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| The art of motherhood
We have all heard it time and time before; What do you want to be when you grow up? What are you planning on doing with your life? Well, my response, its pretty simple, but the comments, there overwhelming. Now, why would you want to do that? I wouldnt do that if I where you. You know after you do that all your hopes and dreams have to leave? Well, what if this is my hope, my dream, the greatest job I could ever ask for. What is the occupation I am being discouraged from, rebuked for, and in many cases ridiculed for mentioning? I want to be a full time mom, I want the gift of a human life, and I want the privilege to hold that child in my arms, comfort my baby when hes hurt, and teach that precious gift in the way he should go. Hes not a consolation for a dream lost, he is the highest calling Christ could have ever laid on my heart. Motherhood is the greatest calling.
Why is motherhood degraded in socitity, undermined in the eyes of the world. Does a persons worth lie in there wealth, there status in the work force, or weather they have a doctorate or a high school diploma? What are we teaching the next generation and what are we challenging our children to stride for? Womans international center published a radical entitled womens history in America they stated that contraception and apportion have freed women from greater roles other then just motherhood just mother hood.
My belief is that a mothers job is to influence the minds of the nations, through the mouths of there children. 2Corenthians 2:2-3 says For you are a letter, written in our hearts, being manifested that you are the letter of Christ, not written with ink, but with the spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but tablets of the human heat. David and Sherly Quine author of the book let us highly resolve goes on the say, Our children are Our letter to Christ, as we teach them, and as they grow, they are to be read by all men Our children will be able to offer the true map that directs them back to the personal infinite God.
You have a big job as a mom, you bind the wounds, comfort the fear, become that babes refuge there strength and their dependency. Young girls need to know that this is the highest calling, the greatest job, the most challenging one, and the most rewording.
Augustine was a forth cencery scalier, and was considered one of the greatest thinkers of all times, his mother Monica had him under the roman rule, witch is now called Algeria, Monica dedicated her life to raising him as a Christian, and soon she became known as a canceller and a peacemaker in turbulent times. Despite their pagan culture she led her husband to the Lord, right before his death, and her mother-in-law as well.
Augustine was seventeen when his father died, and he was sent to the university catherage for classical education, but the cathege was a desilete place, and he wallowed in carnal pleasures. Monica cried continually, and prayed for his soul, when Augustine did come to faith, years later, Monica rejoiced and told him her job was done, a week later she died.
Augustine, who went on to become one of the greatest saints of the church wrote this prayer. My mother your faithful servant, wept to you for me, shedding more tears for my spiritual death then others shed for the bodily death of a son, you heard her.
Catherin Booth was a mother of eight, who lived in the 1800s all throughout her life she called her to be a mother of the nations she was passionate about calling Christians out of the spiritual mediocrity into a vibrant relationship with Christ, and soon she became one of the most well known female evangelist in her country. Although she traveled to many other nations and worked, as a evangelist, he never neglected her children, yet dedicated each one of her eight children infancy to serve God, we are made for longer ends then a compass she constantly exhorted in her children. Cathens radiant spiritual life and personal pursuit of Christ becomes a map that led her children into Gods endless frontier. Each one of her eight children wholeheartedly devoted their lives to Christ, every one of them ending up on full time ministry as a pastor or a missionary for expanding Gods Kingdom.
Catherin was one of the few women who lived a truly set apart life, and as a result she left a lagesy for her children, and her childrens children to follow.
Likewise my mom has been a corner stone in my life, in the life of my family and in many other youth she comes in contact with, my mom was always taught us to live out the greatest commandment. To first and formost love the Lord with all our heart, and next to love people, she values this over edgication, sports and activities. In setting these prioritys and living them out in her every day life she has been a witness to the community as well as the family. Both of my family work with youth, and in a world were unforchanity few teenagers have a good relationship with their parents they see the difference, they see what happens when Christ takes over the family, they see the love, the communication, the comfort and the warmth in out home, and they cetch on. Now youth are over constantly, many even call my parents mom and dad, you see she is a mom to many other who dont have moms. She instoded in my a passion for the word of God, as well as for teaching, and my hope and my prayer is that I will be able to touch hearts like she has, and become the mom that she has always been to us.
