SURFER GIRL OLIA

 

Our little surfer girl Olia is getting better every day...

 

 

Olsie, we LOVE your sweet, sweet heart...never change!!

 

XO



TAKE OVER

This is me raising the white flag.

 

I surrender.

 

I do.

 

And oh the victory of accepting defeat.

 

HE wins.

 

God, you win!!

 

Take over.

 

 

"I know, O Lord, that the way of man is not in himself,

that it is not in man who walks to direct his steps."

Jeremiah 10:23

FILTHY RAGS/PARENT EYES

Ooooooh my goodness...I see it.

 

Ah, it stings and I see.

 

Father God, Creator, He's teaching so it seems.

 

Absorb.

 

As I, the parent, take hits, I see what's coming from here. The child, the inflictor of wounds will "make it up to me" somehow.

And I'll receive it. Of course I will. I'll forgive. No question. I LOVE this child!

 

But, the works...they're filthy rags.

 

What I want is the HEART.

 

And what HE wants is HEART.

 

Tail between legs, there it goes again. Pitiful me as I pursue Him.

Forgive me, Lord, for filthy rags I've cast at your feet.

Here, take my PURE HEART instead. All of it! Use me.

 

HE takes the hits. We "make it up to Him" somehow. He receives us.

Of course He does. He forgives. No question. He LOVES His child...no matter what.

 

It's grace. I see the lesson. It's found through parent eyes.

 

"All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;

we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.

Yet you, LORD, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter;

we are all the work of your hand."

Isaiah 64:6,8

PRAYER IS PARENTING

I can't change them.

 

I can't.

 

But God...He can.

 

We read the books and make the lists. We chart and teach and intervene.
And we should. We should do ALL of those things as parents.

 

BUT, what is most effective when it comes to winning hearts? WHO is capable of inner change?
WHERE do we turn to in our parenting manual for answers and strategies of the most complicated kind?

 

Prayer IS parenting.

 

I've come to accept that my greatest efforts, my most heartfelt motivational speeches, my discipline, rewards, unconditional mommy love and corrections, they all are noble strivings...but they/I am not capable of what only the Spirit of God can do.
Sure, my efforts bring glory to God as I endeavor to please Him with my parenting. That's why I do what I do.

 

But I cannot produce results.

 

The Holy Spirit, though, He can. I believe He will. And prayer IS parenting.

 

So I pray the prayers and bend the knees and grope at heaven's feet.
I PRAY like my life, their lives, depend on it (on HIM). They do.

 

God will have His way in His time and I trust.

 

Prayer IS parenting.

"And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us.
And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him."
1 John 5:14-15

MOTHER'S DAY

 There is no greater JOY in this life for me than to minister to these children God has blessed me with,

to share His LOVE with them, and prayerfully to bring glory to God's name through the journey.

 

It's been a wonderful day of reflection upon the gift of motherhood...

 

...and a very happy Mother's Day indeed.

 

 

"I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth."

3 John 1:4