As the mommy heart grows....

For those of you who have one child and know how your heart swells when you see them enjoying life, growing in thier knowledge of Christ and hearing the words come out from their hearts and into my ears. Does you heart just grow? Now times that by five and I really am a blessed mother.

I was sharing this past week with an amazing mother of four children. Her children are all about 8 years older than mine, so I enjoy asking questions about her mothering to learn, and be affirmed in decisions I am making with my own children. She has children who are both using their gifts in music and ministry and I too have been blessed with children who embrace simular things.

I shared with her how I don't get how people remain victims of the past. If I offend anyone who is reading this, believe me that is not my intent. My intent is to simply ask the question of how you see God's salvation in your life. Does he really save us? I live every single day with the knowledge of his saving grace in my life. How I have never treated my children the way I was brought up is only about God and God alone. I could not have been the kind of mother on my own. I shared with this lovely lady how I started praying the day I found I was pregnant with Elliot that I would know how to hold, touch, and love my child. All the holding, touching and what was called love came out of perversion and abuse for me as a child. An old lady who loved Jesus hugged me one time in church and told me that Jesus loves me. I believed that must be what Jesus's love felt like and I embraced that one hug for many years. And prayed that God would teach me to know how to hug my own, my first child Elliot.

It's scary being a mother and wanting to do our best. Our best can only be found through the teaching's of God's word, and giving up our past to God regardless of what is was. We are no longer bound by what was, but free for what is., a life that seeks to know the heart of Christ and then live it.

Eric has been encouraged to carry his Bible around. Now it's not a preschool kid kind of Bible. It's like mommy's. As a matter of fact it is one of my favorite Bible's, but he wants to "read" it. So there he will sit, on his bed, during quiet time "reading" his Bible. I trust that God is speaking to the heart of my four year old. He shares with me what he is reading and that God is speaking to his heart. A few days ago he announced that "I am going to be a good reader of the word of God, so I can teach people about the Lord". Sixteen years ago another one of my children told me the same things. Not quite those exact words, but that 20 year old is now sharing his life and knowledge of Christ with his world in Florida.

I pray over the hearts of women who have come from hardships, hard aches, and desire to raise children up in Christ. I pray for all of our mommy hearts that we rely on the witness and testimoney of those mothers that God blesses us with to learn and grow from. And most important that we all get how God delivers us from our past and we don't have to be bound by it, or victims. Our past is never an excuse when we have the Lord God as our Lord and Savior.

Thanks to those mommy's around me that bless me, both young and old.