So what does Monica, Catherin and my mom have in common? They see motherhood as a mission from God, they emerge their children in prayer and never give up on them, they teach them morels to care for the less forchant and to love them unselfishly.
In times like these, we must remember that God looks with favor in mothers who nurturer small hearts and young minds and trean then up to impact the World, what Job what perfession is more importand then that?
In a world where motherhood is devaluates, degraded in America, we must go back to what our forefathers once said, when Abraham Lincoln said all that I am I awe to my mother and when Gorge Washington once said my mother is the most beautiful women I ever saw. All that I am I awe to my mother, I attribute all my success in the morel intellectual and physical education I received from her. Ribute all my success in the morel intellectual and physical education I received from her. You see Gorge says he wouldnt be who he was if it were not for his mother, and if it were not for his mother he would not be who he was, and if he were not who he was, where would this country be and where would each one of us be? Influcal mothers raise influential children and that is not a job that to be taken lightly. A job that my mom does not take lightly.
My mom has always tought me to be a big dreamer, at one point she even wrote a Eleanor Roosevelt quote on my bedroom wall. The fucher belongs to those who belive in the beauty of their dreams. Since I was five I wanted to swim in the 2012 Olymics, Ive often wanted to Marry a mishanary and take the Gospil to a persecuted nation, but more then anything I want to make a mark on the heart of indivisals, influence society, and set a standerd for the generations to come. I dream to go into the greatest acupation known to womanhood, I dream of looking down at my little girl with a crooked part, messy pigtails and finger painted fingertips, I dream that her big brown eyes will look up at my and call me mommy.
I am not affrid to stand here and admit to you that my greatest dream in life is to someday be a mom, because a mothers work has eternal consequences | | |
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A Call To Love
Jesus said, "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."
During World War 2, a guard in a Japanese concentration camp was demanding that one of the prisoners confess to robbing some food that a fellow jailer had stolen, even threatening to execute the prisoners one by one until they had the answer he wanted to hear. A man overtaken by love for his friends and despair for what might have happened stepped forward to confess. This innocent man was shot on the spot. There is no greater love then this, that one lay down his life for a friend.
Only through our unconditional love for others can they see Gods love for them.
Jesus demonstrated this kind of love. He loved the outcasts of society, the Tax collectors, the Woman at the well who was a Prostitute, the Samaritans, and us; He loved us in that while we were still sinners He died for us.
How can we love with this same kind of unconditional love, and why dont we? Who are the outcasts in our society? Is it the so called rebellions teenagers with their body piercing and gothic style? Is the lack of love for them the reason 80% drop out of church after their last year of high school? Does the fact that three out of four people affected by a disability not attend church have to do with a void of love? How do Americas church-goers treat Homosexuals, liberals, and women walking out of abortion clinics? Why are churches the least racially integrated entities in our society? Could all this be due to our lack of love?
Why is it so hard to love those different from ourselves?
Fear often blinds us from the heart beneath the exterior. Its hard to see peoples pain and need when the focus is on us. Fear of being influenced away from what we believe or the fear of physical harm;Yet perfect love casts out fear.
Another deterrent is a judgmental attitude. Mother Teresa once said If you judge people, you have no time to love them.
Maybe its simply out of our comfort zone or the way we have been raised, but despite the reason why we are not loving Christ has commanded us to do so.
Revolutionary thats what Christ's love is. It ignites, breaks up and shakes up our lives. Just look at the individuals who have been touched by Christs love, and allowed that love to shine through them.
In a cold dark prison cell lay a pastor who was bleeding, bruised, and torture weary. It was a cell reserved for the dying. There were others in the death cell, prisoners beaten and suffering, preparing to die. Isue, the pastor, though his strength was gone, spoke to the others about the beauties of heaven and the Lord Jesus. His body was still on earth but mentally he was already in heaven.
One of the prisoners was the communist who has tortured Isue to the point of his death. The government had arrested their own comrade and tortured him. Now, he too, was near death.
