Oh, Ouch!

I read THIS  post just now and knew I had to blog about it in case someone else struggles with this like I do... I printed it out and will add it to my "mommy" binder where I keep all the articles that I want to keep and reread.

Hold On to Your Crown

In my daily devotional today the title was "Hold on to Your Crown". The author is continuing to encourage us as mothers to stay the course. Society as a whole oozes with attitude that what moms do is not valuable, that someone else out there with a degree in children can do a much better job than we can, that we need to find our value in some sort of career outside the home or we are wasting our talents. I pray, as the author does, that we would stay the course of motherhood. That we would use the many gifts and abilities that the Lord has blessed us with in the God-given job of mothering our children. Staying home with our children, teaching them, discipling them is a huge responsibility that we should not take lightly, nor should we turn it over to someone else lightly. My girls all have some idea of what they would like to do when they "grow up" and I think that it is fine to use the gifts and abilities that God has given them in finding ways to serve others even for pay but my prayer for them is that when and if the Lord blesses them with children that they will not give up the blessing of raising them and staying home with them. I believe that there is nothing materially that we can give our children that could ever take the place of raising them and being there for them. They grow us so fast. So as for me...I am going to Hold on to my crown, my crown of motherhood. And I am purposing to delight in it and not let society steal my joy.

Here is the prayer for the day from the devotional:
    "Lord, I thank you that you have given me the crown of mothering. Help me to remember each day that it is a crown of which I can be proud. When I wear this crown I am walking in Your perfect will. Amen."

And a poem:
                                           What is in Thine Hand?
                             
                                 What is that, oh Christian Mother
                                    God hath 'trusted to thy care?
                                 In thine hand to love and nurture,
                                     Sweetly innocent and fair!
                                 What a high and noble priviledge!
                                Bring them up to know God's Word;
                                  They in turn will call thee blessed
                                When they've learned to trust the Lord!

                                               Mary A. Haydon

In Praise of Motherhood

I read this quote from one of the blogs that I follow, "Your Sacred Calling". At first I struggled to understand just what it was saying since it appears to have been written some time ago. But knowing that the blog it was on promotes our calling as mothers I knew it was saying positive things about being a mother. I highlighted my favorite parts. Imagine our God-given responsibility of motherhood being compared to a Queen in her castle, as the quote mentions.




Woman is generally shut up in a house with a human being at the time when he asks all the questions that there are, and some that there aren’t. It would be odd if she retained any of the narrowness of a specialist. . . . when people begin to talk about this domestic duty as not merely difficult but trivial and dreary, I simply give up the question. For I cannot with the utmost energy of imagination conceive what they mean. . . .
If drudgery only means dreadfully hard work, I admit the woman drudges in the home, as a man might drudge at the Cathedral of Amiens or drudge behind a gun at Trafalgar. But if it means that the hard work is more heavy because it is trifling, colourless and of small import to the soul, then as I say, I give it up; I do not know what the words mean. To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labours, and holidays; to be Whitely within a certain area, providing toys, boots, cakes, and books; to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it.
How can it be a large career to tell other people’s children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one’s own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone and narrow to be everything to someone? No, a woman’s function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute

Some of my favorite websites

I decided today that I wanted to do a post on some of my favorite websites/blogs. Now my family might be disappointed not to see any updated photos of beautiful B#9 or read some more personal things but not knowing who my other readers are and wanting to share some things that interest me, I thought this might be a good post to do.

www.raisingolives.com is a new blog that I have found, written by a mother of 9 also. There are so many good things on this blog from saving money, homeschooling, parenting(great posts here), pregnancy etc.

www.raisinggodlytomatoes.com is a website that is written by a mom of 10 with some wonderful advice on raising godly children in an ungodly world. I purchased her book but you can also read it through her articles on the website.

www.raisinghomemakers.com is a blog written by many different authors. Some are written by moms about raising our daughters to be godly young women who desire to do the Lord's will in their lives, even if it goes against what society thinks they should do and other posts are written by young ladies themselves as they go through this time in their lives.

www.yoursacredcalling.com is a blog by another mom of many, Staci McDonald, who co-wrote the book "Passionate Housewives Desperate for God" and "Raising Maidens of Virtue", which I am hoping to read through with my girls or at least have them read if time with a newborn and two rambunctious toddlers won't allow me to read with them.

www.ladyofvirtue.blogspot.com is a blog written by a mom of 12, I think. Her posts have all different ranges, from homeschooling to politics. I really enjoy her perspective on things.

I know there are others that I read on a very regular basis but these were the ones that came to my mind for now. Even if you don't homeschool or even have children, you might find something of interest for you at one of these. Maybe even just to help you understand our families convictions better.

Hope you all are having a blessed night.

A day in the life

On Sundays there is usually a mad scramble to get ready for church and out the door on time, which for us never seems to be "on time". This past week was no better, in fact, when I woke up and saw that I had 40 minutes to get myself dressed and any little one ready who wasn't already being dressed, dressed and in the van I thought there was no way it was going to happen. Well we did manage to be ready, well all but our oldest ,but in the midst of hurrying to get ready I had to wear an older pair of knee highs that had definitely seen better days. Upon putting on my shoes I couldn't help but wondering just how bad the holes in my knee highs had gotten judging by how very uncomfortable one of my shoes was. I decided to take the time to try to fix it so that I wouldn't be quite so uncomfortable all through church. Well low and behold, the holes weren't any worse than last time I wore those knee highs but I did discover a Playmobile spear in my shoe causing the problems.

Whether you have one child or 8, such can be a day in the life of a mom.