Loving Your Children – it should be easier

Here is the MOPS devotion that I recently gave… it seemed to touch the hearts of many Moms as they commented on Facebook or at the meeting. 

Do you remember when your child was a baby and the overwhelming, deep love you felt for them.  You spent time studying them head to foot, checking out their little fingers, toes, nose and hair.  At that moment, you thought it would be easy to love them every moment of their lives. 

But then your child started to get their own personality and it was different from what you anticipated.  They were different from you, your husband or even your other children.  I know that I was amazed at how different each of my daughters were – I mean after all they came from the same parents so they should be the same, right?  And yet, each of my daughters were unique, gifted in their own ways and they each wanted their own way.

As Mothers, God calls us to “study our children” – just like you did when you were in school.  One way I encourage you to do this, is through The 5 Love Languages developed by Gary Chapman. 

First you need to know what the 5 Love Languages are (you can read more about them here):

1. Physical Touch
2. Words of Affirmation
3. Quality Time
4. Gifts
5. Acts of Service

Then you need to know your Love Language, your husbands and your children.  You can learn by reading the book or by taking the assessment test, which can be found here (there are tests on this page for you, your spouse, your children, your teenagers and more).

Once you know and understand the Love Languages of those you love – you should be able to parent more efficiently.    One important question, is to know who you are parenting for – it is for yourself (so you will look good), for other (to impress others), our children (to make them happy) or for God (to bring Him glory through parenting them according to the way they were created and gifted). 

I hope you realize that God studies you – He created you and now delights in you.  He desires a relationship with you and loves you in the manner you need.  Just like you explored your baby in the hospital, your Heavenly Father is doing the same with you every day.  He knows the number of hairs on your head, He knows what makes you feel loved – He knows you better than you know yourself because He made you. 

A great resource for parents is The 5 Love Languages of Children – I encourage you to read all of Gary Chapman’s 5 Love Languages Books so you can better love those who mean so much to you. 

Blessings,

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A Family Calling: Making your Home a Deuteronomy 6:4-9 with Blessings Unlimited

Today is the last day I am writing about how the message of these well-known verses (called the Shema verse), can be lived out.  I am featuring DaySpring’s Blessings Unlimited products to show how to make this a family calling in your home.

Click here to  read the first blog post on this topic

Click here to read the second post on this topic

Click here to read the third post on this topic

“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.  Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.  These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.  Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.  Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates.” Deuteronomy 6:4- 9.

  Today’s focus will be on verses 8 & 9

“Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.  Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates.”

How do we “tie symbols on our hands, bind them on our foreheads and write them on the door frames of our homes?”   Today, observant Jews wear prayer boxes on their foreheads and arms that contain portions of scripture from the Torah (Old Testament).  They also have decorative containers on their door frames containing scriptures.  The verses in these items are to help the Jewish people remember God’s faithfulness. As Believers in Jesus Christ, we are also called to remember all that God has done for us. Our individual homes and lives are to be places that remind us of our relationship with our God.

 Here are some ways you can remember God’s faithfulness in your everyday life…

To wear on your wrist …Blessings Unlimited Delight Yourself in the Lord Bracelet

To wear around your neck…Blessings Unlimited Guard Your Heart Necklace

To hang on your walls…Blessings Unlimited Strength, Peace and Praise Cross Set

(can be purchased together or separately)

Blessings Unlimited Blessed By Grace Wall Decor  

This is one of my favorite Blessings Unlimited items

 

This Door Knocker actually allows you to put God’s Word on your door just as this verse in Deuteronomy suggests.Blessings Unlimited Door Knocker

There are many, many ways to live out this Family Calling in your life and home.  I would love to hear how your family is living this commandment.  Please share…

Father God,  may You continue  to be present in every area of our lives and homes.  Help us to daily remind our families that it is You that we serve, honor and worship.  Show us how to make our homes places that remind us of You  and all that You  have done for us.  Thank you for being such a faithful God to all generations.  Amen

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A Family Calling: Making your Home a Deuteronomy 6:4-9 with Blessings Unlimited

For the next several days, I am writing about how the message of these well-known verses (called the Shema verse), can be lived out.  I am featuring DaySpring’s Blessings Unlimited products to show how to make this a family calling in your home.

Click here to  read the first blog post on this topic 

“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.  Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.  These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.  Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.  Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates.” Deuteronomy 6:4– 9.