The prisoner who witnessed the following drama described it as a scene from heaven saying, You need not to be in heaven to see heaven.
The despairing Communist awoke one night and cried please, pastor, say a prayer for me, I have commented such crimes. I cannot die.
The agonizing pastor, leaning on two of the other prisoners for support, slowly made his way to the torturers side. Isue caressed his torturer on his head and said, I have forgiven you with all my heart and I love you. If I, who am only a sinner, can love and forgive you, more so can Jesus who is the Son of God and who is love incarnate. Return to Him. He longs for you much more then you wish to be forgiven. You just repent.
In the dark cell where hardness and hopelessness were the usual companions, the torturer found the tenderest affection and the most unmerited mercy. The torturer confessed all his murders to the tortured one and they prayed together. Then the two suffering men embraced like long-lasting brothers. The heartless, embittered, tragically lonely hater of Christianity stared straight into the wondrous eyes of love and melted. And he, too, became a lover of Christ.
It was that vary night they both died. In that death cell it was death that usually had the last laugh. But, where there is love, it is Jesus who triumphed over death!
We have the power to love the unlovable not because we ourselves are loving, but because Christ flows through us, and Christ is love. The love that Christ commands is not easy, even for people who are blessed with great natural warmth of heart. And it is not impossible, even if they have committed a unforgivable type of wrong. For Christian love is not a vague feeling of affection for someone. It is rather a condition of the heart and will that causes us to seek the welfare of others-including people we don't particularly like.
Lorena Keck demonstrated this kind of love when she befriended special young lady at her church. This young lady put it bluntly, at first glance appeared unlovable. Her hair was ratty, her skin was grimy and her aroma not so pleasant. This young woman had a baby and was left alone and in poor spirits. Lorna, although out of her comfort zone, made a choice to love this girl. Since that choice she made an effort by sit beside her at the church, and visiting her and that precious baby in their home. Lorena loved with the supper-natural love that overflowed in her life. Not to long after this young woman received that supper-natural love did she come to her last days of living. She was in a car accident and was killed, and what if she would have chosen to shun her like so often had accrued. What if she missed the opportunity to show that she was a disciple and to witness through her actions and attitude? The fact is that we dont know how long God is going to put people in out lives, but what a peace to know that you chose to love that person with the love of your father.
Love is powerful - it can break down indifference, heal hurts, soften hearts and bring out the best in others.
Sarah a young girl I know was hurting and desperate and living in the street with other run away teens. She told me her heart wrenching story of love. There were three church groups who came to minister to the homeless, the first one stood on the corner of the ally and preached for the teens to repent and turn their life around. The Street kids laughed, made fun of the speaker and knew that they could never relate. The second group handed out Bible tracks that told then how to become a Christian, the tracks ended up dropped, stopped on, tossed and blown by the wind. But the third group was special, once a week they came out, meet with the kids, and gave them food, cookies and drinks. The youth saw the difference and ask why they came. Their responses was that they loved them with the love that they too received from Christ.
Then the King will say to those on His right, come you are blessed of my father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink; I was a stranger and you invited me in; naked and you clothed me; I was sick and you visited me; I was in prison and you came to me. Then the righteous will answer Him, Lord when did we see you hungry and feed you? And thirsty and give you something to drink? And when did we see you a stranger and invite you in? Or naked and clothe you? When did we see you sick, or in prison, and come to you? The King will answer and say to them; to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of mine, even the least of them you did it to me. Matthew 25:34-40
A Romanian prison guard who found both his fulfillment and frustration in torturing Christians once stated, If we cut off their tongues and forbid the Christians to speech, they love with their hands, with their feet, and with their eyes, they love always and everywhere until their last respiration. Does anybody know how to take out the power of love from these stupid Christians?
Unconditional love is what sets Christians apart. It is what an unloving, unlovable hurting world is crying out for. It is how God spreads his love on earth. The awesome thought that God wants to use you, and God wants to use me to show a hurting world his love overwhelms me. Jesus said, "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." Can others see who you are by your love? | | |
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