I am LOVING my new book so much and am considering beginning a Bible Study for moms in my home that utilizes this book. It's taking me a little longer than I would like to get through it, but I have learned so much already. Just a few highlights:
- Grace – defined as undeserved favor; serving in generous love
- We must teach our children to receive grace by extending grace to them and teaching them about God's grace through salvation. Then we must train them to give grace to others.
- Our children need for us to extend to them the gift of constant love, grace and forgiveness.
The Grace of Time Together
- Our influence as mothers comes from our willingness to be with our children and to serve them on a day to day basis.
- I realize my love and service must come to them before any of my great words, my teaching, my training.
- Loving discipline can be part of the gift of grace.
The Grace of Encouraging Words
- We can become the affirming voice of God to our children, just as we become a picture of his redeeming reality in their everyday lives.
- Words of instruction and training are indeed necessary for our children, but we must be careful not to discourage them through nagging, criticism and reprimands.
The Grace of Forgiveness in Action
- By guiding our children to the throne of God, we become like Christ to them as they develop their understanding of how to deal with the reality of sin and guilt.
- Sometimes we feel that we need to play the role of the Holy Spirit in our children's lives and impose great guilt on them so they will be hesitant to sin anymore. But this isn't shown in the life of Jesus. Jesus proclaimed forgiveness and extended his gracious forgiveness to all who sought him.
- Jesus took the time to personally talk to them about sin and to offer them grace.
- Our children need the same kind of gentle graciousness from us if they are to learn to share their vulnerability, to confess their own sin, and to be free to love. If they fear our strong condemnation and possible rejection, they will hide their sin, perhaps even deceive themselves about the nature of it.
- We must teach them what sin is, and we must discipline them appropriately when they knowingly stray. Yet we must also show them, as Christ did for his disciples, what it means to be able to go to the throne of God to receive forgiveness, the cleansing of our hearts, and God's unconditional love.
I pray that these are concepts that I will hide in my heart and utilize in my training of my children. I want them to be passionate about Christ! And I want my ministry to be effective!
These are all direct quotes from the book The Ministry of Motherhood written by Sally Clarkson.
My boy LOVES balls! He THROWS them, rolls them and plays catch with them. His football playing father has VERY high hopes at this time. Daddy isn't a fan of soccer (I'm saying that gently) but footballs don't roll as well as soccer balls. We also have baseballs and basketballs.
This is what happens when my girls get a hold of my digital camera.
Mommy, will you hold my Barbie and smile? 
We love our local strawberry farm. My hubby, yes not me, him, has been making strawberry preserves with the four buckets we picked and the girls and I made strawberry smoothies this morning for breakfast! They even drank them from our stemware, with a straw! Hilarious! These strawberries are so very sweet this year, the best we've had in a while. Thank you Lord!
