Thursday, May 17, 2012

Answered prayers

Recently the Lord has answered some of my long standing prayers.  I had been asking for some examples and guidance as to a godly wife and mom who did not water down Scripture.  My goal was not for someone to take away my guilt feelings, but instead to show me through Scripture, example, and some practical ideas how to fulfill my God given roles so that I could respond to the convictions that were just beginning to form in my heart.  I have been praying this for years.  Well a few months ago through a few different authors and blogs I have found some women who are doing these things for other women.  It has been incredible.  At first I was just soaking everything in, but then when it came time to make application I was lost again.  See as I started to see more of God's design for family I realized how much I was not doing.  I felt like a total failure so I went to the Lord about this.  He immediately led  me to Romans 8:1 and reminded me that He does not condemn me.  At that point I realized that the Lord was actually smiling down on me.  I had done the best I could do with what I had and with what I knew and I never let go of Him.  Then I shared how much conviction I was feeling in so many areas all at the same time.  I could not address it all at the same time so I asked the Lord where to begin.  Our Lord is a totally faithful God and He has shown me that I need to address two areas first.  One is my thought life-- I have allowed myself to think in a defeated way instead of a victorious way and that has led to some attitudes that are not good.  So am making an effort to act happy no matter what and during those times when I am not then I will eventually become happy if I act happy.  Our feelings follow our actions.  The second area I am addressing is orderliness or shall I say my lack of orderliness.  Chaos began to rule a long time ago and I had been feeling hopeless about things ever being different.  So I decided to apply new thinking to this and work to order my life properly.

One of the first things I did was to get rid of my biggest time waster-- Facebook.  Then I started to evaluate all the disorder in my life.  One of the biggest areas was my prayer and devotional life.  I have been having fairly regular devotional time with the Lord, but not a consistent prayer life.  Also it seems so scattered sometimes.  Then I saw how out of order my children are in their disciplines as well as their attitudes and behaviors.  After that I began to see how my home is totally out of organization and order and now I see how my priorities need some adjusting as well.

This process is painful and I can not make the necessary changes on my own strength or abilities, but the Lord is truly capable of transforming me in these areas.  So I hold on to Him and try to work through this as I am teaching Caleb to do his work-- attentively, diligently, faithfully, and obediently.  God has great plans for our family as a unit and for each of us as individuals and I can hardly wait to see what He is going to do with all of us.

1 comment:

  1. It's hard to change what we've been so used to doing for so long. And its easy to feel like a failure when things don't go as well as we'd hoped. We just need to remind ourselves (sometimes on an hourly basis) that the Lord is pleased with us for who we are, for our love for Him, for our desire to serve Him, and for our willingness to try and improve in our areas of weakness. Thanks for sharing.

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