  Today’s focus will be on verses 5 & 6

Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.  These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts.”  Deuteronomy 6:5 & 6

We cannot give away what we do not ourselves possess.  If our desire is for our children and grandchild to Love the Lord – then we ourselves must be in a thriving, growing, relationship with our Lord and Savior.  All of our relationships take time – time invested in listening, talking and being together.  Your and my relationship with our Heavenly Father is the same and it grows by reading His Word, Prayer and Fellowship.  Here are some Blessings Unlimited products that will help you grow in your relationship with God.

Devotional Books

Blessings Unlimited Moments of Grace for Women by Bonnie Jensen

 Blessings Unlimited Gift Books by DaySpring’s Founder, Roy Lessin

Share your personal testimony of how you are building your relationship with God by recording your spiritual journey  with Blessings Unlimited Journals…

Blessings Unlimited Women’s Journal Set

And when you need to hear from God about a struggle, a topic or expression – use this scripture journal to find a verse to meet your need. Then record how God used His word in your life in the journal section.

Blessings Unlimited My Promise Journal

Tomorrow’s  focus will be on verse 7 and the Blessings Unlimited products that will help you live our the message of these verses….

“Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.”

Share with me how you Love the Lord Your God…

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A Family Calling: Making your Home a Deuteronomy 6:4-9 with Blessings Unlimited

 

“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.  Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.  These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.  Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.  Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates.” Deuteronomy 6:4- 9

 These well-known verses are known as the Shema verses in the Old Testament.  Shema means “hear” which are the first words of this verse.  The Jewish people, including Jesus, would recite this verse as their prayer in the morning and night (observant Jews continue to do so today).  This was their  life verse and it would have been memorized since they would not have had personal Bibles or known how to read in those days.  The Shema theme is repeated in Deuteronomy 11:13-21. (To read more about this the Shema, visit the Jewish Virtual Library website)

 Today, these verses remind our generation that we are to faithfully teach our families God’s ways – first they are to be on OUR hearts (we cannot teach what we do not know ourselves) and then we are to diligently teach God’s ways to our children (King James version uses… “And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children vs.7).  The Home Schooling Community has especially claimed these verses as their key theme. 

 The Shema prayer provides a great tool for each and every Christian family.  We are to use these practical everyday occurrences to remind ourselves and our family of the Great God that we serve.  Our children learn in many places (school, friends, church, etc), but most of life lessons are learned in the moments of our everyday life – as we driving along the road, eat at the breakfast table, and live each day .

Over the next couple of days, I will be sharing several ideas of  how these verses can be lived out with Blessings Unlimited products….

Tomorrow’s  focus will be on verses 5 & 6 and Blessings Unlimited products that will help you live our the message of these verses….

Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.  These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts.

Blessings Unlimited Spring Catalog – Season of Renewal

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Merry Christmas 2010 From The Joseph’s

Card from Shutterfly

Merry Christmas ….

In the past year we have experienced God’s blessings of a new grandson named Joseph to Josiah & Laryssa

Another son-in-law as Jason & Alycia got married

See photo from Christmas Card above…

50th Birthday Celebrations

Trips to Chicago (3 times), Arkansas (twice), Florida (twice), New York (3 times),  and anywhere else God calls us to go

Easter Trip to Chicago to visit Audrianna and Nic

 

Ministry opportunities with Blessings Unlimited and MOPS

And throughout the year, always learning to trust in God

“But I trust in you, LORD;
I say, “You are my God.”

My times are in your hands;
deliver me from the hands of my enemies,
from those who pursue me.

Let your face shine on your servant;
save me in your unfailing love.”

Psalm 31:14-16

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So Many Good Changes in just 1 Year

Our family in September 2009

Our family in September 2010.

I am so thankful for all that God has done in our family — it is ALL His doing because Bill and I have made plenty of mistakes.  May I encourage each of you to hang on and stay true to your promises …. God is faithful and brings Himself glory through all of our pain and struggles.

 

Psalm 113

¹ Praise the LORD.
Praise, O servants of the LORD,
praise the name of the LORD.

² Let the name of the LORD be praised,
both now and forevermore.

³ From the rising of the sun to the place where it sets,
the name of the LORD is to be praised.

⁴ The LORD is exalted over all the nations,
His glory above the heavens.

⁵ Who is like the LORD our God,
the One who sits enthroned on high,

⁶ who stoops down to look
on the heavens and the earth?

⁷ He raises the poor from the dust
and lifts the needy from the ash heap;

⁸ He seats them with princes,
with the princes of their people.

⁹ He settles the barren woman in her home
as a happy mother of children.
Praise the LORD.

