Happy Mother’s Day to All of the Special Mums

Today is Mother’s Day, and I would like to wish all Mothers a very special Mother’s Day.

There are those who would spurn the vocation of mothers,
And say that it’s inferior to the career of others,
I’ll have to admit that it’s not easy work,
It’s relentless and from it you cannot shirk.

It takes all your energy to be a mother and wife,
It requires daily commitment and a disciplined life,
It demands all your resources of patience and love,
Long-suffering and wisdom from God above.

It takes self-control and continual endurance,
It needs constant and faithful perseverance,
It is total sacrifice and forgetting your self,
You may sometimes think you are left on the shelf.

And what about time? It’s no longer yours,
It belongs to everyone else who comes in your doors.
Can you claim your own rights? No, they’re gone, too,
Like your right to sleep the whole night through!

It’s not so easy to crawl into bed with a book
Or go off and dream in some quiet little nook.
It seems like you’re totally losing your life
To be a good mother and a godly wife.

But oh, dear mother, please do not despair,
In God’s great vision you have a share,
You are fulfilling your destiny planned before Creation
Which is to nurture children and BUILD A NATION!

You are walking in the footsteps of Jesus your Lord
Who lived a life of sacrifice out-poured,
He didn’t cling to His rights with selfish futility,
He didn’t claim any privileges but walked in humility.

He gave up His own life to save millions of others,
This same principle is at work in the lives of mothers,
When you lose your own life you’ll find it again,
Glorious life – His life – even in toil and pain.

So lift up your head, embrace your calling so high,
You’re in God’s perfect will so you don’t have to sigh.
You may sometimes feel worthless – don’t listen to this lie,
For your influence will go higher than the clouds in the sky.

As you nurture and train your God-given seed,
As you sharpen these ‘arrows’ by word and by deed,
You shape the nation, you determine its course,
Your mothering is not wasted, but is a mighty force!

As your children leave home and go into the world
The stamp of your training will be unfurled,
Your influence will reach countries you’ve never been
And down the generations its extent will be seen.

Your work is so powerful, no wonder it’s tough,
But God is behind you, He’s the GOD WHO IS ENOUGH,
His strength and His wisdom are available to you,
He’ll stand behind His promises which are totally true.

He’ll always be with you right through to the end
As you follow His leading and deny the world’s trend,
Each morning you wake, your strength He’ll renew.
He’ll fill your home with His presence and His blessed peace, too.

Nancy Campbell

Taking a Break

Image from here.

I’m taking a break from blogging for a little while to spend some more time with our children before they’re all grown. I hope that you’ll be here when I get back, and that you’ll understand, but at the moment, I feel that it’s more important that I spend the time having Teddy Bear Picnics, playing dolls’ house and board games with our children.

Tomorrow my daughter and I are having a Teddy Bear’s Picnic on the side lawn ~ we did debate on having it down in the paddock with the goats, but thought that they might be a little boisterous! After that, we’re having some more fun!

Praise God for families, but especially for children!

Tea Talk

I’m Having:~
Dilmah Green tea in a pure white cup and saucer – my husband asked me if I would like a cup of tea, and when I said, yes, in a pretty cup, he took me literally. I love white, don’t you? It’s so crisp and clean looking. He also added a Wagon Wheel – I’m so glad that Tea Talk is only once a week, for I should be the size of a house if it were more often!

My Cup:~

I’m Feeling:~
A sense of relief knowing that we have received Home Help with the vacuuming and mopping each week. One week will be on a Wednesday and the following week will be on a Tuesday – the rest of the housework we can cope with, and it is a HUGE weight off my husband’s shoulders, too. Our heavenly Father knows what we have need of before we even ask.

On My Mind:~

• A very dear friend of ours had a skin cancer removed from his nose, and had to have a skin graft. He has had to give up smoking so that the skin graft will take, and I’m praying that the skin graft will take and that he’ll be able to kick the habit once and for all. He’s a delightful man, but there’s nothing of him. I really do feel that he would benefit from giving up smoking and being able to taste the food that he’s eating.
• Our new church building – praying that everything will move along without any problems, and that God will truly bless this step of faith on behalf of the church.
• My husband’s knee – the woodshed is now full, and we don’t have to worry about being cold this winter, praise God!
• These Bible verses are on my mind, as we are currently reading the Bible through chronologically in a year, and it is great that my daughter and I can keep one another on track with our Bible readings.

Two are better than one,
because they have a good return for their work:

If one falls down,
his friend can help him up.
But pity the man who falls
and has no one to help him up! Ecclesiastes 4: 9-10

I really enjoy Tea Talk each week, and love having you join me for a cuppa. Care to join, please visit Ruth at Celebrate Friendship to see the guidelines in her sidebar .

Cattitude is Everything!

This was an email that I received from my friend, Janice, and I thought that it was so true – attitude is EVERYTHING!

John is the kind of guy you love to hate. He is always in a good mood and always has something positive to say.

When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply,

‘If I were any better, I would be twins!’

He was a natural motivator.

If an employee was having a bad day, John was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation.

Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up and asked him, ‘I don’t get it!’

‘You can’t be a positive person all of the time.

I choose the positive side of life.

‘Yeah, right, it’s not that easy,’ I protested.

‘Yes, it is,’ he said.  ’Life is all about choices.

When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice.

You choose how you react to situations.  You choose how people affect your mood.

You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood.

The bottom line:  It’s your choice how you live your life.’

I reflected on what he said.  Soon hereafter, I left the Tower Industry to start my own business. We lost touch, but I often thought about him when I made a choice about life instead of reacting to it.

Several years later, I heard that he was involved in a serious accident, falling some 60 feet from a communications tower.

After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, he was released from the hospital with rods placed in his back.

I saw him about six months after the accident.

When I asked him how he was, he replied, ‘If I were any better, I’d be twins. Wanna see my scars?’

I declined to see his wounds, but I did ask him what had gone through his mind as the accident took place.

‘The first thing that went through my mind was the well-being of my soon-to-be born daughter,’ he replied. ‘Then, as I lay on the ground, I remembered that I had two choices:

I could choose to live or…I could choose to die.  I chose to live.’

‘Weren’t you scared?  Did you lose consciousness?’  I asked.

He continued, ‘…the paramedics were great.

They kept telling me I was going to be fine.  But when they wheeled me into the ER and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared.  In their eyes, I read ‘he’s a dead man’.  I knew I needed to take action.’

‘What did you do?’ I asked.

‘Well, there was a big burly nurse shouting questions at me, said John. ‘She asked if I was allergic to anything ‘Yes, I replied.’  The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply.  I took a deep breath and yelled, ‘Gravity”

Over their laughter, I told them, ‘I am choosing to live.

Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead.’

He lived, thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude….I learned from him that every day we have the choice to live fully.

Attitude, after all, is everything.

Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.  Each day has enough trouble of its own. Matthew 6:34.

After all, today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.

I Can Do All Things…

For about an hour to an hour and a half each day, my daughter has been working on her Peter Rabbit longstitch (with supervision, of course), but the best thing about this is that we have worked out how to longstitch together, and I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me. My daughter has learned a new skill, and I think that you’ll have to agree, Peter Rabbit’s looking pretty impressive!

All that remains is to put his whiskers on, his mouth and work the background. The results with longstitch are very quick, and my daughter and I have enjoyed the “special” time spent together learning this new craft.

Oh, how we limit our God when we doubt ourselves and our abilities! Our God is an awesome God, and we can do all things through Him.