Obedience vs. Sacrifice

Do you see homeschooling your children as a sacrifice? Are there other things you would rather be doing with your life? Did you give up a job or career that you loved in order to homeschool your children?

If so, you might need to hear a word from the Lord about the way He sees homeschooling our children. Jesus loves homeschool moms and is especially pleased with our desires to teach our children at home. Of course, there are as many reasons that moms choose to homeschool their kids as there are homeschool moms. But there is a common thread in all of our stories. We are keeping our children safe from negative influences and experiences. We are taking responsibility for the training and education of our children. And we are doing what we think is best for them.

So, think about this: You are the mom that God chose for your children. If He gave you the idea and desire to homeschool your children, then He will help you to do it, no matter what your strengths or weaknesses are. You are the best person for the job. You love them more than anybody else could. Many teachers are wonderful, but there’s nothing better than your own mom. Children need their mothers. They need to experience their first milestones with someone who will be there all their lives. They need to know that they are thoroughly and unconditionally loved by the person who gave them life and who will champion them all their life. And you are that person for your children.

All Moms Sacrifice for Their Children

Any sacrifice we make for our children seems small to us moms. We would die for our children. And we will live for them and pour everything we have into them. We will teach, train, discipline, provide, and care for their every need. And what need could be greater than their education? We need to help them develop good character, good habits, skills that will carry them through the rest of their lives, and knowledge of the truth about life and God.

The truth is God uses parenting to shape and mold and refine us. And then when we homeschool, we move into advanced parenting. It’s intense, because we are with our children every hour of every day. We do not send them away for hours at a time and then just get them back for the few hours before bedtime. We deal with their tantrums, their disobedience, their immaturity all day long every day. And then we take on the added responsibility of providing the education they need.

Why Did God Call You to Homeschool?

The supreme truth is that God calls us to teach and train our children at home because it is best for them, and it’s best for us. Homeschooling is a high calling. It may be derided by culture and worldly-minded groups and individuals, but it is holy. Of course, they will not understand the importance and significance of it. God has given us these children to train for Him. He has blessed us with these beautiful souls and given us the honor and privilege of spending every day with them and experiencing their love and devotion as young children. If we do it well and keep their hearts, they will continue to love us and value our presence in their lives when they are older. The bonds will be even stronger than they would have been if we had sent them to someone else for their education.

So what do we do with the feelings of resentment that can arise when we feel taken for granted or taken advantage of? It’s very easy to feel unappreciated. It’s also easy to feel sorry for ourselves. We can start to look outside of our family and the calling that God has called us to for some kind of fulfillment. We want something that will make us feel significant. We miss the admiration and affirmation that we got from co-workers and friends. We miss adult companionship and conversation.

My Search for Significance

I understand completely. I felt the same way for years. I was always trying to impress people with how busy and important I was. I tutored other students, I homeschooled for other people, and I took on jobs that I had no business doing. I needed to be content with being at home with my children and discipling them. I didn’t really understand the value of my job as a mother and as a homeschool mom. I was searching for significance because nobody was telling me that I was doing a good job. I wanted to be graded and rewarded for my efforts, but there was nobody to do it. My kids said sweet things to me, but I discounted them because they didn’t know any better.

My job didn’t feel very impressive. Sometimes it didn’t feel rewarding. I couldn’t see progress in my children’s behavior. I didn’t think I was doing enough, but at the same time, I felt like I couldn’t handle one more thing. I wasn’t sure I was teaching them the right things or covering enough. I think we all go through that. All of our own issues of insecurity and self-doubt are exposed through homeschooling. And that’s not all. Our selfishness, our hardheartedness, our self-pity, our self-centeredness, and our lack of discipline also come out. Sometimes we find a cruel streak in ourselves that we would never have guessed we had.

The Answer to Our Dilemma

It sounds hopeless, doesn’t it? But it’s not. With God all things are possible. And He is there to help us change our hard hearts. He uses our children to do it. As our children push all of our buttons and make us angrier and more frustrated than we have ever been in our lives, what do we do? We run to God and ask for help! We know that we can’t handle these hard things by ourselves. We learn to die to our flesh with His help. We learn to lean into His Spirit. We give up the longings for anything other than His will for our lives. We become willing to sacrifice what He wants us to sacrifice. We obey him out of devotion and trust Him for the outcome. When we sacrifice and obey Him in something we don’t want to do, we master our soul. He calls us to offer up ourselves a living sacrifice.

