Active Mothering

I love this free ebook from the Simply Charlotte Mason website.  http://simplycharlottemason.com/books/smooth-easy-days-with-charlotte-mason/




Since so much of a mother's job feels like putting out fires, hurrying from one emergency to another, sometimes we forget that the reason why we are intensely focused on raising our children is because we have the opportunity to raise people of character.  The question is, how do we do that actively instead of passively just hoping that it will happen? 

Active, not passive mothering: this is my quest.  One answer is by building character-building habits into our children.  Charlotte Mason talked about  introducing and focusing on a new habit every 6 weeks.  At first that seems underwhelming, but one new habit every six weeks over 10 years adds up to building people of character.  When we first started doing this, I bought a white board for my fridge and wrote the habit we were working on in bold letters and how it would be reinforced.

(As I am writing this, baby is standing behind me playing peekaboo while he "talks" by sticking his tongue in and out of his mouth fast.  He is such a charmer!...so now he is settled into an early morning bath while you and I finish our chat.)

I picked a subject that needed immediate attention:  a peaceful dinner time at which Andrew and I were able to order the amount of focus the children gave to their food.  Basic.  Before dinner started, I reminded them, "Caed and Maddie, what do you need to ask before you can get down?  "Can I get down now please?" "and then what happens?"  "We take our plate over to the sink."  "That's right.  Good thinking."    What character are we working on?  Cleanliness, being people of focus and obedience...it was just what was most needed at the time.  Right now we are working on keeping our shoes and coats at the front door as the winter season begins. I give a gentle remind er when we are still in the car what they need to be thinking about when they walk in.  Again, right now we are working on remedial stuff.

The question is, how can we parent, helping our children to make necessary connections and becoming independant little people of character...without becoming the nagging overparenting mother?

Slowly.  Deliberately.  Actively.

Anyone else have any great ideas or resources for active parenting?  If we are going to make the building of the next generation one of our major life goals, we need to do it with a focus on active mothering and teach eachother how to give our children the best possible chance for an obedient, joyful life in Christ.

Now everyone is awake, cuddled on the bathroom floor and it is time to begin another active homeschooling day.

Homeschooling...and shocking, I know... it's fun!

The summer is nearly over and I can definitely say that I am back...in more ways than one. 

We're homeschooling...a decision that I agonized over for the last few years.  My mothering stress level was crazy high and neither Andrew or I could have anticipated what has just occurred. 

I LOVE HOMESCHOOLING!  Who knew?  We've been "practicing" for the last month so that I could make an informed decision and have settled into a blend of Charlotte Mason and Classical for now.  Caedmon is an older Kindergartener and loves learning and Madeline has a mind that memorizes everything around her.  She soaks up knowledge without trying.  Caedmon and I were doing a few flashcards on question  sight words and Madeline was barely paying attention though every once in a while she would look up, barely emotionally engaged and in a monotone, say the right word (which had been shuffled, I promise.)

Right now our curriculum is using Living Books Charlotte Mason style and doing our other learning activities surrounding them.  Caedmon told his friend yesterday that he wasn't interested in going to school where you had to sit behind a desk and do worksheets all day.  "Yup," his friend said, "that's pretty much what we do."  You should see the tee pee in our backyard. 

I love my job.  No longer do I watch Andrew go out the door and secretly wish I had a "day off" to be a priest.  Passionate mothering is no longer a catch word to aspire to, but  (major prayer answered!) a reality.  I have always adored my children, but for the first time, I have major amounts of joy surrounding the work God has called me to.  I even started getting all domestic, baking and stuff.  No more Little Ceasar's crappy pizza.  Hello Barefoot Contessa's honey and kosher salt infused pizza dough. 

Homeschooling seems to order our day and builds quality time right into our schedule.  The bonding the kids and I are doing is deeper (Madeline even started wanting cuddle time in the morning) and even Andrew is getting involved reading "The Sign of the Beaver," before bed.  (We're doing all things American Indians from the late 1800's right now because that's where Caed's interest was already.) 

Personally, I love the creativity involved.  I've always been a learner and a researcher and spending time figuring out how to form feast-laying curriculum is fascinating.  The other night, I spent an hour of my after-bedtime free time figuring out how to make Madeline Sacajawea paper dolls!  Mothering has become my new guilty pleasure.  

I am rejoicing right now as this all has been extremely surprising and frankly, I am drinking insane amounts of orange green tea which steeps in the fridge at all times and is probably adding to the happy buzz.   Thank you, God and thank you, Lipton.

