 elements present at every event, but as many as possible and always, always, always the Gospel of Jesus. This is a great tool for measuring the healthiness, by which I mean effectiveness, of any child or youth ministry.

Hey, there's nothing wrong with going bowling, eating pizza or hanging out, Dear Daughter! Let your children have fun while learning about their faith.

 

But it won't help your child to develop their faith, if everyone forgets why they are bowling in the first place.
Mimi is a wife to Jamie, mother to two grown up children, a mother-in-law and a grandmother to a darling little grand-daughter. She home-educated her children and now teaches exam subjects to groups of home-educated children. She's a Worship Leader in her church and has a passion for helping women raise children to adulthood with a strong faith in the Lord Jesus.

Learning to Study the Bible

One of our most important responsibilities as a parent is helping our children learn about and get to know their heavenly Father. The best way to know Him is to read and study the Word that He gave us. It is important that we not just study what others have to say about Him and the Bible, but to actually dig into the Scriptures ourselves and discover what they have to say to us. A great way to do this is through inductive Bible Study.

A wonderful tool that we discovered for learning to study the Scriptures this way is the Discover 4 Yourself series that is written especially for kids to teach them to dig into the Word at an early age. A great place to start is How to Study Your Bible: For Kids. This is an introductory book to teach the tools to read, mark and dig deep into Scripture for yourself but written so that a child can understand. You learn to find the facts, observe the who, what, when, where and why of what you are reading, how to figure out what the words mean in the original text, the historical and cultural context of the text, etc. These all help you to understand what God wanted us to know.

When we started these books, my kids were not all independent readers and writers due to various learning challenges so we did them together. We would read the text and we would discuss the answers and I would help them as they needed. So, even if you have a struggling learner, they can still learn how to study God's Word.

There is a whole series of these books that center on various topics of the Bible such as specific books of the Bible, prophesy, prayer, etc. We very much enjoyed going through these together and learning together how find out for ourselves what the Bible says.

Now that my children are in their teen years, they join me in a multi-age inductive Bible study at church and are able to use the tools that they learned at a young age to dig deep and participate fully in a class of mostly adults. They are equipped, confident and, most importantly, interested enough, to be able to dig and and find the meat in the Scripture. Or as our Bible Study teacher likes to say, "Gut it out".

If you are not comfortable or familiar with Bible Study and don't feel ready to teach your kids, these are great introduction to help you a long the way as well.

Jen

Developing Your Children's Faith Through Meals ~ Shabbat



10 years ago, when our children were about 10 and 12 years old, we began a new family tradition, that of celebrating an evening meal once a week, which would be dedicated to God and signal the end of the working week and the start of our Sabbath rest. It would be along the lines of the Erev Shabbat meal which Jewish families have on Friday night but, for us, it would be on Saturday nights.

 

The idea was that this would be time for our family to rest in God's presence and talk about the things of God, not the world. We didn't keep it 'religiously'; there was always flexibility. If one or other of us had pressing engagements elsewhere then it wouldn't happen, but we tried to keep it a tradition, even through the turbulent teenage years. It was sometimes a struggle, often because I was overworked and stressed, but the prayers and the deep breaths between the various elements of the meals helped me to unwind and appreciate God's many blessings to us as a family.

 

The essential elements of the meal we have are:

• 2 white candles,
• salt in a small bowl,
• 2 loaves of bread covered with a white cloth
• a meal cooked and ready to go and
• a bottle of red wine.

 

The table is ready

There are many 'scripts' you can use, but the one we developed over the years involved several elements:

• Mother lighting the candles and blessing her family
• Thanking God for the Sabbath
• Father blessing the children
• Husbands praising their wives (this embarrassed me, but was good for me)
• Thanking God for the wine
• Thanking God for the bread
• Dipping the bread in the salt
• Talking about what God is doing in our lives

After a few years, we dispensed with the ritual pouring of water over each others' hands. we felt that this element was unnecessary for us. For the first few years, I would bake my own Chollah, but it became a bit of burden, so now I buy some really good, interesting bread. (We can't get chollah here, but we have things like olive or walnut bread instead.)

 

One of the hardest things about the weekly meal was to keep the conversation Godly. It was always so easy to want to turn our talk towards 'affairs of the world.'

 

Although this was mainly for our family, we sometimes invited others. Sometimes another family, but more often, the children's friends. Our Daughter-In-Law, Damaris, came several times, once recently being 'mother' and lighting the candles.

 

Our Shabbat meals were always looked forward to and is still something we do as often as we can. One day, I hope to have Skype up and link the Oxfordshire and Aberdeenshire families during a shabbat meal. That would be fun!

