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I’ll be 40 when this August comes around. On that same day our oldest son will turn 16.  Just a week later our daughter will turn 7.  And a month before our baby is due to arrive, our middle son will turn 11.

It has been years since I changed a diaper, bought a sippy cup or had to plan my day around nap times.  It is an understatement to write that I’m relieved those days are over.  I never was the girl who was eager for all those things.  Pregnancy, nursing, babies, toddlers, preschoolers — it’s all adorable. But, let’s be honest: those years are absolutely all consuming and exhausting.  Been there. Done that. Came out alive. Whew.

So, when my husband and I learned that we are expecting a baby, I did what most women probably do at this stage of life: I cried.  All the images of the above came back to me like I was being sucked in by a giant time-machine vacuum to the land of “do-over”.  My husband stared at the ceiling and let out big sighs.  Of course one knows how these things happen, but really, how did this happen?  The odds against this had been way too high.

I proceeded to wake up in cold sweats the next several weeks and vomit by day.

Initially, God and I were not on very good speaking terms.  The conversations were usually one-way and accusatory.

“You never let me know about this — zero preparation!” “Do you realize we’ll be almost 60 when this child graduates from high school?“, “Did you forget we live in a foreign country now and everything will be so much more complicated? — how much more do you think I can take?” “We don’t have any room in our budget for diapers, wipes, or another round of education!” and “We don’t have the energy for this anymore! Hasn’t my body been through enough?!“and “What will the kids think!”

According to the World Health Organization, every year there are an estimated 40-50 million abortions.  This corresponds to approximately 125,000 abortions per day.  Research is showing that for the first time older women are having more abortions than under-18’s! 

For the very first time, if just for a moment– apart from the heart of God–, I could understand that last, horrific statistic.

We live in an uncontrollable world and as humans, we exert a tremendous amount of energy trying to control it.  Like a stun gun to my heart, this unexpected pregnancy stopped me in my path and begged the question: how will I respond when God does the unexpected? 

Because he does the unexpected over and over.  He doesn’t just allow it; he performs it.

If God were a storyteller (and actually, he’s the greatest), he employs the utterly unexpected — at the very last moment — as his favorite literary vice to bring the plot to unforgettable climax. The breathtaking ramifications shine the spotlight not on the players, but the author.  Just think about these  examples that no one saw coming:

• God floods the earth as a means of mercy.
• God interjects himself into human history through a child-less man named Abraham and promises to bless him with limitless descendants.  He then waits till his wife is 90 and then brings pregnancy.
• God picks a murdering, stuttering shepherd to lead his people out of the 400 years of slavery of Egypt.
• The Jewish people expect God to send a mighty King to rise from among them and set them free from Roman rule. God sends a baby who dies as a criminal with no regard to bringing political and economic deliverance to the Jews but, to the whole world for all time.  

The list could go on and cover nearly every recorded incident in the bible.  God is always up to the unexpected and the often, unexplained.  Those who could flow with this went the way of God and those who could not, were left in his wake because he was not and is not about to stop.

The message is clear: We either are willing to be undone and go the unpredictable way of the flowing Spirit or we stay living small, controlled and boxy lives.  

When I came to this realization, the shock of this pregnancy did not dissipate but the miracle of it, the sheer awe, became greater.  I long for the way of the Spirit; I don’t ever want to pull back from the flow.  So, I began to lay my hands on my belly and speak words of welcome, acceptance and love over this new life.  I broke the word curses I had lamented out-loud, for even in the womb the tone is set for a life of blessed acceptance or shameful rejection.

It became clear: there two paths are set before me.  One, was the way of death. It is dark, despairing, grumble-ridden and heavy with feelings of being overwhelmed.  A bitter, tight, ugly and tired woman will emerge from that path.  The other is the way of life. It is full of light.  The woman who emerges from this path laughs at the years to come without fear. She walks with a sense of dignity, beauty and grace.  I want this path; I want to become this fearless woman.

When we began to let the news leak out, the transparency of those who walk in the Way of the Unexpected God and those who tend to walk in the Way of the Controlled Life become more evident, through the responses. 

I have needed the comments of “This is going to be awesome” and “God is so amazing” and “He never places an order and then does not take care of the bill” and “Don’t you love it when God does stuff like this!”.   Yes, the empathy for my fragile heart and tired body has also been essential from my dearest friends, but not the looks of pity or the sense that this will take us backwards or simply be too much.

