Words

From My Heart Out of Ann's Lips, Spoken Softly yet Moving Me to Make the Commitment

“When you talk, do not say harmful things, but say what people need—words that will help others become stronger.“ Ephesians 4:29 (NCV)

"Stronger. Stronger.

I had looked around the table and into their eyes. Into them. I had held them in my one hand, them pinked and swaddled, and I had made them strong with the milk letting down and the love, and I had witnessed the stretching of the spine, the first tottering steps and I had squealed wonder and I had offered the hand. Mamas make strong.
When we had finished the Bible reading, we reach for hands to pray, I feel little fingers again and couldn’t I do this again?
Just for today:
 Couldn’t all the words out of my mouth only be the strengthening words? Words that nourish their bones and muscle their hearts.
 What if I tried to change nothing in children but I focused on only this: Only speak words that make souls stronger.
Like oxygen, couldn’t just speaking strengthening-words change the whole of the atmosphere

We breathe grace. This oxygen changes everything.

The tongue is the tail of the heart. And a lashing tongue is the symptom of an anger riddled heart. It’s always the heart that whips the tongue hard and breaks the backs weak.

And I thought then that I was finally getting it: If Grace always pulses the heart, and love’s the blood coursing tender through veins, the tail of the heart, that tongue, it caresses and it strokes and it revives the soul until small ones stand up David-tall before Goliaths.

That is the heart-made gift I could give my family this year. To only speak Words that make them stronger.

That under the tree I could give them the gift of words that make them tall and strong... trees of their own with roots deep down into the grace and love and heart of Christ.

Words. Could there be a greater gift to give in honor of the Word made flesh?"

I find my heart aching as I think about all those moments I have spoken to my babies (those souls who are a part of me, breathing their first breath from my womb, seeing God's design as I relate it to them) with harsh words, needless words, exasperated and tired tones that leave my mouth sometimes before I even realize it.

My heart longs to relate to them more how much I love them, to build them stronger as Ann wrote about above.  To build them up tall and strong before God and the world, that they might contribute to God's army.  

How do I do this while instructing, correcting, implementing discipline and teaching them the straight?  Can those two things go together?  Jesus perfected the breathing of love and building tall along with teaching, instructing and showing the way. To be like Jesus....Oh to be like Jesus.  Help me Jesus to be more like you, to speak words that build my children, express love and joy to them, that tell them how blessed I am to have them. 

I reiterate this word from Ann: "How can a mother be frustrated her child is not as she longs him to be, when she herself is not as she longs to be?"

Then I ponder the question that nags me, "Do I try to change them?  I had not considered it in that way because I know I love them so deeply it hurts. I believe I love them for exactly who I God made them to be. But, in my meditation of Ann's words I consider I may have mixed in the pot with teaching, instructing, disciplining and showing the straight and expecting who they are to change.

As I strive to draw out of them the raw and put into them good, from Him who shed His blood for them, I must find a way to speak words that build and grow making babies string.  And I must allow Jesus to do the same with me, draw out the raw and put in the good, the God made.  

That I might Speak words, whether in teaching, instructing, disciplining, building up or drawing out, WORDS THAT MAKE SOULS STRONGER.

Christmas Preparations

This year preparing for Christmas has been haunting me.  Thanksgiving came quickly this year and although I was thinking of Christmas I wasn't quite ready to begin the Advent celebration.  The burning of our fifth child's birth came quickly also, answering my cries to Christ that he, my boy child, come while our daddy was home rather than away.  


Ann Voskamp put out a great Jesse Tree collection this year that I was ready to print and start and had no paper or toner in either printer.  If you know me you know I don't like to get behind on things and I was irritated that I was unable to start on the Advent weekend.  I can't get behind because I fail to catch up. The days pass quickly with the warming of the sun on the grass then it fading into the West casting shadows on the backyard while their feet leave imprints in the grass, small yet growing prints.


How could I capture the Christmas spirit without all the "tools" in my arsenal to teach my little ones about Jesus and His glorious birth.  They are so small that often I wonder if their hearts even truly receive my spoken words but I know God's word does not return void and their gentle, quiet spirits breath Him in as they were designed to do and they somehow grow to know Him.  


Do I need tools?  Is the Jesse Tree the only way to show them Jesus this Christmas?  Can we discover Christ's love for us without the tree, the lights, the advent calendar, the cold as our weather has been exceptionally warm here?  I heard God faintly whisper, YES, I AM.


Through words; spoken, read, prayed, breathed, repeated, posted, and whispered to each other we can see Jesus amidst the Christmas doing.  

Dietrich Bonhoeffer stated, “The Christian needs another Christian who speaks God’s Word to him. He needs him again and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged, for by himself he cannot help himself without belying the truth. He needs his brother as a bearer and proclaimer of the divine word of salvation.”

It is in the shadows oft his truth that we find, feel, see, touch, and experience Jesus this Christmas.  We remind each other of what Christmas is all about when we speak of the God child sent by God to be our hope and salvation.  My prayer becomes that my children experience these conversations concerning God's Word with us. That they explore God's unending grace, love, and divine plan through the teaching of words about Him.  

We've since put up the tree, the lights sparkling around our cross outside posted to the front of the house as a beacon of hope, our Christmas cards done and sent expressing God's Love for His people this year.  We've begun reading books about Jesus, talking and praying about Christmas, and seeking to find Him this holiday in places we have not yet searched.