 

The end of a long week!

 

Now, Dear Daughter, I am describing what we did, not because you need to emulate this particular family tradition, but to show you one way that your family's faith could be developed through mealtimes.

 

You will surely initiate your own family traditions and whatever they are, they will be perfect for you. I'd love to hear about yours some time!

Mimi is a wife to Jamie, mother to two grown up children, a mother-in-law and a grandmother to a darling little grand-daughter. She home-educated her children and now teaches exam subjects to groups of home-educated children. She's a Worship Leader in her church and has a passion for helping women raise children to adulthood with a strong faith in the Lord Jesus.

Developing Your Children's Faith - Singing a New Song

We found that the best way of developing our children's faith was to teach them at home. We had already started home educating before we became Christians but once we realised that it was part of God's plan for our children to be educated outside of the school system, that gave us added confidence to get through the difficult times of home education (like exams.)
 
However, home education by itself wasn't enough. HE was part of an overall concept of taking personal responsibility for our children and not to delegate that responsibility to anyone else. This concept, for us, applied to churches as well. We were not to rely on Sunday School or church youth workers for our children's faith development (in any case, some do an extraordinarily bad job of doing this; count the number of teens in your church who have started dropping out lately.)
 
If God had given us the responsibility for our children's education about Him, which we believed He had,

'Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them fade from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them.' Deuteronomy 4:9

then we needed to heed His word about how that was to happen, 

'4 Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the door-frames of your houses and on your gates.'

We needed to decide how literally to take this command from God. We decided that verse 7 meant to talk about God ALL THE TIME with your children and we couldn't do that, if our children were in school all day and out at youth events for much of the rest of the time. We were very selective about the children's and youth activities they were involved with. Some were beneficial to the process of faith development and some, most definitely, were not.

At various times, God called us to be involved in some ministry but, even by the time the children were 12-13, we didn't feel right about leaving them at home to go out to do church stuff, so we decided that we would only get involved in ministries where our children could participate alongside us. In their teen years, for us, that was music. We organised and led a worship band called Life-Songs which our kids were a vital part of and I do think that it was instrumental (!) in their faith development.

 

What does this mean for you, Dear Daughter? If you decide to take personal responsibility for your child's faith development, how will it look in your household? Is God calling you to make out-of-the-box decisions in order to kindle or protect your child's relationship with Jesus?

 

You don't have to sing the world's tune. You can make up a totally new song.

Mimi is a wife to Jamie, mother to two grown up children, a mother-in-law and a grandmother to a darling little grand-daughter. She home-educated her children and now teaches exam subjects to groups of home-educated children. She's a Worship Leader in her church and has a passion for helping women raise children to adulthood with a strong faith in the Lord Jesus.

 

Friday: Faith

Contributing to Your Faith Community as a Young Mother.

It's easy to become over-scheduled as a mum especially, I found, at church. There can be some unrealistic expectations placed on young mothers. I quickly became overwhelmed and exhausted soon after becoming a Christian. I was so desperate to share my faith, to serve Jesus, that I signed up for all kinds of things at church. I was already home-educating my two young children, which was a job and a half, in itself! I'd been asked to teach in the 3-5 year old group during church and I was doing it, but not feeling quite right about it even, though I was good at it.

One Sunday morning, I left the church to go to be with this lively group of little ones, when I realised that I was sacrificing the only free hour I had in the week without my own children to be teaching and taking care of other people's children. And I was missing the sermon! What was wrong with this picture? I scaled back my responsibility and, with the help of a discussion I had with some other Christian mothers, I decided on an approach which I found very helpful for many years after that.

I was advised to only be involved in activities to which God had clearly and specifically called me. Wow! What a relief that was! It became gradually obvious to me that this is what would spare my sanity in the long run! This is such a simple concept, but it has served me well. If you think that this is a cop out and an excuse to do very little...just wait, it may not be!

God called me very clearly and specifically to begin several adventures during those early Christian mothering years, including leading an evening home group for 8-11 year olds and starting and leading two different, long-running home education groups. However, because God had called me, He also generously equipped me for these tasks. I had been patiently (mostly) listening for His call. When it came, I didn't feel overwhelmed or exhausted. I was ready to give them up when He called me to, also.

A kayaking lesson I organised for a home education group. Yes, they did go onto the water next!

 

What I had also accepted was that my primary calling was to my husband and children. This is what I urge of you too, Dear Daughter. Invest your time and love in them and, through that, God will use you to bless others. Listen for His call and He will equip you for the tasks He plans for you.