We tell God, we sing to him our songs of surrender.  We exclaim His wisdom and power.  We teach our children that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.

Yet, we too often forget that we love and serve with a God who creates a beating heart in a secret place, who brings his Spirit in flames of fire on his followers so they speak in strange tongues, who loves to sit among the harlots, who might put an evil person in a place of authority so he can pull out his glory in the last unexpected moment, who says the last will be first and the first will be last.  We have a God who does not make sense, yet at the same time is the father of truth and logic! Can we handle this untamable God? 

Forgive me my Papa God, for withdrawing my trust when you do the unexpected.  Forgive me for acting as though I am the Sovereign. Forgive me, my Mighty King for living as though you are not my ruling authority.  Forgive me, Holy Spirit for not willingly giving my body up again as an intrument of righteousness.  Forgive me, my Savior for forgetting that your grace is not too small, your tenderness not too lean and your provisions ever endless.  Forgive me, oh Artist and Author of life, for looking at your creation with the small eyes of the world and not the large eyes of eternity.  I repent.  Increase my strength to be faithful! 

Last week we had an in-depth ultrasound performed (due to my age, of course…) to check the health of our baby.  On a large screen, we saw human life the size of a peach.  The oversized head held the developing brain.  The heart beat out with triumph from the tiny chest.  The spine curved and supported the body with exactness.  The tiny legs and feet kicked and floated through the precisely measured amniotic fluid.  The arms, spindly and free, waved about and for a few moments raised their hands and then let just one hand stay up in greeting and in praise.  Five tiny fingers flexed to show off their perfection.  It was love at first sight. 

My husband and I looked at each other, sheepishly.  The God of the Unexpected had been silently weaving a new life together which he had imagined before he spoke the world into existence. He had been busy at work, ignoring completely our shock and not slowing his pace in spite of our objections.

I came home, looked intently at this photo of our son and in the aloneness of our room responded in the only way I now could: I bowed down before our Holy, Holy, Holy God.

UPDATE:

      Our beautiful and healthy son, Jorgen Samuel was born on December 27, 2016!  

Mother’s Day 2017, Jorgen @ 4 months old:

Today I completed a year-long personal devotional and expositional study of the earliest concept of prayer and all the prayers recorded in the book of Genesis.  Herbert Lockyer’s classic book has been my faithful guide and will continue to lead me through the rest of the prayers of the entire bible.

Prayer, understood most simply is this: the desire, opportunity and privilege of talking with God and hearing from God.  The first instinctual prayer was natural conversation; open fellowship in the delight of existence.  The Spirit of God, through this study, has renewed in me this most beautiful, ancient and intended form of prayer.  It is the way I hear my youngest children talking with God in their rooms in the early morning hours as they dress for school. It is the way most of us grow out of, but never should.

But, I have been growing young again! Indeed, I find myself throughout my days simply enjoying His presence and speaking with Him as if we are walking in Eden together, our communion undisturbed and alive, lifted above the critical issues of the world and of my smaller daily life.

The Cross of Jesus Christ has made this dialogue, altered through the tragic entrance of sin, whole again.

It would be pages to elebrorate for you all I have “taken away” from my study, so I shall simply record in points the main thrusts of prayer in Genesis.  May you be blessed.

