I have this list up on my refrigerator. I read it every.single.day. Sometimes numerous times a day.
Joyful parenting isn't something that comes easy. Even though I LOVE, and I mean LOVE, being a mom, it is hard. But, I believe that being a mommy is one of the highest, holiest, callings from God. And when it is from the Lord, it can, and should, be filled with JOY. Most moments are happy. But, if I were to be honest, a lot of moments are filled with exhaustion, discouragement, comparison, anger, and feeling depleted. I will choose joy.
One of the things I love about this list is that each "prayer" begins with just for today. It doesn't worry about tomorrow, or wallow in the guilt of losing my cool the day prior. Isn't that a relief? Also, they are grace prayers. God knows that we aren't perfect. If we were, we wouldn't have a need for Him. It is our job to do the very best we can, but we will fail. God has promised to fill in the gaps. That is grace.
This is taken from Ann Voskamp, author of One Thousand Gifts.
1. Just for today, I will ask for His grace to make our home a house of prayer. I will pray at set times. And I will invite our children to come move into an interior space that lives with God.
2. Just for today, I will ask for His grace to transfigure all things into beauty. He's working to redeem all things, in His time, into the image of His Son.
3. Just for today, I will ask for His grace to see that life is not an emergency. Emergencies are sudden, unexpected events - and is anything under the sun unexpected to God? I can slow and I can trust.
4. Just for today, I will ask for His grace, that when stress mounts, I'll dismount it with gratitude. My stress coping mechanism will be verbal intervention with verbal tanks. It's impossible to simultaneously feel stress and gratitude at the same time and I choose to give thanks at all times. Fight feeling with feeling!
5. Just for today, I will ask for His grace to speak words that are only strong words, words that make these children feel strong. Grace words. Grace is the only noon-toxic air.
6. Just for today, I will ask for His grace to be consistently consistent. I will create safe rhythms that our children can find security in. I will create daily ceremonies because everyday we are CELEBRATING the gift of now!
7. Just for today, I will ask for His grace, the moment when I am most repelled by a child's behavior, that is my sign to draw the very closest to that child.
8. Just for today, I will ask for His grace to hug each of my children as many times as I serve them meals - because children's hearts feed on touch. I'll look for as many opportunities to touch my children today as possible - the taller they are, the more so.
9. Just for today, I will ask for His grace to make my priorities all Things Unseen.
10. Just for today, I will ask for His grace to laugh! And I will let the little children laugh! I will create a culture of JOY!
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