Do Your Life With Courage

So girlfriends, I brushed Madeline's hair into pigtails this morning (the best way to deal with the tangles in her hair this week) and watched her and Caedmon walk outside to preschool, backpacks on, holding onto each of Daddy's hands.  Then I quickly grabbed the high chair, positioned it in front of the tv with favorite finger snacks, slid Xavier into the seat and got my little stairmaster machine out from beside the futon.  I clicked the TV on to Life Today and I'm exercising next to Xavier and the further Beth Moore gets into her talk, the faster I'm working my little machine.  By the end of her prayer, I'm breaking a sweat, hands are raised and I'm crying out, "Thank you, Jesus," like a good Pentecostal.  Anglicans can recognize the Spirit too!


I have been listening to this one talk of hers from the archives for a week and they ran it again today!  I don't care what you think about her accent, past teachings, even her gender, if you listen to this talk, You Will Be Encouraged, Changed, Strengthened by God and Transformed!


She said, and I'm paraphrasing now: "Live your life with confidence.  Do your life with courage.  The Spirit of Christ is within you.  He has enough courage for everything you are going through."


The powerful, fruit-filled, Spirit-filled life of the early church apostles is available to us today!   Our God has not changed!  The Spirit is not less powerful than He was 2000 years ago! 


Romans 8:11 (New International Version)



11And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.


Seriously?  The same Spirit who (Ephesians 1:19-20) raised Christ from the dead is within us?  If we are attached to the Vine, abiding in Him, and are being continuously filled with the Spirit, His lifeblood is flowing within us. 


Boy, some days I feel and act like the opposite.  Some days I'm walking with the Spirit in strength, listening, hungry for the Scripture and being transformed.  Other days I'm walking eyes down, defeated, muttering while I clean my house.)  What I forget is how close the Creator of the Universe is!  He is here. Present in my home.  Even within me! 


This is the truth.  If Christ's Spirit is within me, His wisdom, strength, healing power, joy, AND PARENTING ABILITIES are right here for me to call upon, for Him to work into me.  Once you have tasted a life, Practicing the Presence of God (like Brother Lawrence), filled with the Spirit, empowered by Him for your everyday life.  I promise you, you are not going to want to go back! You will know that the Kingdom of God is upon you and you will be the mother you were created by God to be.


(If you want to hear more about this, listen to my sermon on the left, "Epicenters of the Kingdom." And if you do anything today,  you must get yourself over to http://www.lifetoday.org/ You can watch or listen by pressing going to the left hand side and clicking under Beth Moore's picture on flash/quicktime to watch or MP3 to listen.  She's always on LifeToday on Wednesdays and there are archives of each of her talks over the last year.  Almost all of them are worth your time.  I promise you.)

Acceptance with Joy

Tonight I confessed to my Bible study girls around our little table that sometimes my heart isn't in mothering. I was speaking from experience. Read: today. Last night, I stayed up seriously contacts-glued-to-my-eyes late. Then, my wake up call was Xavier's hungry cry...thus, no quiet time and thus, no Perspective. And all day I was tired, craving sugar and a bit short.

I DO have a point. I promise.

All that to say that I NEED my heart to be in mothering! The days I want to shut the kids up with artificial babysitters (read Tag and tv) are the days that no ones' real needs are met.

Recently I listened to John Eldredge's Desire conference which is free on his podcast itunes site for download. (Get thee hence. AMAZING. I've mentioned it in another post.) He entreated us to live with our hearts alive and to have vocations spring out of that. Yes, But. Some of us are called to vocations that are dear to the Lord's heart like mothering which sometimes is more a test of endurance and rarely makes my heart skip faster. (Though come on Summer...cuddling with the little creatures on the couch tonight was definitely a sweet moment.)

A dear older mother I know from another church listened to me last September share about the 1 and 4 am feedings. "Does he go right to sleep?" "Yes, thank goodness" "Oh" she smiled, "then it just gives you enough time for a quick little cuddle." Hmmmmm I was sleep deprived and exhausted on many levels. In response to her sweetness I have to say my not so Christian first inclination was to react snarkily and then I determined that a change in my mindset would indeed make life easier. "Take every thought captive" and all that.

I want my heart to be engaged in mothering. I NEED my heart engaged in mothering.

There's a little yellow flower that Much Afraid in Hinds Feet on High Places meets in the Valley of Loneliness (or some such place) who has grown right up under a drainpipe, catching a drink from the occassional drip. Much Afraid is surprised to find a lovely flower in a desert and asks, "What is your name, little flower?" The flower replies, "I am Acceptance with Joy."