• First account of “prayer” is God-initiated; man is the responder. All begins with God.
• In the 235th year of the world, the idea of “social, corporate” prayer began.  When forgotten, decline begins.
• Prayer brings in spiritual progress.
• Worship, communion and sacrifice are all bound up in God’s call to us and our calling out to Him.
• Earliest relationship (prayers) of the saints was focused on fulfilling commands and believing promises.  No emphasis on full-disclosure, but on faith.
• All three patriarchs has to ask through prayer and wait for a child.  All had to pray (ask) for the promise to be fulfilled.
• Loneliness, anguish and rejection = crying out prayer = God responding by both hearing and seeing.
• Prayer gives revelation.
• Prayer can ask for more than God initially offers to give.
• There is no true prayer apart from deep humility, ever.
• Intercessory prayer is the saint’s “soul sweat”.  It is hard work.
• Prevailing intercession is the costliest service a Christian can render.
• God never responds to prayer, acting in good or ill towards anyone, without full understanding and appreciation of their circumstances.
• God can restrain our spirits from from intercessory prayer; when He has determined something He forbids it to be prayed about.  Not all prayers for cities and sinners are “answered”.
• The names and blessings we can bestow on a person or place are expressions of faith equivilant to prayer.
• It is not always wrong to ask for a “sign” when we pray to confirm God’s mind on a matter.
• Pray according to the revealed character of God.  This has power and brings Him pleasure.
• God will answer prayers in line with His purposed will, but He is never in a hurry to do so.  He’s been working the backstory all along.
• Prayer changes circumstances.
• We don’t have to be afraid to express to God, “I need this in order to do that (which you’ve called me to).”
• God’s response often to our prayers is “fear not…I am with you.”
• We can appeal to God’s faithfulness in the verbiage of Him as our Father.
• We should pray not with the boldness of self-confidence but the boldness of faith.
• The surest way to prevail with men and circumstances is to prevail with God.  His is the first and last word.
• To live a life of prayer is to be a God-conscious person, in all things.
• The way to die (and live!) is with blessing and prayers on our lips, our eyes heavenward.

This is the story of my husband’s day yesterday and this is the story of mine:

His:  Benjamin drove a team of fifteen college-aged students out to a cistern work site in a village about an hour away, stopping to pick up more supplies on the way.  He worked in cooperation with the local foreman in the big project of building another cistern to triple the water 300 families in this town will be receiving into their homes. There is something beautiful about helping bring water (because water changes everything, right?) to people.

Ben left the team and drove to the nearby house of a man, whom we witnessed come to Jesus last summer. He’s been reluctant to take the time for discipleship, but Ben has been faithful to keep in contact with him.  He was welcomed into his home yesterday and introduced to his new “wife” (co-habitation with the facade of marriage is common here).

“She does not understand about Jesus like you have taught me, Ben.  I don’t know how to explain it all. You’ve got to tell her; will you now?”  Ben took a seat and began to carefully explain grace vs. works, Jesus as the only mediator between God and man, how the cannon of scripture came to be, the truth of the Word and the hope of eternity with peace, purpose and joy in this life.  The wife listened intently, trying to reconcile this with the brand of Mexican Roman Catholicism she has only known.

Ben felt he said everything in the manner he was supposed to, for that time.  The husband thanked him and said now he and his wife could talk more and have Ben over again for more conversation.   There is something beautiful about opening up the well of salvation to another who is lost. 

Ben then left to wrap up the work on the cistern for the day.  Now it was time to get to the little tienda in which he leads a bible study and discussion every Wednesday evening.  They have done an overview of the basic doctrines of Christianity, delved into marriage and family and now are looking at biblical prophecy.  There is something beautiful about engaging with new believers as they wrestle with understanding the Word for the first time and open up their hearts, in trust, to ask real questions. 

On the way, he stopped by a home where a man and his wife live with their two girls.  Ben has shared many meals with them of meager tortillas and beans, listened to their stories, counseled them, given Jesus Storybook Bibles to their daughters and taught them what it is to pray.  Here, often if you want people to show up somewhere you have to drive to their homes and almost literally push them into your vehicle and drive them to the place. “Get it, let’s go!”  Ben called to this man and his wife.  They rushed to bring their girls to grandma and got in to get to the study.  There is something beautiful about pursuing people to come to truth when, in their own wallowing, they would be so reluctant to do so.

The study was engaging.  Ben arranged he would be back this Saturday morning to pick each of them up to bring them to the prayer seminar we are hosting at our church, taught by our Pastor from Florida and our short-term team.  The discussion about this and the details was anything but short in this culture that talks around in circles until they finally land on definites.  There is something beautiful about offering a place to learn and grow and be ministered to in prayer to a people who have never had the opportunity to experience such a setting in all their lives. 

After this time, Ben drove to another town about 20 minutes away to share a late supper with a pastor and his wife in their 2-room house, which also serves as their church.  They have labored in this town for 7 years and now have two families that have become disciples of Christ.  The ground, spiritually, is fiercely hard and hostile.  Ben and those two talked and prayed and schemed up a wonderful outreach to engage this town.