There is nothing more fulfilling than obeying God and feeling His pleasure. There’s nothing better than knowing that you did the best thing for your children. They may not give you the kudos you crave, but the fruit from the work and love you put into their lives will be worth it all. Your children will probably be with you through everything that life brings. No one else in the world is more likely to go through all of the good times, bad times, and sad times with you.Your children are the ones who will take over for you and take care of you when you get old.

The Rewards of the Sacrifice

The “sacrifice” you make now will pay off in great ways as your life proceeds. That job you left will seem meaningless when you hold your first grandchild and know that he/she will be raised in a godly, stable home because of the good seed you sowed into their mommy or daddy. You will not have the regrets that you would have had if you had missed the moments you spent with your children because you were pursuing your own “dreams”. 

As we consider the sacrifices we make for our children, we should consider the blessings, too. I think we will find that the blessings outweigh the sacrifices. And when we feel good about ourselves because of our obedience, we will know that we have chosen the better way. The fruits of our obedience will be obvious to everyone. Our children will shine as bright lights in the world and will fulfill God’s plan for their lives.

If they fall short of these objectives, at least we will know that we taught them truth and principles that should lead to a happy, fulfilling life. We will know that we put up fences and taught them the boundaries of God’s will. What they choose to do with it is up to them. But we will know that we obeyed God, and He is pleased with us.

And that’s what really matters when it comes right down to it. We obey God in all things. No matter how great the cost, no matter how uncomfortable or inconvenient it is, we do God’s will. If He calls you to homeschool, no sacrifice is too great. Obedience is better than sacrifice, and in the end, we must do both when we obey the call to homeschool.

1 Samuel 15:22

Nurturing the Spiritual Development of Your Children

Start with yourself

You can’t give someone else what you don’t have yourself.

Get as close as you can to God. Spend time with Him without distractions. Wait in His presence. Talk to Him, but make sure you listen to Him, too. Ask Him what He wants to say to you. Listen to Mark Virkler about how to hear God’s voice. He has videos on YouTube about this. He teaches how to do 2-way journaling. Write your thoughts to God, and then write what you hear God saying to you. He also has some excellent books about this.

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Do the necessary heart work

Ask the Lord to show you what lies you believe about yourself. You may have had a traumatic experience in your childhood, or you may have developed wrong beliefs based on immature understanding of what happened to you. Children often blame themselves for things that happen in their families. They often blame themselves for their parents’ arguments or divorce.

Identify a lie that you believe and when you started to believe that lie. Ask Jesus to go with you into that painful memory. Try to see where Jesus was while that was happening to you and how He felt about it. Ask Him to tell you the truth about you to replace the lie you believed. Go to Someone Believes in You to learn more about this from Theresa Griffith.

Pay attention to what God is saying to you through signs and messages in numbers and repeated words or phrases. When you hear a particular verse or message repeated in many different places over a period of a few hours or days, it might be God trying to tell you something.

Make heart connections with your children 

Get to know your children

Spend time with them. Do things with your individual children. Think of something that your child would like to do or a place they would like to go. Take them out on a date. Take them out for ice cream, just you and your one child. If you have several children, you might need to do some creative scheduling.

Figure out their love language.

There are 5 love languages that have been identified by Dr. Gary Chapman. You can read his book called “The 5 Love Languages of Children” to find out how to identify your child’s love language.

Does she like hugs? Her love language might be “touch”. Does he respond well to your attaboys and compliments? Maybe his love language is “words of affirmation”. Find out what makes your child feel loved and then interact often with them using that language.

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Pray with them.

Ask them what they would like to pray about and pray with them. Take their concerns seriously. Tell them that Jesus cares about everything that they care about. He wants to answer their prayers, and He will answer them. If we pray according to His will, we will have it. Help them to understand that we must find out His will so that we know that He will answer our prayers. Teach them how to listen to God so they can know His will.

Pray over them.

Lay hands on your children and pray for them. They will see you modeling prayer, and they will feel your love and care for them. Pray for their physical, emotional, and spiritual needs. Pray for the things they have told you they were concerned about. Pray for their walk with God. Ask God to release them into the destiny that He has for them.

Share with them what you are hearing from God. Tell them how you heard God speak to you. Pay attention to their dreams and desires. Ask them what God is saying to them or showing them.

Read the book by Shawn Bolz called “Growing Up with God”. Two of my children asked Jesus into their hearts after reading this book together! It also teaches them how to hear God.

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Have videos about Bible stories available for them to watch. Use children’s Bibles like “The Jesus Storybook Bible”, “Jesus Calling Bible Storybook”.