Acceptance with Joy. That can only be a purely supernatural way of being. Acceptance with Joy can only come through the Holy Spirit, a type of transmutation of fruit, an apple/pomegranate/plaintain: peace, joy, gentleness, etc.

Yes. Sometimes we don't get to choose our circumstances but joy and acceptance I CAN choose. I can choose to lift up my heart along with my little yellow face and look for the drip knowing that if it has come from my Lord, it WILL BE ENOUGH! He is always enough.

I can abide in the Vine and He promised that He will abide in me and there...there is where my life comes from and how my heart will be engaged. And that is not optional. It is essential.

Fighting on the Winning Team

I just finished watching The Blind Side and was struck like everyone else in America by the courage of Michael Oher's white Mama. She was a Champion for her family, marching into the darkness packing heat (in a quilted Chanel purse, no doubt.)

A week ago I met the Blind Side character's African parallel. She entered the store front Kalamazoo Prayer Clinic after us, walked in and sat down purposefully. Without much small talk she went straight to prayer and started to fight for her son. After a few minutes in prayer, we gathered that her son was having a difficult time in school and the teachers were becoming a part of the problem. Her son was losing confidence in his gifts. She prayed down all his opposition the way Sandra Bullock as Leigh Anne Tuohy confronted the drug dealers of inner city Memphis.

She prayed with passion and directness and a week later I still remember this:

She prayed that Christ's blood would cover her son as a protection. Christ's blood, she said, would remind the evil one of his defeat at the cross and his final defeat at the second coming. (Revelations 12:11)

She prayed against those who would try to diminish her son against the will of God. "He is filled with the Holy Spirit and with fire. I pray anyone who touches him against the will of the Father would be burned, and their work turned to ashes."

She prayed in her great African Alto voice using his long African name (that I could never quite catch) that his character would match his name.

With fervor she did battle in that small back room of the prayer clinic until she was prayed out. Her smile afterward said that she knew her Redeemer had heard and was fighting for her. "And how can we pray for you," she asked us when the hard work had been done.

My prayer partner and I got into the car and looked at eachother with triumph, "That boy is going to be just fine," we said at the same time. How could he not be, we wondered aloud with a mama championing him and confident before the throne of heaven. (Hebrews 4:16 Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. NIV)

I want to be her. I don't want to be caught playing the victim in self-pity or angry and cynical. I want to pray without ceasing.

I recently learned to have my husband's back, to pray for him early, as he walks out the front door, and late as he's falling asleep, my hand on his back. I've learned as another fierce mama I know advised me around Christmastime, to go to his Boss first if we are having a disagreement, then wait for the Holy Spirit to work in his heart or be open for the Counselor's work in mine.

I only hope to become like my own mama. Every morning in high school I would walk past my mama's prayer closet/office to the master bathroom to get ready for school. It was a round brick room which used to be a kiln in southern Ohio and was put back up in the same shape. I believe that many a spiritual plan of God's was fired in that space. As I tiptoed passed, she would be on her knees in her robe before her blue couch crying out to God. Often she would look up and say good morning, with tears in her eyes, the sun rising just outside the huge window beside her, putting her in a backlit profile.

These days I have her and my sister to pray with and there is no greater joy. We spend time enjoying God's presence in adoration, bust down walls with repentance between ourselves and the Lord, and then suit up (Ephesians 6:10-) and join the privilege of partnering with Him in prayer.

"The prayers of God's saints are the capital stock of heaven by which God carries on His great work on earth," says Paul Billheimer in Destined for the Throne. This quote scares the bijeebies out of me. Could it be true? It seems that many who have seen the biggest acts of God in history have lived and prayed as if it were so. (You have not because you ask not. James 4:2)

Sometimes I forget when I wake up to three kids bouncing on me at 6:30 in the morning that I need to approach the day fierce and focused. It requires

pajama party with just the girls (oh, and baby too)

What a gift tonight was. I can always tell when there's something wrong with Madeline because she starts getting whiny, talking baby talk and getting ornery with the boys. Today started out bad. The baby talk began as soon as she woke up and I knew we were in for a long day. On the way back from the children's museum I had to discipline her for continually hurting her big brother.

Let me back up. As a baby, Madeline didn't seem to bond with me right away. She was less people oriented then her brothers and I wasn't quite sure how to break through to a personality that always seemed jealous of the attention spent on anyone else. She wanted to be held all the time but would barely show me affection. Hoever, she was extremely affectionate with her nana and auntie whenever they were around. And, although she was never a "quiet" child, she never seemed to talk about anything personal. That pattern of behavior continued until I started discovering that one of the keys to Madeline's heart was quality alone time with mom and dad.

