Encouraging and Wise Words

I found this on Denise's blog and she got it off of Your Sacred Calling's blog. To read the rest of the article you can go to Your Sacred Calling. This is incredible and it really hit home with me since I tend to have a lot of those "honest depiction, real life, down-to-earth days" around here. It is very hard work at times but it has the most incredibly miraculous rewards at the end of the day. Usually I don't even have a chance to get to the end of the day before I am reminded by 2 sweet chubby arms wrapped around my neck or tiny little lips pressing hard to mine or a thrown-over-the-shoulder "I love you, Mom" or a Milky Way that mysteriously showed up on the kitchen cabinet after they walked up to the gas station or a brand new glass of water sitting where my empty one was.

And the idolatry part is so true. I find myself elevating other large families a little too high sometimes since I tend to look at their older children and want so badly for my kids to grow similarly in maturity as they age. I tend to put them on a pedestal and elevate the idea of their older children and how mature and submissive they seem. And surely, as all families do, I am quite sure they struggle with issues that face parents raising teenagers. But it seems like such a perfect picture and the children all seem so well rounded. It's hard sometimes looking at other people's large families and seeing their seemingly perfect toddlers that never dig into any crap at all....and then living with my rowdy, curious little crew that I find impossible to watch every minute of every day. I'm still trying to figure out exactly how to manage my swiftly growing family without beating them every minute of every hour.

And it's also true being on the other end of it, having other families and/or people that lift our humble, very imperfect, way too fault filled little family to god status. As is way too evident by this blog, we fall far from even an average large family! The ones that make their own bread at all times, talk in high pitched gentle voices every minute of the day, feed their children everything in life that is whole in the food category and organic in every way, never in life stick their children in front of a video, put their babies in organic cloth diapers and the like and never in a lifetime ever find bodily functions quite as humorous as we do. We are definitely more than human and imperfect in rearing our large family. And coming from someone that has been elevated by some to that ungodly status I can tell you that what in here that is said is so much more than just a little bit true.

"It’s true; some days seem overwhelming. There are times when child rearing is just plain old “hard work.” Try as we might, our houses never stay perfectly clean, and each of our children is disobedient at least once every day. We could throw up our hands on those difficult mornings and claim for ourselves a day of defeat and failure, but God has a higher calling for us and sanctifies us through the day-to-day challenges.We’re not to serve God by pretending life is easy for us or that we have it all down perfectly, because it’s not and we don’t. The world needs an honest depiction of real down-to-earth people living out real life to the glory of God. Unbelievers will see God in us when we demonstrate contentment wherever He has us, when they see the peace He gives us in trials, and when we give rather than take.

Don’t Blame Your Idols for Your Idolatry!

Don’t make the mistake of elevating anyone else to perfection status either. The family you’ve put up on a pedestal more than likely didn’t ask to be put there and won’t be very pleased when they feel themselves crash to the floor after you discover for yourself they are fallible humans, just like the rest of us. No matter what it looks like from your vantage point, the people in the family you’ve idolized still sin, the children aren’t perfect, the mom sometimes says unkind things, the father speaks in sinful anger from time to time, and their family creates messes that have to be cleaned, just like yours does."