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Pray together as a family

This one can be tricky. We want to make sure this is a pleasant experience for all. We need to make sure that the children don’t feel pressured or coerced into praying, or they won’t want to do it. But we should definitely present the opportunity for each of the children to pray out loud.

Pray for the family’s needs. Pray about situations that you and your children are concerned about. Pray about relationships in the family. And pray for the people you love. Praying together is powerful. It’s another opportunity for you to model prayer for your children, and it’s a chance to show them that you really believe in the power of prayer. Praying together with others multiplies our prayer power, and I believe there is an extra dimension of power when families unite in prayer.

Keep track of answers to prayer, and make sure to tell your kids about them.

Rehearse the wonderful things that God has done for your family and the many answers to prayer that you have seen over the years.

Another thing you might want to do is start a family journal that anyone in the family can write in. Put it in a prominent place, and tell your husband and kids that they are welcome to write anything they want in it (within reason, of course). Tell them to record answers to prayer and things that the family has enjoyed together.

We can give our children a good, solid spiritual foundation and plant lots of good seeds. It is up to each child to choose their path, but we can give them a good start. If they stray for a while, we can always pray according to the scripture in Proverbs 22:6

And trust God to lead them into their prophetic destiny.

So I finally got up my nerve to try. I started working on Chapter titles. Then I wrote a little bit for each chapter a little at a time. Then I wrote more to flesh out each chapter. I had about half of the story written when Christine had a Facebook challenge to teach people how to publish a book on Amazon. I joined the challenge and saw how easy it is to publish a book that way. So I got busy finishing my book and now it’s published on Amazon.

I’m so excited to present it here!

I hope you will get the ebook or the paperback and leave a review.

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Happy Reading!!!

Last month was eventful for our family. We have had some things to clean up. We have found some cracks in our relationships, so we decided to start working on fixing them up.

Have you ever discovered thought patterns, feelings, or beliefs that are negative or damaging inside yourself? Have you noticed these kinds of things in your children? How should we deal with these kinds of things?

One thing that has helped me identify toxic thinking is teaching by Dr. Caroline Leaf. She has written several books that address changing our thinking so that our actual brains are healthier. Some of her books are “Switch on Your Brain”, “The Perfect You”, “Think and Eat Yourself Smart”, and “Think, Learn, Succeed”.

Another helpful source has been the book “Keep Your Love On” by Danny Silk. This book made a huge impact on me. I think it actually saved my marriage. I can’t recommend this book highly enough. I buy extra copies of this book to give away.

You can get your own copy here:

https://amzn.to/36fiGmO

On another subject, I have been observing some disturbing trends in the discussion of women’s roles. I saw what John Macarthur said about women teachers like Beth Moore. He told them to go home. I agree that women should be home with their children nurturing them. If they don’t, then who is going to? And who did God really give that role to? If we go all the way back to the pattern that God set for families and the reason He put us in families, we see that God made the man, then made the woman, and he gave them the ability to reproduce. He gave women the anatomy to carry and feed the child, and the general disposition to nurture young children.

So I agree that women should be the primary caregivers for children in most cases. But I disagree with him about his contention that women should not teach or be in ministry. I believe that God has gifted women with teaching and organizational and other talents that He intended them to use in the church. The verses he uses are culturally-based directions to the people of that time and not stated as a commandment.

I read what some women said in rebuttal. They said that women should be in the workforce just like men. They are saying that they should not have to stay at home with their children.

Men and women are equal, but they are not the same. We have different roles based on our strengths and gifts.

Nancy Campbell of Above Rubies enthusiastically endorses women staying at home with their children. She sees it as a mandate. God’s order and plan is for men and women to marry and have children, and then for the women to raise the children at home. It’s even better if the husband can work from home and be there to help teach and train the children, too.

I realize that this scenario seems almost impossible in the modern world, but I know that there are many people who are so determined to raise their own children that they make it work. They find a way to make a living from a business they can run from home. And God multiplies your finances and resources when you are trusting Him to provide.

It didn’t used to seem so impossible in generations before ours. Life seems to be very expensive now, and living frugally is more difficult now because of the demands of our modern world. So some couples feel like they both have to work to make ends meet.

But, however we feel on the subject of women staying home to raise their children, the other subject that MacArthur brought up about prohibiting women from being preachers, I don’t think we can let that pass.

Here’s what I read on the website Pulpit and Pen:

“Beth Moore is a feminist who is in grave rebellion against God. She travels the country preaching to mixed audiences when the Scriptures are clear, women can’t preach.”

