Actions Speak Louder Than Words

“Mommy… I love you!” The words melt your heart because you know they are the truest ones you’ll ever hear from anyone. Your precious child… the one you carried and bore… the one that you would do anything for… no matter what.

Our children have the ability to inflict unspeakable joy as well as tremendous pain to our hearts and souls. Forgiveness and our unconditional love for them is what allows a mother to overlook the hurts… this level of love is reserved only to these souls who’ve entered into our lives. Spouses, lovers and friends are not subject to this type of unconditional love.

I’ve often told my children that their actions speak louder than their words… a cliché it may very well be, but so much truth is forced through this simple yet powerful statement. Our children may shower us with gifts and loving words, but actions of disobedience and disrespect reveal a disturbing truth. I understand fully that our children will do things that they’ll later regret and through their actions of genuine remorse, we see their love.

Relationships with adults are different. When you’ve opened up your heart and laid it upon the altar… bare and naked, you’ve given something of yourself. It’s the ‘do unto others as you’d have them do unto you’ kind of thing. Actions as well as words will create a loving bond between two people or drive a wedge between their two hearts. Love and trust must be nurtured or a necessary good-bye must sadly be said.

You find yourself at a crossroad and you have to ask yourself… “Are you going to do it again? Are you going to except the pain again?”

Before you step onto either road, consider your heart because actions do speak louder than words.
Until next time,
Jean

Purpose

“Sometimes it’s the same moments that take your breath away that breathe purpose and love back into your life.”

~ Steve Maraboli ~

Loving someone has an incredible impact on your heart and soul. It’s causes both intense pain as well as overwhelming joy. My question today is, ‘What are you willing to do in the name of love? What are you willing to sacrifice? What are willing to tolerate?”

These pose some challenging thoughts running through my mind.

As a mother, I’m willing to go pretty far out…

As a Christian… well, maybe not so far….

Our children are literally blood of our blood, bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh. The pregnancy… the development… the childbirth…

The first time we look into those eyes there is an instant bond that no one can break… not even the child.

The first moment we hold them in our arms and feel their nakedness upon our own… the warmth… the natural instinct to die for this child.

The first moment that child suckles on you… you are its life source…

I remember everyone of my children grasping onto my finger for the first time…

I remember everyone of my children’s first movement within my body…

I remember the incredible feeling that leapt into my heart the first time I felt their bodies movement within my own…

I remember…

The anxiousness of their first time away from me. For a few of them they were never without me for the first year of their life… it wasn’t a burden. It wasn’t a difficult decision. It was by far my own. I wanted it that way. They won’t be little long…

I wouldn’t change a thing…

Except the disappointments I feel I caused in their lives.

Except the impatience I too often show.

How I wish I could take back those hasty words…

I have a purpose… and that purpose is to ‘train them in the way they should go, so when they are old they shall depart from it…’

Not only a purpose, but a deeply concentrated focus.

Let us each realize, those of us that have been given charge over a soul, remember whose it truly belongs to… the One above

A charge to keep we have…

Until next time,

Jean

He’s Three

Yesterday was my babies birthday… Aaron is three.

I remember the day I found out we were going to have baby number six, Lord willing…
I was forty years old… not really expecting another bundle of joy…
I was so stressed… so many things to think about all of a sudden…
I remember thinking, “I’ll be sixty when he’s twenty… what am I going to do with a twenty year old when I’m sixty?”