On Monday, we’ll bring our team to the town center.  We have a city permit to rent and set up in the basketball courts, in the shadow of the 400-year old church and ex-convent.  We’ll put up a tent with chairs underneath.  There we’ll love on children with activities and games, have a message and testimonies and then show a film to reach their hearts.  Music that Ben will play will draw them in, for folks love to gather in such a setting.  Afterwards, we’ll all head back to the pastor’s home and share a meal with his wife and his small body of believers.  We’ll love on them, strengthen them and encourage them, all together.  There is something beautiful about planning hope and offering ourselves, for the sake of the gospel all unto the Jesus we love. 

He was home by 11pm and that was his day.

Hers:  I awoke to get breakfast for our children.  The dishes and laundry met me yet again in piles, for our water supply has been intermittent.  I had to fight for joy all day, under that light.  We shared a pot of oatmeal around the table and the children ate as I read from the Psalms and from the Proverbs.  The younger two bickered a bit, again.  Sigh. We prayed for Dad, for us, for the team coming and for all the cares we have and others have that came to mind.  I drove the girl up to school while the boys ran the dogs.  I was already tired.  But there is something beautiful about a day fresh before me, even when it can all seem so routine and insignificant. 

The boys had neglected their chores before the start of school work.  Not the first time this happened.  It affected our whole family.  I had to talk firm and hard, again with reminders and consequences.  Still, there must be something beautiful about the training in character and discipline of our children.  Even when the mother wishes she could look the other way.

I sat down with our middle boy, working painfully yet again, on the structure of writing a simple paragraph.  Then we moved on to math memory cards, the study of the Mycenaean culture in ancient Greece, the bible lesson where we studied all the battles in  the book of Joshua, the learning how to use a Thesaurus and the daily editing skills.  Have I made any head-way with this boy this year, academically?  I wondered again as it can be arduous to school a boy at this wiggly age. But still.. there is something beautiful about taking part in the growth of a boy as he fumbles from learning up to more learning. 

Time to throw in more laundry and get it on the line. Time to organize some things in the school room and correct some papers. Time to unclog a toilet.  Time to wash that stack of dishes.  Time to run to the market store to pick up some produce for supper.  Time to pick up the girl from school and hear about her day as she alternates her words from Spanish to English and back again. Oh, for some quiet, but… there is something beautiful in doing daily work unto the Lord.  It all matters; it all counts. I remind myself of this truth, for it can get hard and it can get lonely and I am still, so slowly, learning the language I hear all around me.

We finish school with the oldest boy given a science test and talking with me about his study of MacBeth.  The garden needs to be weeded.  The garbages must be taken out (lock the cans to the fence, boys, so they don’t get stolen!).  The dogs need to be run again.  The chores to be finished.  The supper made and eaten.  The oldest boy bikes to his Taekwondo class, the girl run up to her ballet class.  They are all interacting with the culture and people around them.  All growing in wisdom, in stature (indeed, they are getting so tall!) and in favor with God and men.  I think.  I dearly hope.  There is something beautiful about being a mother to oversee all of this and facilitate the days, even in a land so different from the one I come have known.

Showers are done, dishes are cleared, laundry is folded.  We prayed some more, worshipped a bit, shut all the windows before another downpour started.  The oldest boy climbed up on the roof to make sure the tinaco was getting full of water again from the cistern pump — he is so handy now with these things.

I tuck in the girl.  She asked me, in the dimness of her night light how snails are born, why we can’t see wind and how it is that Jesus can hear her when she whispers to him in her bed. She wonders why he does not give her a very special friend who speaks English and why she has to be the only girl in the family.  I try to answer the best I can.  Sometimes I wish I were a walking encyclopedia or I had a magic wand.  We talk for a bit, even though I am so tired and I leave the room after I bless her.  There is something beautiful about trying to answer the questions in a little girl’s heart, so she knows she is not alone and that she is loved.

The middle son, he is up in his bed reading, “The Jungle Book“, trying to sound out the words he doesn’t know. We talk about his thoughts — BB guns, remote control helicopters, the pyramids in Egypt and how one can really know that God answers prayers and what difference it makes, really, when God says he is always with us.  He is thinking the thoughts of a boy and wrestling out the thoughts of an emerging young man, trying to make a little sense of the world he finds himself in.  Again, I am so tired, but he needs my exclamations over his delights and he needs my reassurance that all I am teaching him from the Word is really true.  There is something beautiful in these moments.