But I don’t think the scriptures say that women can’t preach. The women who were addressed in 1 Cor. 14:34 and 1 Tim. 2:11,12 were not women in authority but women in the congregation who were unruly and noisy during services. The many women that we read of throughout the scriptures who obviously filled positions of authority in the early church were not the ones being addressed by Paul in these letters.

I found this article very helpful: https://bibleresources.org/women-in-ministry/

I think it’s important that we all think through and study these issues so that we can develop a clear understanding of the real intent of these scriptures telling women to stay silent in church.

I think we need to think deeply about the roles of men and women.

We need to take an honest look at how children are being affected by the current trends in child care. And we need to realize that the Bible says that there is no male or female. We are all one in Christ.

Each of us must decide what we believe, and we have to ask the Lord how He wants us to raise our children. But we also need to interpret the Bible correctly and conduct our family affairs in a way that is biblical and pleasing to God. Even when we are going against the tide of popular trends, we need to ask the Lord for His leading and obey Him and trust Him to take care of us and our families.

By the way, guess who is scheduled to preach at our church one Sunday next month?

Little ole me! And I’m pretty sure I’m not in rebellion against God!

Pray for me. I have no idea what I’m going to say.

But I’ll study and pray, and I’m sure the Spirit will give me something good to give to the people that day. I don’t think the Spirit minds that I’m a woman.

Thanks for reading our news! I pray that your homeschool journey is full of love, adventure, and learning all that your family will need to fulfill the call and purposes that God has for you.

Remember to enjoy the journey! 

Penney Douglas at Safe Haven Homeschooling

A woman’s heart is toward her husband. But it’s also toward God. How can she balance her desire toward God with her desire toward her husband.

It seems that the greater heart’s desire is toward her husband when a woman is young and newly married. She struggles with the tendency to put her love for her husband before her love for God. She almost makes an idol of her husband. Her every thought is about him.

But as time goes on and she experiences the disappointments, unmet expectations, and unexpected changes that happen in life, sometimes the intensity of her feeling for her husband can wane. She realizes with great sorrow that her husband cannot meet all of her needs. She discovers that there are some things about him that she thought she could change because they really bugged her, but – well, he’s still the same. And those things bother her more than ever. She may start to wonder what she ever saw in him!

In many cases, the woman then turns to God, realizing that only He can meet her needs. She finds in Him the comfort, love, hope, strength, and power to answer her prayers that she was expecting her husband to provide. God is the perfect husband and friend! She now knows that God deserves first place in her heart.

What about her husband?

But where does that leave her husband? Is he less loved now? Is he competing with God for his wife’s love?

It may seem like that to him. He has a great desire to be her knight in shining armor. He wants to take care of her and be her hero. He may feel abandoned and deserted by his wife as she no longer acts like she needs him so much. He may wonder what happened and how he can win her back.

Now, we know that it’s impossible for a man to compete with God. So women have to make up their minds to accept and appreciate the love their husbands have for them. Women need to acknowledge the blessing of having a lifelong companion to share life with. Now she can love him with a more mature, realistic, selfless love.

Photo by Christiana Rivers on Unsplash

The Correct Order in Her Heart

The order is now correct. God is first in her heart, and her husband is second. She isn’t expecting her husband to meet needs that only God can meet. She can accept his flaws and idiosyncrasies instead of trying to change him. She is hopefully mature and whole enough that she can express how she feels when he says or does insensitive things so that he knows when he hurts her. In a good marriage with two good-hearted people, conflicts, disagreements, and misunderstandings can be worked out.

The wife can balance her love for her perfect God with her love for her imperfect husband. Knowing that she is imperfect herself, she should be extremely thankful that her husband still wants to go through life with her.

Women can encourage their husbands to grow spiritually by letting them see and experience their wife’s great love for God. Instead of feeling excluded and left out, they may begin to draw closer to God themselves.

The seasons of a woman’s heart can take her from over-dependence on her husband to a mature, whole-hearted reliance on God with a deep, self-sacrificing love for her husband.

Photo by frank mckenna on Unsplash
 

Let’s get as close to God as we can and become as much like Him as we can.

It’s up to us how much of God we want in our lives.

I read from a devotional from Candice Simmons who, along with her husband, Brian Simmons have written The Passion Translation of the New Testament and are working on the books of the Old Testament. She also included paragraphs from their book “Throne Room Prayer”.

The Passion Translation is an amazing translation of the Bible that will bring the Bible to life and help you to understand things in a way that were unclear and confusing in other translations.