This last fall I took her school clothes shopping to get ready for preschool and she perked up, by that evening, she began hugging me more, and even told me a "secret." She went to sleep quiet and peacefully without three trips downstairs to "go to the bathroom."

John and Charles Wesleys' mom, Susanna raised ten children and this is one of the ways she talked about motherhood to her husband in a letter:


"I am a woman, but I am also the mistress of a large family. And though the superior charge of the souls contained in it lies upon you, yet in your long absence I cannot but look upon every soul you leave under my charge as a talent committed to me under a trust. I am not a man nor a minister, yet as a mother and a mistress I felt I ought to do more than I had yet done. I resolved to begin with my own children; in which I observe, the following method: I take such a proportion of time as I can spare every night to discourse with each child apart. On Monday I talk with Molly, on Tuesday with Hetty, Wednesday with Nancy, Thursday with Jacky, Friday with Patty, Saturday with Charles."

I love that. She knew her children's emotional needs, to have mother's full attention for a period of time each week. Surely with only three children, I can do that too.

Tonight was Madeline's. We watched a girly movie, had oreos and milk and then had lotion massages...feet first, hands, faces even and ewww ears? not so good. She got to smell different types of lotion to decide which one was her favorite and then we spent time talking and having quality face to face time. By the end of the night, Madeline was telling secrets in a big girl voice again.

BTW, I love that under "Occupation" for Susanna Wesley in Wikipidia it says: Mother of Methodism. Not a bad gig for someone who didn't know they were helping to launch revival in the Anglican church. :)

A Day of Small Things. Oh Joy.

Love these lyrics from Alli Rogers song: The Day of Small Things

‘Cause I am afraid of believing,
The plans that we make seem so big.
But you’ve shown me that we’re never alone,
and your spirit will stay by our side.
So I won’t despise,
I won’t despise the day,
I won’t despise the day of small things.

I think one of the lies of the enemy is that moms are dispensable...that what we do is small and unimportant. That's what the culture tells us, and frankly on some days that's what my heart tells me. What I used to do and sometimes still get to do feels heavy and important and hard. Somehow changing diapers and making dinner and cleaning up AGAIN feels small and in the disposable category.

But, do you know what I learned a few weeks ago and need to relearn today? Much of this feels small (though I know that in God's eyes it isn't - His economy is different :) but I'm allowed to find joy in the small things. Isn't that silly? Somehow I thought that I wasn't allowed to enjoy that which was simple - had no life or death importance. Maybe you've never experienced this. I think it has to do with that material/spirit split that the gnostics were pushing so hard in the early church. They thought things that had to do with the spirit were the essentials and everything material should be run away from at best, and killed at worst. We've still got some of this thinking in today's theology. That which is spiritual is important, clothes, houses, crocuses and shiny chocolate sheetcakes, not important. This creates a very confusing message for those of us who serve, moms, nurses, etc.

Instead, if I "remember" Eden and a God who created the miraculous milky way as well as the simple wheat and then called both good, I can learn that in God I can lift up the simple moments in my life and rejoice in them. This cuddling of the baby into my belly. It is good. This making a simple bread, bologna and cheese sandwich? It is good. All these small things can be a part of my relationship with God.

Come, Lord Jesus, Come. Come into my small things and fill them with Your Presence, Your joy. This can be Another Day in Paradise.

mommy vitamin by one of our founding mothers

"Well, knowledge is a fine thing, and mother Eve thought so; but she smarted so severely for hers, that most of her daughters have been afraid of it since. "
— Abigail Adams

I am embarrassed to admit that I didn't know motherhood took such serious smarts. This was one of my pre-children feminist enlightened mindsets. Motherhood, I thought, wasted the minds of intelligent women. There, confession doesn't always feel good. I had no idea how many day-offs (because I believe that every mother needs one in order to keep her sanity) I would spend in the library and bookstore devouring books about early childhood education, nutrition, smart discipline, and household organization. I HAD NO IDEA that motherhood would take all that I had to give and more.

