Mary the Mother of Jesus...

So I decided I want to do a long study on the mothers of the bible.  I am not sure how I will do it, I am not the best study on my own kind of person.  I'm the type that has to sit and meditate for a while to really get something out of scripture.  One momma that I really want to study for a while is Mary, the mother of Jesus.  I just saw From Patmos an original play from IHOP-KC and most of the time my eyes were on Mary.  I just kept connecting with her heart in many ways, and not to mention the things that I mostly sing about spontaneously is the incarnation of Jesus. wow...I just remembered I wrote a song about Mary carrying the Son of God! O my word God just totally reminded me of that!! ahh! This just got a lot juicier!! lol Dont you just love when He does that???

Well today I started at  Luke 1:26- 38, I will most likely stay on these passages for a while.
 These are some questiongs that I asked myself while reading:

• What was Mary's heart feeling as Gabriel appeared to her?
• What thoughts were going through her head?
• What did she feel and what did it look like when the Holy Spirit overshadowed her? was it bam your pregnant? or did she feel the power of the holy spirit in a paralyzing kind of way?
• What characteristic qualified her to be the chosen woman to carry, give birth and nurture the very Son of God?

Think of these things this week, and lets share what the Holy Spirit highlight to us...

Motherhood...designed to draw us near to Him

I did it!! I finished "Raising Your Children for Christ" and as I finished the last line I let out a big sigh not a finally finished sigh but a Lord please help me sigh...lol This wont be the last time I read this book, shoot I almost want to start it all over again ;).  I really want to encourage you to put this on the top of your list to read, it is filled with such truth, and it is not based on someones opinion but on biblical truths. 

One thing that I can really say I have learned from this book, is that motherhood was made to draw us near to God, not the other way around.  Since the moment I became a mom, I began to learn many things about myself, God has truly been gracious and merciful to me.  Thus far on this road of motherhood, I have been happy, sad, joyful, depressed, lost, distant from God..etc, etc!! You all know what I mean, it is a roller coaster of emotions as our lives change when we are the least prepared.

But God, through His beautiful tenderness and faithfulness has shown me, that I was made to encounter Him as a mom and through my children.  That being a mom is more then just nuturing a child, but nuturing them in Him.  He has so graciously chosen me to mother my babies, to raise them up for His glory, to teach them, train them and demonstrate to them what a life of consecration and holiness looks like. This can only be attained by drawing nearer and nearer to Him.

All you believing mommas, don't get caught up in the to "do's" of mommy hood, first and foremost know that you were set apart, chosen by the all powerful God to train these moral beings for Him, and this should be reason enough to seek Him diligently, because that, in the end is what will bring salvation to your kids, and the Holy Spirit into your homes. 

We are ALL our babies have to reach Jesus.  Draw near to Him, open your heart, even in your failures just keep going because your children need you.   Our children are children of the kingdom, are set apart, but us mommas MUST partner with God and MUST do our part...because years down the road God forbid one of our children stray away from Jesus all because we didn't take our place in our home and in their lives, we will look back with the terrible feeling of regret, and say "I should of".   This is the very fear that this book has placed in my heart,  I felt like the Lord woke me up and said " get with it, seek me, pray, and most importantly LIVE AND LIFE FOUND WORTHY OF ME that your children may reach me through you"!

I vow, to give Jesus all that I am, that my children will love Him and find all their pleasures in Him...even when I fail, when I feel weak, I say yes! will you vow the same??

Faith in the Home

I have been pondering a lot lately, thinking of my children's salvation, and things I can do to better make my home a reflection of the heavenly home.  Moe and I were talking the other day about our kids, our fears of not doing all that we can do, our desires as a family and how we desire to grow spiritually, and our concern of our children wondering one day why we live or lives differently, or why we choose not to give our emotions and efforts towards certain things....have you all every thought of all these things?? ( I'am most certain you have =))

I was reading today, chapter 36 from Raising Your Children for Christ, entitled Faith in the Home.  In this chapter Andrew Murray touches on all our fears as parents and the simple solution...FAITH.  In our children there are every reason for fear, in Jesus there are every reason for faith.  When we think of our children, of their sinful nature, of the fact that they are or have already entered into a world where Satan has great power we should be afraid.  When we see children that have believing parents stray away from Jesus, we should be afraid.  When we think of the spirit of the world that they come in contact with, in school, through friends, in books and amusements, we should be afraid.  There are days when I feel completely weak, and disqualified, I think, how in the world can I raise my kids for Jesus if I am so weak.  I come in contact with my frailty, and worldliness and there is only one thing  I can do, and its throwing myself, my children and home upon Jesus,  BELIEVING and having FAITH!

Believing that he will fullfill his convenant with us and our children...
Believing that that by faith we surrender our children as His...
Believing that He gives grace, power and strenght to all sincere, praying parents...
Believing that He hears our prayers, that He sees our sacrafice and that He will set our children apart for Him.
Believing that my children will be saved...

