3 Things To Do When Raising Little Girls:
1) Prepare your mind before the day begins. (1 Peter 1:13)
The best way I know how to do this is by spending time with
the Lord, letting Him show me where I need my heart cleaned, talking with Him,
and spending intimate time in His word. Without this “renewing of my mind”
Romans 12:2 my day just doesn’t go the same. I am not filled up with Him in
order to give to my children. Also, it helps set my priorities for the day.
If you are not a morning person, no big deal, the best
solution I have heard for this is to simply make a note or two of what the Lord
teaches you at night and then make sure you wake up the next morning and give
your day to Him and refresh your memory on what He taught you and wants you to
do by looking at your notes from the afternoon or night before.
2) Exercise Self Control (1 Peter 1:13)
At my house, emotions run high. I have two girls 14 months
apart, and both have very strong personalities. There is no passive child at
our house. Therefore, it’s easy when the girls emotions take off with them, for
mine to as well. For example, one girl steals another toy, one screams, the
other screams, they hit each other, I walk over and they start hitting me. What
I really want to do is to get mad because let’s be honest, no one likes to get
hit, but the Word says I must exercise self control. I must as the original
language suggests of this text, be calm, collected and temperate. It is not an
option, it is a command. My girls are looking to see how I react and in essence
I am teaching them how to respond by my example.
3) Practice Being Grateful (1 Thes 5:18)
Being ungrateful is a vicious cycle that begins when we are
children. The only way we begin to express gratitude is when we are taught to
be grateful and thankful. Whenever the girls start whining about wanting
something they don’t have (in other words being covetous and ungrateful) I
redirect their thoughts to how many things they have to be grateful for and
then if it continues I tell them that if they cannot be grateful for what they
have, they will simply not get to have or play with anything at all. Even if
gratitude is not their heart felt emotion, sometimes we have to practice until
we do “feel” what we are disciplining ourselves to do. In other words, if I
continually remind our children to be thankful, most likely, they will take this
action on themselves and even if they don’t, they will remember that they
should, in their hearts.
The Lord has laid it on my heart to continue to write out
areas of my life that I need to give to Him in order to show an example to my
girls of how to love Him. All three of these areas I have struggled with or am
struggling with currently, I, by no means do all of these things perfectly, but
by searching His word for how I am to raise my children and live a life for
Him, He does teach me. I am thankful that through my kids, I see myself
before the Lord as His child whom He disciplines because He loves. There is
nothing that has taught me more about myself than my marriage and children, and
although some of the things revealed are hard to swallow, I love how much it
challenges me to grow in the strength of the Lord. Without Him, I really can do
nothing. (John 15)
