Parenting Just Isn't Easy

I just want to share something that is on my heart about parenting. Ok, here's the major revelation...........It's not easy. Shocked aren't you?
Here's my point. Yes, there are people who are just naturals at it, but they too have bad days. You know we even think it should be really easy to have a close relationship with our children, that we should know them better than anyone else does just because we carried them and gave birth to them. Here's the problem with that concept. It doesn't take into account how busy we are, especially as homeschooling mom's. You know, I have recently shared with you that I am having to work on winning my children's hearts, because at some point along the way I began to lose them. I know why it happened. It happened because of busyness and responsibility. Between, cooking, cleaning, homeschooling, bill paying, errand running, training, disciplining, mothering, wifing (don't think that's a word, but you know what I mean), laundry, refereeing, etc. I began to lose their hearts. Does that mean I wasn't being a good mother? Of course not, they are very well taken care of. All of their physical and spiritual needs are met, just not their emotional ones. So what does that all mean? It means I have to work at it and that's ok.
My point is, don't look around at all the "supermom's" who seem to have it all together and measure yourself. For years I felt insecure in my role as a mother. I felt totally inadequate. I had a messy house, depression, problems in my marriage (my fault) and major anxiety, but my friends thought I was "supermom". They said they would never have guessed what I was actually going through. From the outside our marriage seemed to be working better than just about anyones (I do have an amazing husband, Thank you Lord), my children always looked so cute and were so well behaved and I always seemed so put together and like I had it together. Obviously, looks can be deceiving.
Just don't let the enemy make you think, that because it doesn't all come so naturally and that you acutally have to work at it and don't always get it right, you are not a good mother. I don't know if that was clear or not or if anyone needed that right now, but I felt like it was what the Lord wanted me to share.
Just remember that God blesses obedience and sacrifice (and He knows our motives), and obviously if you are home with your children you are sacrificing and being obedient. Don't let the enemy steal the peace and security that comes from the Lord!

Sharing About Anxiety

Pretzel Family

Aug. 8, 2007 - Finally Shared!!
I had the opportunity to share my testimony about the Lord freeing me from anxiety with a young friend. I didn't get into a really detailed conversation about my past, but I shared the major stuff and all of the things that I had to do in order for the Lord to free me. I shared about releasing control and trusting the Lord. I also told her that praying about it and claiming a few verses was not enough for me, the only way that ever worked was if I prayed, claimed and read the Word all the way through. What I mean is I couldn't just say a prayer and repeat a couple of verses and have it immediately go away, but if I stayed persistent and prayed, claimed and read without ceasing until the anxiety was gone, then I felt peaceful. Then I felt victorious and it would always be a longer stretch of time before it would happen again. I had to do that so many times and I had to remind myself that at least for a while the harder I fought with the Lord's help the harder the enemy was going to fight to keep me in that bondage. I hope to one of these days be able to sit down and spill it all and really share a detailed testimony of what the Lord has delivered me from. For now though I'm just excited that God gave me the words when I didn't think I had them and even though it was all coming so fast, it still made sense to her.
So, please continue to pray that I will feel more and more confident about sharing. Because, I feel that so many women (mom's especially) are secretly fighting this same bondage.

Capturing Your Child's Heart

Here are some things I already knew that were reinforced and some new things that I learned at the homeschool convention about capturing the hearts of our children. The speaker was Christie Berry, see more from her at www.homeschoolblogger.com/cberry .
- The only person I can change is me. If I don't have their hearts I need to evaluate what I am doing.
- Get involved, do what they want to do and make sure my heart is in it. They will be able to tell if it's not.
- What behaviors do I see in my child that I don't like are behaviors that I have taught them?
- If I am not obedient to the Lord my children will not be obedient to me.
- If we want to encourage them to change, we should court them and encourage them.
- Don' react to their misbehavior, respond to it instead.
- Let our children see us learning from our mistakes and always say we are sorry and admit our faults to them. If we are not real with them, they will not be able to relate to us.
- Pray for them, pray about how to parent them, pray for there future, PRAY, PRAY, PRAY!!!!!!
- For every negative word you say to them, they need 10 positive ones to make up for it.
- It will be easier for God to win their hearts if I have won it first.
- We should work on having their heart before our focus is on education. They will be much easier to educate if they love and respect us because they know that we love and respect them.
I hope this is helpful. Some of it was convicting for me. I will definitely be working more on this now. If we don't win them while they are young it will be much harder to do it later.

Dyslexia (might be a bit controversial)

One of my twins has been diagnosed as dyslexic. She was the 2nd one born and the one who had the most problems in the hospital. They were born at 27 weeks. We began having behavioral problems with her when she was about 3. By about age 4 I knew something was not right. She would not pitch a fit if you told her no or disciplined her, but you could tell her to go get her shoes and it was the end of the world, she would scream for sometimes a couple of hours. So, I began to think that she was frustrated and could not explain to me why. Well, to make a long story short, after a lot of testing and pushing people to help me figure out what was going on, she was finally put into speech therapy with an auditory processing problem. Her speech therapist told me then that she was pretty sure she was dyslexic and at age 7 we had her tested and it was confirmed.
So, we have struggled a lot with reading and math all of these years. Many times I have felt ill equipped to teach her, but thankfully have been reminded often that our state does not recognize it as a learning disability, so the teachers here aren't equipped either.
Anyway, this past Sunday we had one of the Pastor's from our parent church preaching. He preached about God not being the author of confusion. 1 Corinthians 14:33 says "For God is not the author of confusion , He is the God of peace". While we were at church I was applying this to myself. I have lived the last several months in a very confused state about what my beliefs really are. My husband and I have been really searching the word to make sure that we know why we believe what we believe. We have different church backgrounds I grew up baptist, he grew up episciplaean and then became baptist as a teenager and now we are at an inter-denominational church. So, we wanted to make sure our beliefs were based on the truth of the Word and not just what we had been told from the pulpit. That's why I thought the sermon was for me.
Well, I can't tell you exactly when it happened. But, I know the Lord told me I needed to apply that to my daughter and stop calling her dyslexic, because by doing that I am speeking that over her. And He told me that I should start praying to break the spirit of confusion over her.
Okay, here's my disclaimer. I am not saying there is no such thing as dyslexia. I am also not saying that anyone is causing their child to be dyslexic. What I am saying is, this is my personal conviction for my child right now. I am sharing it with you to give a different perspective. Ask the Lord if it is for you. If it is great, if it isn't that's ok, too.
Anyway, I feel now like I need to treat this as if she were sick. I would be crying out to the Lord for her healing and not embracing a diagnosis. Maybe this will really help someone else. I don't know I just know that this is what I felt led to share.
Here is my prayer for her:
Lord, I ask that you will break the spirit of confusion that is over KG, I rebuke the devourer and remind him that he has no place in the mind of my child, for she is Your child first and You will protect her. I pray for clarity for her, that she will see clearly and understand everything that is placed in front of her. That her eyes and ears will be opened to things she has never understood before. I pray for peace in her mind and a calming of her frustrations and I proclaim her the healed of God. Thank you Lord for the cross, Your blood and the healing it offers. Thank You for Your promises. I praise You, Lord and thank You for what You are already doing in her and what You will continue to do. AMEN