I remember the first time I felt him kick… there is nothing more incredible than that first…
I remember the ultra sound… when we found out it was a ‘he’… boy number five… our poor (smile) daughter Taylor… five brothers.
I remember going to the hospital… a scheduled C-section… number four of those.
I remember the anxiousness of yet another surgery… I remember praying, “God, please let everything thing go well… but Thy perfect will be done…”

I remember the doctor telling me everything looks great Jean…
I remember seeing his face for the first time…
I remember holding his naked body against mine…nursing him for the first time…
I remember his first cry… oh my heart…
I remember bringing him home and all the children so over joyed to see us… even Taylor (smile)…

I remember his first roll… his first crawl… his first steps… his first word…

I remember falling in desperate love with him… everyday over and over again…

Today he was running around… playing with his new toy chainsaw…
Today he was climbing up and down the barn hill… running fast and then slower each time…
Today he jumped in my lap and said he loved me as high as the moon…

Today if you ask him what his name is, he’ll say…”mommies baby”…
I am still in love with him every day more and more…

Until next time…
Jean

Blessings

“Moreover, as you walk close to Me, I can bless others through you.” – Sara Young in “Jesus Calling: Enjoying Peace in His Presence

Blessing others should be a main priority in every Christians life… especially a mothers for her family.

The other day my husband Neil was telling me about a situation that one of his colleagues shared about their sibling. This sibling is a single, homeless, drug addict with one child already removed from her custody. This young woman is living in abandoned buildings and not providing any food for this little one year old for days at a time. Neil’s colleague couldn’t watch this happen any longer and convinced her sibling to give the child over to her and her husband. The child is now in a safe, loving home with all the ‘basic’ necessities of life… the ones I take for granted.

I was relating this story to a friend and explaining how I often talk here about the love of a mother… the natural instinct that is placed in each one of us… that innate desire to care for that tiny infant after it’s placed in our arms for the first time…

It’s very difficult for me to understand how this happens and not judge them. I want to be able to bless others that fall into these circumstances though His love. I told Neil that this mother was once a child herself… what happened to her that led her down the path she now calls life? This question haunts me…

Today, lets look at our children with a love that Jesus has for them and be the blessing He wants us to be.

…and that mother, wherever she may be, my hearts prayer is that the Lord will bring someone to bless her life so she will allow Him to pull her out of that miry pit… because only He can.

Until next time,
Jean

Early Morning Peace

The air’s cool this morning… the sun’s bright and warm… I’m all alone and there is silence except the birds in the yard flirting with one another and having their morning glory… solitude brings peace to me.

My son Kyle has recently acquired a horse. He’s enjoying it immensely and seems to be a real natural on it. He’s up bright and early and right out for his morning jaunt. I had to wonder what he might be seeing this beautiful morning… what he’s thinking about… if he’s seeing God’s glory in it all…

He’s always been a very sensitive child. I remember when he was quite young, six or so, he was playing quite happily and suddenly the baby cried. He stopped what he was doing and went over and tenderly consoled him. His spirit is still like that at almost sixteen…

Guidance… how to lead a child unto the ways of God so that they will forever follow His leading for their lives. This is one of the challenges I feel so challenged with. They each are so different with their personalities… to love each one the way they need to be loved and encouraged… Oh this is the wisdom that I seek after.

“Maternal work is never done, mother concern never relaxed. A mother’s anxiety goes on as long as she and her children live. Her apron strings are divinely elastic, and though stretched to the ends of the earth they will not break.” – George N. Luccock

Until next time,
Jean

Appealing

When you see the word appealing, what does it make you think of?

Well, I think of my children making great attempts to ‘appeal’ to me. They appeal their rights, their idea’s and their desires to name a few. Children are passionate about how they feel… I’m learning this more and more each day as my daughter becomes a woman with her own idea’s and desires. They don’t always mesh with mine, and I am trying to understand, challenging though it is some days.

As adults we too appeal, often in the same ways as our children. We want to be understood and loved, we want to be listened to and cared for, we desire to be valued and respected.

Appealing is also what mothers do on a daily basis ‘for’ their children. The kind of appealing I’m talking about is when we’re on our knees for them… appealing to the Lord to keep His hand of safety and protection over them… for guidance and wisdom in training them ‘in the way they should go’… loving each one, as different as they are, the way they need to be loved as individuals…

I look at these precious young souls and the challenge to remain focused on the goal of raising them for Him and His glory seems overwhelming some days. But I believe that He will not forsake me and that my prayers will not be in vain…

“I remember her prayers, and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life.”- Abraham Lincoln
Until next time,
Jean

Happy Smiles

“Happy is the child to whom the love a mother is a noble stimulus.” – Hamilton Wright Mabie

I love to see my children’s happy smiles… what mother doesn’t?

