Monday, July 27, 2009

Children are a blessing

I shared these thoughts with a friend and mentor today. She asked me if I had a blog, encouraging me to share the gifts of these insights. Admittedly, I loved being able to share my thoughts, feelings and insights, and used to do so on this blog with less reservation. Maybe sharing freely became too easy and I shared too much, opening myself up to criticism and exposing too much to the world. And then I said less, which turned into saying almost nothing at all. I want to take a stab at sharing my heart and thoughts again....

I found myself this week in a place where I had things I wanted to do, a task to be accomplished. I included my children in this task, as I do with most things I do. But due to some outside circumstances, and maybe an effort to do too much, these kids were getting tired. They were not cooperating. They were even beginning to whine about being there at all...

We were on day #2 at Grandma and Grandpa's house (guaranteed to wear them out) and we decided to go pick blueberries outside of town. My desired task was to fill every bucket that we had brought with us. But my kids were getting tired and bored. I found myself vacillating between encouraging them to hold out longer and being in total frustration with their lack of cooperation with MY desired task. And then, I had this thought...

Short of our Salvation in Christ, which is a free gift, blessings are rarely an easy gift to receive. God will bless us because he wants better for us, which will require us to change for the better, grow, generally through challenges. So yes, Children are a Blessing! God has intended that I would be blessed by how my heart is changed.

I LOVE the challenges of motherhood. I don't always LIKE the challenges in those moments, but I know that as I work through those challenges, and even make mistakes in my chosen response to those challenges, that I am changed and grown.

3 comments:

  1. GOOD WORD!

    And encouraging.

    Thank you for the reminder to view my children as blessings rather than challenges.

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  2. Yes, great post Sarah. I am encouraged as well by your thoughts.


    And please, puuuuhhhleeeeease, share who you are and what you learn if you so wish. Maybe there are times in your life you have said too much, (haven't we all?!) but I can't remember anything out of line on here, first of all. Second, this is YOUR, may I repeat YOUR blog. For goodness sakes, if people don't want to read your words, no one is putting a gun to their head!
    Blogs are a place for the author to write what they want to say - put it out there for the world - and for the world to read it and see who they are, and learn from that if they so choose. It is NOT a place for others to criticize the author to the point they feel they SHOULDN'T say something they've learned or felt. That is like going to someone's house as a guest and then criticizing everything they are giving you to eat, or the couch your are sitting on. For goodness sakes...just get up and leave if you don't like it! Duh, it's a WEB PAGE people! SHUT it down if you don't like it!

    Of course I think comments are okay to show other points of view and discussion - I did that one time on here when I thought we were saying different things...that isn't the point.

    You know what I mean. Here ends the STAND UP FOR SARAH speech. :)

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  3. Wow.
    I read the first part, but I missed the point in it - MY fault, not yours.

    I DITTO Ames.

    I <3 Your HEART, Sarah.
    I love reading what you share from your heart here.

    I'm SO SORRY you've taken criticism for sharing your heart. THAT STINKS! I agree with Amy regarding readers - we all have the choice to just shut the window and refuse to read more, or remove your blog from our list or whatever.

    I've disagreed or had discussion in comments with you here about one or two things, but I certainly hope it wasn't taken as an attack, as I definitely LOVE and SUPPORT you - even when we don't agree on every little thing.

    Please, let your heart have a voice again. I do believe it is encouraging and worth listening to (reading).

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