Please watch my video below and be inspired and challenged to get closer to God every day and become more like Him all the time and get as much of Him as you can possibly have!

https://www.facebook.com/Familyschooling/videos/1275133179310338/

So Many Mary’s!

Can you imagine walking with Jesus when He lived on earth? I would have loved that! I should have been named Mary.

I could have been Mary, the mother of Jesus. Now there’s a woman who played no small part in Jesus’ life. She carried Him in her womb, gave birth to Him, nourished Him, and taught Him to walk and talk and use good manners. She probably taught Him to pray and instructed Him in the ways of God and told Him about the things God did for the children of Israel. She may have led Him to faith in God!

There’s no doubt that she had a great influence on the greatest Man who ever lived.

For instance, there’s the time that Mary insisted that Jesus do a miracle at the Wedding at Cana when they ran out of wine. That turned out to be a good thing – the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry.

She had a mother’s influence over her son. I’m sure she loved Him as no other. Her love probably gave Him strength and courage to endure all that He went through in His life. His mother had extravagant love for Him.

What about another Mary in the life of Jesus? Mary Magdalene? What would it have been like to be set free from the control of seven demons by this Man who did miracles wherever He went? She was radically changed.

She became one of His most loyal followers. Her name is mentioned prominently in the Bible any time the women followers of Jesus are mentioned. She used her money to support His ministry and followed Him wherever He went. She served Him and ministered to the needs of Jesus and His followers. Her love for Jesus was extravagant. She must have left all to follow Him. She was forgiven much so she loved much. Her extravagant love, devotion, and gratitude were obvious to all.

And there’s this other Mary who made such an impact on Jesus’ life that He said her story would be told wherever the Good News is preached. Mary of Bethany gave away  her life savings, her dowry, her chance for a “happy” life when she broke the alabaster jar and poured out the expensive perfume to anoint Jesus.

Some accounts say she poured it on His head, others on His feet, but we know that oils work well wherever they’re applied on our skin. We women know these things. She really ministered to Jesus at a time when He surely needed it. He knew He was headed for the cross and that a harrowing ordeal that would end in His death was fast approaching. She exhibited extravagant love, giving, gratitude, and worship by this act. And he was touched by her devotion.

These Mary’s were spiritually sensitive women. They knew that Jesus was the Messiah and they treated Him as such. They honored and revered Him. They gave Him their all.

And Jesus honored them. He took care of His mother and made sure that another would take care of her after He was gone.

He honored Mary of Bethany  by proclaiming that her story would be told wherever the Gospel is preached.

He honored Mary Magdalene, who believed in Him all the way to the cross and even to the tomb by appearing to her first after He rose from the dead and sending her as an apostle to the apostles. He gave her a message to deliver to the apostles that He had risen and would ascend to the Father. He showed that He respected her as a witness even though the custom of the time said that a woman was not a credible witness.

And in this story we see the personal nature of His relationship with her. When He said her name she recognized His voice.

He also elevated the status of women by speaking to the Samaritan woman at the well. She, in turn, testified to her whole village about Him, and many Samaritans believed that He was the Savior of the world.

Through the experiences of all these Mary’s – and there were other Mary’s! – and through the Samaritan woman and the women who supported Jesus’ ministry we see that women are very influential. We women can use our influence for good or for evil. These women influenced many men – including Jesus – for good.

They were spiritually sensitive and recognized Him as the Messiah. they helped men to see Him as the Messiah. Women of today can do the same thing. Churches are filled with women. Studies show that Christian women are more devout than Christian men.

So what should we do about that? I believe we should use our influence to bring men to Jesus. Women who walk with Jesus become women who lead men to Jesus. But we should do it in the manner described in 1 Peter 3 – by our kind conduct and godly life win them without a word. The job is to show them Jesus not tell them they have to go to Jesus. We must learn how to tell them the message without telling them what to do about it.

Men need women to show them Jesus. God has made women in such a way that men are attracted to them, and the best and highest purpose for that is to help men to find their way to Jesus.

To bring it home, we wives should truly be helpmeets to our husbands by showing them Jesus and behaving in a way that attracts them to Jesus and impacts them for Jesus. Our extravagant love, devotion, service, and giving are sure to make an impact on our husbands. And our extravagant belief, worship, and intimacy with Jesus should stir up a hunger in their hearts for more of Jesus in their life.

If he’s captivated by our love, he may be captivated by our Lord.

This post was originally written for a blog series at https://www.angelpenn.com called Biblical Women of Influence.

