Motherhood Tips 1

Thursday, 14. January 2010 by Renee Ellison

This is our first free “motherhood tips” blog. It includes six short quick tips: Parenting Tip, Home Management Tip, Kitchen Tip, Sewing Tip, Marriage Tip, and Devotions.  If you find it helpful, forward it to others you know who want to do their job better and better as faithful stewards over God’s little ones…and as queens of their own small kingdoms!

Titus 2:4: “Train the younger women to love their husbands and children…to be busy at home.”

Queen Victoria said as a little girl, when first discovering that she was to inherit the crown someday: “Oh, I will be good, I will be very, very good!”  May these tips help you to have a similar resolve for your kingdom.

Parenting Tip: Absolute surrender and lavish love

Keep your eye on the magnanimous grown adult you desire your child to become. Fashion him to that end. You simply must learn to love his soul better than his immediate wish, if it is not good for him. Cross his willfulness with your own strong resolve…so that he is supple in your hand over EVERY issue, having no will of his own, if it be contrary. Absolute Surrender, an 18th century book by Andrew Murray, says this is the goal of our own soul, as well. (Like Abraham with his Isaac…there is nothing we would withhold from our Heavenly Father, out of love for Him…eventually coming to obey anything He would ask of us). As this is the goal of the mature soul with its Maker, it must be the goal of our parenting for the emerging fledgling soul as well. Seeing such a yielded, unselfish soul in ANY person is a beautiful thing, indeed.

And then, see to it that you ALSO show acts of love to your child in special ways throughout the day—on YOUR terms. Serve him tea and crumpets, if you wish! He must perceive that you love him lavishly, so that he interprets all the aforementioned denial in the context of your ultimate good will and your desire to do what is BEST for him. Demanding only denial from your child will crush your relationship. Remember that your job is to teach him not ONLY self-mastery but also how to love, by his own experience of YOUR loving ways, surprises, warm smiles, cherishing his little stories, etc. Make it your goal to parent just like the Father does and you can’t help but be right on target!

Home Management Tip: One-a-day’s
Make yourself go do something to maintain/spiff up your home, that you’d rather not do, that you dread doing, even. Set the timer for 15 minutes…and then QUIT. Tomorrow do the same. Ready, set, go…

Kitchen Tip: Removing mold from grains
If you make your own bread or pie crusts, rinse your grain 3 times and dry it before using it. All grains are warehoused in silos containing molds. Many people think they are allergic to a food, when it is only a mold problem. Prepare your grains one day; grind them the next day. Don’t try to do both in one day.

Rinse your 3 or so cups of grain in a large strainer, let drip over a bowl, and pat the bottom of the strainer dry underneath with a towel, several times…waiting minutes in between. Then when it is through dripping, toss the grains into a glass pan and dry in your toaster oven or regular oven at 200 until the grains are dry…stirring every fifteen minutes…for perhaps an hour. The duration depends upon your altitude and humidity. NEXT day, use the grains. You’ll give your family super healthy nutrients this way…minus the mold!

Sewing Tip: Fabric re-runs
Altering used thrift store clothes is far cheaper and faster than making clothes from scratch. Hunt thrift stores for FABRIC, as well. Think nothing of cutting up a large skirt, robe, bedspread, or tablecloth just for the FABRIC to use for something else.

Marriage Tip: Your husband’s other-ness
Remember that your husband logged in an incredible number of hours being raised under some other roof than your own childhood home, with an entirely different set of personalities and environment. Cock your head to the side and enjoy his “otherness.”

Devotions: Non-negotiable time with Him
“Blessed is the man who watches DAILY at my door” (Proverbs 8:34). The more we linger in front of HIM, the more we become like HIM…it’s a promise…wanta be god-like, you’ve gotta sit with God ! The challenge for mommies is that their life is an interrupt-a-log with relentless demands. Go ahead and meet the crisis demands and get everyone humming with their morning work on the back burner, and then immediately return to Scripture as your highest priority until this devotion is met/completed every day…even if it takes you until bedtime. Do nothing on your own to-do list of extras until you’ve done this. If we lose our relationship with God, all the other things we do won’t matter. Devotions are simply the highest, most efficient way to live. This daily discipline keeps us from back-tracking, wrong headedness, trifles, time traps in things that don’t eternally matter…to say nothing of the daily relief of depositing our fears and burdens on the best shore possible.