I believe that the most important time in a mommy's day is in scripture and prayer. There is no way that I can have the love, joy, peace, patience etc. that I need unless I am filled with the Spirit, practicing the Presence and LISTENING to the word of Wisdom God desires to give. The other day I overheard Madeline telling Baby this, "I'm going to tell you a story of a bad little girl, and that bad little girl is me." Wow. Did Madeline really believe that she was bad to the core...and that she was defined by that? I believe that it was the Holy Spirit who quickened my mind to catch those words and then to understand what those words meant to Maddie. I pulled Madeline up on my lap, looked her in the eye and said, "Madeline, you are my good girl. Jesus forgives the bad things that we do and then makes us good girls again. YOU ARE A GOOD GIRL." Her face lit up and said in a high pitched voice, "Good girl. Good girl." I spent the next week telling Maddie that she was my "good girl." Each Much of her whininess and acting out began to stop.

Sometimes it "feels" like my prayer time is empty. I haven't really connected. But, it always whets my appetite for more. It makes me thirsty. The kids wake up. I put on my favorite Sara Groves pandora station or Fernando Ortega station and I keep praying through the morning. Other times I have been given wisdom right in the middle of my prayer times for that day's mothering. Sure, sometimes it is a short 5 minutes because of baby's early wake up cry, but always VITAL to prime my listening-to-God ability for the rest of the toddler-paced day.

Mommy vitamin by anonymous writer

One night, a group of us were having dinner, celebrating the return of a friend from England ..

Janice had just gotten back from a fabulous trip, and she was going on and on about the hotel she stayed in.

I was sitting there, looking around at the others all put together so well. It was hard not to compare and feel sorry for myself.

I was feeling pretty pathetic, when Janice turned to me with a beautifully wrapped package, and said, 'I brought you this.'

It was a book on the great cathedrals of Europe ..

I wasn't exactly sure why she'd given it to me until I read her inscription:

'To My Dear Friend, with admiration for the greatness of what you are building when no one sees.'

In the days ahead I would read - no, devour - the book. And I would discover what would become for me, four life-changing truths, after which I could pattern my work:

No one can say who built the great cathedrals - we have no record of their names.

These builders gave their whole lives for a work they would never see finished.

They made great sacrifices and expected no credit.

The passion of their building was fueled by their faith that the eyes of God saw everything.

A legendary story in the book told of a rich man who came to visit the cathedral while it was being built, and he saw a workman carving a tiny bird on the inside of a beam. He was puzzled and asked the man, 'Why are you spending so much time carving that bird into a beam that will be covered by the roof? No one will ever see it.' And the workman replied, 'Because God sees'

I closed the book, feeling the missing piece fall into place.

It was almost as if I heard God whispering to me, 'I see you. I see the sacrifices you make every day, even when no one around you does. No act of kindness you've done, no sequin you've sewn on, no cupcake you've baked, is too small for me to notice and smile over. You are building a great cathedral, but you can't see right now what it will become.'

At times, my invisibility feels like an affliction. But it is not a disease that is erasing my life.

It is the cure for the disease of my own self-centeredness. It is the antidote to my strong, stubborn pride.

I keep the right perspective when I see myself as a great builder. As one of the people who show up at a job that they will never see finished, to work on something that their name will never be on.

The writer of the book went so far as to say that no cathedrals could ever be built in our lifetime because there are so few people willing to sacrifice to that degree.

When I really think about it, I don't want my son to tell the friend he's bringing home from college for Thanksgiving, 'My Mom gets up at 4 in the morning and bakes homemade pies, and then she hand bastes a turkey for three hours and presses all the linens for the table.' That would mean I'd built a shrine or a monument to myself. I just want him to want to come home. And then, if there is anything more to say to his friend, to add, 'you're going to love it there.'

As mothers, we are building great cathedrals.. We cannot be seen if we're doing it right.

And one day, it is very possible that the world will marvel, not only at what we have built, but at the beauty that has been added to the world by the sacrifices of invisible women.

Living life gloriously in miniature

Yesterday as I was reading a bedtime story to my children, I learned the true wisdom of this last Chesterton quote. I was dramatizing Corduroy the way I used to act for highschool/college plays, Which used to be one of my favorite things to do. The question is: why should I put less excellence in my readings for a few little minds as I used to for crowds? And all of a sudden I felt the pleasure of God. His ideas of success are different than our world's.

Lord, I want so much to mother out of freedom and joy and after a trying season of just putting my head down and trying to just get through the day without anyone at the doctor's, I want to learn to mother, not with duty but with passion.

Mommy Vitamin

A Favorite:

"To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labours, and holidays; to be Whitely within a certain area, providing toys, boots, cakes and books; to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can imagine how this can exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one's own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone and narrow to be everything to someone? No, a woman's function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute."
— G.K. Chesterton