I love to watch them play and laugh… giggling when a butterfly floats on a breeze or when a humming bird whizzes by speedily. The innocent wonderment of their lives exhilarates me bringing a smile to my face. Aaron and Even will be busy in the sandbox making roads and ditches for their toy tractors to go through. Making all the ‘rrrhhhhuuuummmmssss’ and crash sounds of their heavy machinery.

The older boys now have a different look… one of determination and a will to ‘get it done!’ Men in the making. They no longer crawl up in my lap for tender mommy moments. It’s different now… resting on the arm of the couch beside me showing me a picture in a magazine or standing over my shoulder while I rest in the chair telling me about the days latest and greatest. The excitement in their tones as they tell me how they got the horse to finally gallop.

Then my daughter… a rose blooming. So young and eager for the next adventure, just awaiting what will present itself around the next bend in the road. Her high spirits and quick temper remind me more of myself then I care to admit. But I see what the Lord has done in and for me, and I will trust her safely into His tender, patient hands.

Happy is the child when mother…
Tenderly chides…
Sweetly caresses…
Lovingly guides…
Patiently watches…

The wisdom to stimulate positively takes much care. Ohhh, that my Heavenly Father will continue to lead and direct my paths so that I may ‘train them up in the way they should go, so when they are old, they will depart from it….’

Until next time,
Jean

Hold me mommy….

Friday’s are terribly busy for our family. We are getting ready for market and the day can get away on me quite quickly. Last Friday Evan was a big helper as usual… but by the end of the day he just wanted to be held. “hold me mommy,” he sweetly asked as I was cleaning and bunching the last of the scallions. “Hold on honey, this is the last thing. As soon as I’m done I’ll hold you and read you a story.” He was very understanding and waited patiently on my chair.

As soon as I was done we snuggled down and had our special time… he’s five and these days won’t be here much longer. My heart was so blessed to just sit and hold him. Our children can’t begin to imagine or understand the depth of our love for them.

There is only One other who’s love is greater than that of mother. When I ponder on God’s love, it simply takes my breath away. He selflessly gave His only son to die a horrible death on the cross… for me… and for you. What unsearchable love…

“Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons (and daughters*) of God.” 1 John 3:1

Until next time,
Jean

He Knew Me…

“My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.” Psalms 139:15

His sheep know His voice

I was talking with a brother in the Lord the other day about Easter and the depth of the Lords love for us. In the course of the conversation he said, “He knew me before I was…” Have you ever thought deeply on that scriptural truth?

It really touched me and as I pondered it, I thought about my own children and the amount of love I have for them. Although I realize that no love was ever or could be greater than that of the Father’s love for us.

I look at my children and dwell on the miracle that each one is… the gift each one has been to my life. My daughter… a diamond in the rough, who is maturing into a woman of God… one that will give her whole being over to Him to work His love in. My son’s… each one, I pray will grow into a godly man who honors Him as Lord of his life.

“Say to mothers, what a holy charge is theirs; with what a kingly power their love might rule the fountains of the newborn mind.” Lydia Huntley Sigourney

Oh that each one would truly know the depth of my love for them…
Until next time,
Jean

Love you all the way to the moon…

Evan and I were snuggled up on the couch this morning gazing out at the moon…It was so big and bright. I love to watch his expressions when he sees all of God’s wonderful creations and when I tell him He made the stars and the moon for us to have the night light.

“I love you all the way to the moon & the stars” I whisper in his ear… eyes tenderly look into mine… he just smiles and holds on tighter.

When I tell the older ones this, they just look at me silly… but I know deep down they are happy I still tell them…. We all like to be told we are loved. It gives a sense of security and can bring cheer to the weary. Love is a healing balm to a troubled spirit… it covereth a multitude of sins… it believes and hopes…

Until next time,
Jean