 

 

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Reflections of my daughter’s wedding #2

Planning Alycia’s wedding celebration began as soon as the engagement ring was placed on her finger.  A short 6 months after our middle daughter, Laryssa’s wedding, we began the wedding planning process again.  As every parent knows each child is different from one another, the same is true when they begin to plan their wedding.  Alycia’s desire was to have a comfortable, more causal wedding ~ one where people would feel relaxed.  Her wedding week and day was exactly as she desired.

Nana made Alycia a special book about her wedding details complete with details from Nana’s wedding 56 years ago.  Nana, Alycia and I enjoyed a lovely breakfast together on Wednesday which is when Nana gave her this precious gift.

Jason & Alycia at the rehearsal dinner.  Jason’s parents hosted a Pittsburgh themed dinner complete with Pittsburgh food and their favorite cake – a Toasted Almond Torte.  It was a fun evening.

My oldest daughter – the beautiful bride.

Her desire for her wedding dress, was that she wanted to be approachable and hugged and I believe she achieved that with great beauty.

Of course, little Joey has to be in the wedding photos…. he was looking cute in his outfit that Aunt Alycia picked out (even if it was a little big).

Daddy and his girl…

Jason & Alycia did a great representation by braiding a Cord of 3 Strands (from Ecclesiastes 4:12)  to represent that the presence of God in their marriage.

Presenting for the first time …. Mr & Mrs Jason Dalbey

“So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”

Matthew 19:6

Tomorrow, the reception (including the food that Merry made)….

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Reflections of my daughter’s wedding

The last of our family has left and most of the wedding items  in our home has been cleaned, delivered or eaten.  It is over and to quote the line from the Father of the Bride, “It is funny how empty a house can get, isn’t it?”

The weekend was beyond words that I can use to describe.  We all felt the Lord’s amazing presence all week, but especially on the day of Jason & Alycia’s wedding.  The weather was so prefect for September – low 70’s, sunshine, blue skies with puffy, big white clouds and a little fall breeze. Thank you Lord for such a perfectly beautiful day….

Our family was surround by people who love us.  How do I describe the love and support we all felt that weekend? Once again, there are no words to describe the feeling.  My friend Merry who flew in from California to make all the delicious food with help from Kelly & Lauren,  Ann and Megan who coordinated the entire day and kept us on schedule, Joe who smoked 30 lbs of pork (it was so good), Dawn who created  the special cake, Stephanie who organized and Cindy and Micaela who managed the cookie table (a Western PA tradition) and Alycia’s good friend Tina and Ann (her Mom), who made the reception amazing.  God has provided us with friends who travel across the United States to care for us.  There are no words to express how thankful we are for all of these dear friends.  We love each of you.  Thank you Lord, for the love of our friends….

How does a Mother describe her emotions as she sees her oldest daughter get married?  I have done this before (just last year) yet the emotions were as intense as before.  All throughout the day, I would remember that little girl who graced our home with great joy and I was overwhelmed at the beautiful bride she was.  I know I expressed this last year, but even after all the times I had seen Alycia in her wedding dress (picking it out and the fittings) – seeing her as a bride once again took my breath away. Thank you Lord,  for allowing me to be the Mother of this beautiful bride.

And then there is Jason, this young man I have been praying for since I learned of my pregnancy with Alycia.  The man, Alycia has waited for.  How thankful I am for the Christian family that raised him and for his own commitment to Christ.  I can see how they compliment and complete each other.  I remember how many times I encouraged Alycia to wait for God’s choice and it brings me great joy to see Jason as the one God chose.  Thank you Lord, for working in Jason’s life to prepare him to be Alycia’s husband….

Once again, I am thankful for my husband Bill and our marriage.  As Jason and Alycia had their first dance, Bill and I shared a moment of thankfulness that God had kept us together.  As we sat around the table with our daughters, son-in-law, grandson and my parents – we felt so blessed.  One of my friends wrote this to me…  “Sitting there at the wedding while Alycia was “dancing” with her groom  I looked over at you and Bill and I think I almost cried. (ok I did
get misty) You were looking at each other with your foreheads together  and from where I was sitting the sun was shining through the two of  you and just as I looked over a tear dropped from your eye and the sun  caught as it fell between you and it looked like a diamond dropped.   It just reminded me of how you prayed and prayed for Alycia and there  was the moment. so sweet. Just beyond you was Laryssa and the baby  stroller holding your grandson, I just couldn’t think of anything I  have seen more beautiful lately than your family. You already know how
blessed you are, but I just wanted to tell you that the complete  moment was frozen in time there and it looked just like a little  glimpse of heaven.”
Thank you Lord for gracing our family with love, especially Your Love.  I am so thankful for the glimpse of heaven You provided at Jason & Alycia’s wedding in so many ways.  It was a perfect day because of YOU.

