Week 9!

Challenge:
As I'm on this wonderful parenting journey - every week I end up thinking the same thing, "I have no idea what I'm doing." As a mom trying to raise children in this crazy world - I fall so short from knowing the best way to parent, love, discipline, and teach my children. I've intentionally tried to surround myself with wonderful friends who also have multiple children and similar parenting styles/goals so that we can "do life" together and learn as we go. I do think there is much to be said about that and I know, for me personally, it has helped quite a bit. But, still, I feel that I can learn so much more from older women in my life. My challenge this week is to pray about who specifically the Lord wants me to ask to be my parenting mentor. There are many amazing ladies in my life who are older and have already raised their children. I often talk with them when I see them and love their wisdom, but I'm needing something more formal. Something where I allow them to teach me, observe me, and pray with me. If you have older children, perhaps you could pray about someone you can invest in - sharing with them things you did well and mistakes you hope others don't repeat. So much wisdom lies in those who have walked ahead of us! I want to intentionally tap into it and bring Titus 2:3-5 to life in the lives our today's parents, "Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God."

Dear Lord, thank You for the wisdom that You grant us through life's experiences and challenges. Please bring to mind one woman in my life, who is rooted in the Word, who can become a mentor to me. Prepare her heart for my request and grant me the courage to reach out. Please use her to minister to me. Likewise, if there is anyone I can pour into, please bring them to my heart and mind. Thank you that as iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another (Proverbs 27:17). In Jesus' Name. Amen. 

For the Love of My Children:
Father God, thank You that You promise to work everything out for the good for those who are following You (Romans 8:28). I proclaim that promise over my family and for each of my children. I pray that no matter what my child is going/has gone/will go through - large or small - that You will bring Yourself glory through it and that it would be woven into my child's testimony. May my children trust Your Word that in everything they are more than conquerors (Romans 8:37). What a joy and a relief that truth is and I pray that it would be real and tangible in every situation my child faces and that it would help me, as the parent, not to be anxious. As I put my fears aside, help me be convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate my children from Your love (Romans 8:38-39). I pray in the name of Christ Jesus, Our Lord. Amen.