Biblical Women of Influence

Go to this series to read about many other biblical women of influence by other wonderful bloggers. It will encourage and inspire you!

Wife – mom – homeschooler – friend —

We are all of these.

And for most of us, these roles are our dream come true.

But that doesn’t mean any of them are easy. Nothing worthwhile comes easy. There will be good parts and bad parts of everything in this life. We have to keep our joy and hope in the midst of storms and struggles.

But of all of these roles, which one should be our top priority?

It’s easy to put being a mother first because babies and children demand our attention. They can’t help it. That’s what they do! Of course, we have to take care of our children, and we delight in doing that. It’s what we do!

But there is someone else who is often standing in the wings waiting for us to notice them who really needs our care and attention, too.

Your husband may be a strong, independent man (hopefully), but he really does need you. He may not realize how much he needs you. If he is a kind, loving man, he will not demand your time or attention, but he really does need your input and affection toward him.

God calls the wife a Helpmate. That is not just a nice, flowery word to describe our role. Men sometimes don’t know what they need. I’m not trying to be sexist here, but I’ve observed this during my 55 years of living. Actually, women aren’t always aware of what they need, either…. so, there, I’m not being sexist.

Men are often more affected by their wives than they show. They are trying to impress us. They want us to think well of them. Good men want to take good care of their families and be the hero. Sometimes they don’t know how to go about it. Sometimes they think we are impressed with things that are not so impressive to us. Sometimes they are not aware of what would really impress and HELP us. Helping and working alongside us is what would really impress us. Some men think that all they need to do for the family is bring home the paycheck. They CAN be taught that they need to engage and be a part of the life of the family. It may take a while for some to learn this.

But we wives need to be there for our husbands and make them feel like our priority even in the midst of babies, diapers, cooking, cleaning, teaching, and all of the tasks that come with taking care of a family.

Our men need us. God said in His word that it’s not good for a man to be alone. That’s not a metaphor. It’s true. Men may have a harder time keeping spiritual matters uppermost in their priorities. That’s where we come in. We can gently guide them to the Lord with their cares and concerns and help them to develop good priorities themselves. We can help them to understand us! We can use that nurturing attribute that we women tend to have naturally to help our husbands.

The Bible says that we can help our husbands to become better people and draw closer to the Lord by the way we live in front of them. We can make living a godly life look attractive and winsome. We can help them to flourish spiritually if we encourage them and give them love and attention and affection and direct their attention in a sweet and gentle way toward the things of God. They are supposed to be the spiritual leaders, but they may not know how to do that. Not at first anyway. Or their personality may make it difficult for them to take that role.

But instead of being disappointed or demanding or condemning, we can do things in a way that is honoring and loving, and they may learn the things they need to do to become the best husbands and fathers they can be.

We can show them what God is like by our attitude and way of treating everyone, including them. There are several scriptures that tell us how to treat our husbands with honor. If we treat them well, and they treat us well, things are going to go much better for our families. And spiritually, we really yearn for our husbands to be strong.

We all have choices in how we treat others.

Let’s choose well as wives to treat our husbands the way God wants us to treat them and ask Him to help us be the best wives we can be.

Husbands need their wives more than they know and more than they show.

Let’s be there for them.

For help and inspiration, these books can help us to understand and implement these principles:

One more book that may really help your husband is:

This may help him to understand and break free of wounds from the past that hinder him from becoming the man that he was meant to be.

We can do this!

Our families are counting on us!

Let’s take care of our husbands in the most important ways and watch what happens in our families!

Today I have the awesome privilege of writing a guest post for a series called Biblical Women of Influence at Angel Penn‘s blog at www.angelpenn.com.

So Many Mary’s!

Can you imagine walking with Jesus when He lived on earth? I would have loved that! I should have been named Mary.

I could have been Mary, the mother of Jesus. Now there’s a woman who played no small part in Jesus’ life. She carried Him in her womb, gave birth to Him, nourished Him, and taught Him to walk and talk and use good manners. She probably taught Him to pray and instructed Him in the ways of God and told Him about the things God did for the children of Israel. She may have led Him to faith in God!

There’s no doubt that she had a great influence on the greatest Man who ever lived.

For instance, there’s the time that Mary insisted that Jesus do a miracle at the Wedding at Cana when they ran out of wine. That turned out to be a good thing – the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry.

She had a mother’s influence over her son. I’m sure she loved Him as no other. Her love probably gave Him strength and courage to endure all that He went through in His life. His mother had extravagant love for Him.

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