The LORD has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy.

Psalm 126:3

(more photos coming tomorrow…)

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Life is crazy right now…

Life is busy right now – real busy.

This past weekend, Labor Day weekend, we celebrated a friend’s wedding (which I helped coordinate) and Nic &  Audrianna were home from Chicago to be in the wedding.  Bill and I celebrated our 29th wedding anniversary which means Josiah and Laryssa celebrated their 1st anniversary.  The weekend also included a few hours at a county fair, church (of course) and a bonfire with family friends.  Before we could blink, it was time to say good-bye to Audrianna again (always with tears).  On Monday after she left,  my wonderful husband and I enjoyed time together by renting a pontoon boat for a few hours on Lake Arther at Moraine State Park.  It was so nice to enjoy the beauty of the lake, eat a sandwich together and just spend time together.  I snuggled in close to him as he captained our boat and no words were needed – it was just great to be together.

Life is crazy right now – we are in the final count down to Jason and Alycia’s wedding.   It is a joy to see how God has worked to bring Jason and Alycia together and how ready they are to be married.  Since Alycia no longer lives with us, planning her wedding has involved many trips to her home about an hour away.  The plans are coming together and of course there are still things to do.

Alycia is going to be a beautiful bride, I can’t wait to see her in her wedding dress with her jewelry and  hair done wearing the veil her mother-in-law (soon to be) is making her.  They are so excited to be married!!  The reception is an outside (under roof) picnic reception – we are praying for nice weather.  I cannot wait to see my friend Merry who is flying in from California to do the food (she is an amazing friend to do this for us).   And I cannot wait to see Audrianna and Nic who are coming home from Chicago (again for another wedding) and Josiah, Laryssa and Joey (and all the other guests who are arriving 🙂 ).

Enjoy a few photos of the engaged couple….

They are so happy together..

This was in our backyard.

I love this one (she kept laughing when they were suppose to kissing)

And to top off an already busy schedule, I am planning a fund-raiser for Pine Valley Camp on September 19 through my Blessings Unlimited Business (more about this in a later post).  Today was the first day of MOPS and we had a roomful of new Mothers and 105 preschool children in the MOPPETS program – which is WONDERFUL!!  I am so excited for another year of MOPS.

So life is crazy right now and I am hanging on.  I am so thankful  that God has blessed my life with all of these wonderful gifts.  (But if you feel the desire to pray for me at any time in the next several weeks – I could use it)

“So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.”  Colossians 2:7

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My Child’s Child

Many times in the past, I have written this verse in the cards of  new Grandparents.  Now I can relate to its message.

Psalm 128

“Blessed are all who fear the LORD, who walk in His ways.

You will eat the fruit of your labor; blessings and prosperity will be yours.

Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house;  your sons will be like olive shoots around your table.

Thus is the man blessed who fears the LORD.

May the LORD bless you from Zion all the days of your life; may you see the prosperity of Jerusalem, and may you live to see your children’s children.

Peace be upon Israel.

Each day I am learning more about seeing my child’s child (mostly through photos sent via email or phone).  His photos make me smile and I find myself viewing them often.  My heart is drawn to him and  I am longing to see and hold him again.  It is a different emotion than having my own children,  it is sweet, nostalgic, intense, and growing more so each day.

Today, Laryssa wrote a blog post that brought tears to my eyes http://jojolaryss.wordpress.com/2010/09/01/dear-lord/.  It reminded me again of my new role as a “Grammie” and that I am to pray.  To pray for the generation that my children will parent –  that the Lord will draw my grandchildren into a saving relationship with Him at an early age and that they will hold tight to His truths all of their lives.  That is what I prayed at their wedding a year ago (as we prayed over Josiah and Laryssa ) that the Christian legacy of both families would continue to the next generation.

My child’s child will live beyond me and serve a generation yet to come – but my deepest desire is that we will spend eternity together.  May I encourage each of you to pray for your children, grandchildren and those to come to be drawn into a saving relationship with our Lord and serve Him all the days of their lives – and may we lead the way, straight into the arms of our eternal Father.

“from everlasting to everlasting
the LORD’s love is with those who fear Him,
and His righteousness with their children’s children”

Amen and Amen

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