Faith understands
Faith offers excellent sacrifice
Faith pleases God
Faith saves the household
Faith receives strenght to bear a child
Faith offers up the child
Faith blesses the children
Faith is first the spiritual understanding that receives the revelation of God and His purpose..
(reference Hebrew 11)

 He IS faithful, and He is the keeper of my home and of my children....help me believe!

A parents prayer

Lord, I ask You to teach me and all parents how impossible it is to properly train our children or be a blessing to them, except as we live the life of faith.  Open our eyes to see how our love for them, our influence on them, our training, may all be inspired and perfected by faith in the power of Your abiding presence.  Our fears,  our children's disobedience, and the wickedness in the world, can be fully met by Your power and Your love, if we only trust You.  Lord Jesus, teach us to know You as Savior of our children from their very birth.  Let our whole life and relationship with them, every day and all day, be in the faith of the Son of God, who loved us and gave Himself for us.

Amen

" Do not be afraid, just believe."  Luke 8:50

The importance of mommas having some girl time =)

I cant remember the last time that I had a girls night.  As a momma we all know how consumed we are with taking care of our home, our kids and husbands.  Luckily I have two of my beautiful friends that live here, we have been friends since our teens, now all married, am the momma of the group but I know soon they will both be mommas too! I cant wait for the day I can kiss and love on their babies just like they do with to mine =)

There are many times when we don't stop and think of ourselves, we are constantly spilling our hearts over upon our children and our spouses, making sure they are taken care of in every way and forget that time for us is so important.  It gives us a chance to miss our kids, our husband and it refreshes us to keep going.  I am so grateful that this past Saturday night, my beautiful friends were able to get away from their busy schedules and their husbands and take time to relax.  Alexia and Christina you bring joy to my heart, I needed this girl time so much and I am so blessed I have you both in my life to do these fun things with. 

We decided that once a month we would do a girls night =) I hope we can stay true to it, I would really love that!! I took some pictures, it was nice to actually act like am 24, getting married young and already having 2 kids makes me feel older then what I really am.

Me and Tina nina =)

Lexi and I

We decided to bake cupcakes from scratch, didn't really come out to good =) but we will not give up!

 We painted our nails

Face masks =)

The rest of the night consisted of watching Pride and Prejudice, talking about married life things and lots of smiles and laughs....I felt so blessed =) Love you girls.

Special thank you to my awesome, handsome husband for giving me this time for myself and for the next morning letting me sleep in!! Love you baby.

Love family weekends!

I love weekends, we get to spend time together as a family, the babies and I love having papi home with us.  I really want my kids growing up active, and knowing that having fun = spending time together, and making each other happy, being a tight knit family.  This saturday, we filled up our day, we took Grace to the prayer room, then we went to the park where we ate lunch and Grace and her papi played on the playground, I love seeing Grace happy, her happiness is mine and it fills my heart with joy knowing that she is happy. I took some pictures, mostly of Grace in the prayer room and a couple at the park.  O how I love being a family!!! It is one of the greatest gifts from the best gift giver ever, our Heavenly Father!

Enjoy!

This is Grace in the prayer room, there was another lady there with her dancing flags ( not sure what to call them) and she let Grace dance with one.  Grace is a very friendly little girl, she was all into the other lady, and observed her worship alot of the time.  I also took communion with Grace for the first time, I don't have pictures of that but it was a sweet sweet moment as she pointed to the big picture of Jesus and looked at me and said wow, Jesus. =)

Here are the little bit of pics I was able to take at the park.  Joshua needed mommy so I wasnt able to take a whole lot.

One of Grace's favorite lunches, peanut butter sammy.

She is my delight

You know how they say girls are their daddy's, so very true for us.  Grace has always been a daddy's girl =)

Mommas lil boy =) Joshua Elias

My family is my hearts delight...

fear of failing...

So, have any of you mommas felt scared of not being able to fulfill your mommy duties, both in the natural and in the spiritual?  Somedays, I feel like a complete failure, and scared that I am not the mother I need to be. 

This new journey of revelation and understanding of my duties as a mother that the Lord has been taking me through has put me over the edge.  Some days I feel empowered and others, like today, I question if I am even do all that it requires.  I am afraid of not being that reflection of Jesus that I am suppose to be.  There is like a weight on my shoulders, if I don't fix things in my heart that I need to, and remove all distraction that keep me from better reaching for Jesus then I WILL NOT be that mother that leads her children straight to Him.

I  constantly get slapped in the face with all of my imperfections, all the little areas in my heart and life that need change.  I am far from being perfect, far from being where I know I need to be, and one of my BIGGEST fears is to fail my children as their spiritual leader.  The thought of my children walking away from the ways of righteousness as a result of my leadership terrifies me.  I can only have faith, that the work that He has begun in me, He is faithful to complete it.


I guess, its just a matter of trust, trust in the Lord, trust that he takes pleasure in my sincere yes, and in my striving for more holiness in my life.  I have to remind myself that I am not doing this on my own, Moe and I are raising our babies in partnership with the Holy Trinity.  Thank you Lord for your mercy, grace, strength and perfect leadership.  Holy Spirit encourage my heart.....You know I need it.



Willing to do all that it takes to see my children saved.....