I walk downstairs to say good-night to the oldest boy, now taller than his dad and quickly catching up to me.  He is stretched out on his little couch, reading on his kindle.  I sit down next to him.  Again, I am so tired but I have not peered inside his heart in awhile.  Being older and more self-sufficient sometimes I confess, I forget.  “How are you doing, buddy?” I ask.

He starts to respond slowly, but then his words pick up speed.  There is a lot going on in that mind of his and I listen to his line of analytical thought and look at him in awe.  There is more hair emerging on his upper lip.  There is a firmness in his voice as he tells me how he has been examing elements of faith and pondering them deeply, trying to find his own way and come to his own conclusions based on the foundation we have given him.   He looks over at his bookshelf with fondness, for these are his friends when friends are hard to come by here.  I know the feeling.  He tells me of his struggles and his victories, of the little desires he has to somehow save for some things to enhance his bike and his room.  These are all important to him.  And I have not listened in awhile. There is something beautiful in really listening to your child.

“Let’s read together, will you start this book with me?” and he hands me a book on evangelism.  What a boy, what a young man!  He’s finding his wings.  He’s got dreams about his life up ahead.  He knows Dad is living his dream and calling and I am too and he rests in that, but he’s finding what it is to be his own man in all of this.  He’ll be 15 this summer and I realize with a jolt, it is all going fast.  That in the few years we have left together, I’ve got to listen often and help him fly.

Funny how the tables turn. Funny how when you serve, you sacrifice so many of your own ambitions but then find out in the giving that it is all worth it. That it is valuable to empower the growth of others, while God is good to somehow still enable yours.

 There is something beautiful in all of that.

So we read, we talked about our reading, we prayed and hugged.

I finally get a shower, folded another load of laundry, make my list of what I need to do the next day and say my own prayers. It is late and I meant to get to bed much earlier before it all begins again.  I meant to find some time to study my Spanish vocabulary, but it is all I could do that day.  “It is all, unto you O Lord,” I whisper.  Sometimes the role I usually play of being the “stay-at-home missionary” seems insignificant. My husband’s days can seem so much more valuable.  I know it is not true, but I, like any mother can sometimes entertain that lie.

I was in bed by 10:50pm and that was my day.

I remembered, as I lay on my pillow and heard the door unlock downstairs and imagined my husband sitting down to take off his work boots, the verses our friend, Kent had emailed that day in response to our thanks to all he had given last summer on the team that had come from Florida.  He responded with something beautiful:

So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’ – Luke 17:10

However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace.  -Acts 20:24

It was not the first time I had admired a certain vase made of burl wood sitting on table against a wall in my counselor-friend’s living room.  Rounded yet uneven, it was sanded smooth to show the complexity of the grains and stood about 30 inches tall.  No human hand had carved it out from within, it was created like that.

I thought how lovely something would look inside of it and finally asked, “Why do you always keep that vase empty?”  My friend walked over to the table and turned the vase around.  The other side was riddled with holes and crevices, rough and uneven.  “See? I had to buy this when I saw it; I need the constant reminder of what I am and what this world is now until the redemption of all things. We are not yet whole, but it is coming.”

I wrestled with hating that vase and its broken beauty. We are at once smooth and retainable and at once knarled and hole-ridden.  The tension we live is the already-but-not-yet.  But hope is true because gradually all is becoming more whole.

I know I am.

You see, becoming a confessed child of God does not end the reformation of our character into Christ-likeness; it only activates the process. Satan realizes this and still has prey on believers through their old nature, working hard to prevent us from coming into the fullness of Christ’s nature in our lives.

We reduce the Gospel when we promote that all is accomplished when we “pray the sinner’s prayer” when it fact all has just begun.  Going from death to life implies growth (Eph. 4:15).  Appropriating the shed blood of Jesus into every arena of our lives, both past and present is the process of sanctification, no matter how painful or humbling.

We are to partner with the Holy Spirit’s passion to make us whole and to display in our lives in ever-increasing and on-going measure the beauty, the power and the mystery of redemption.  We are to partner with the work he is doing in the lives of those we love all around us.

When we speak of “inner-healing” this is exactly what it really means. It has nothing to do with “trying to do better”, motivational pep-talks of recognizing my innate potential, acting as if our past holds no present influence in our lives now, simply being sure I attend church or more intake of facts and knowledge.

Information and participation that does not lead to transformation is useless. It’s just pious religiosity. And frankly, it is boring, lifeless and utterly devoid of the power of the resurrected Jesus and his gospel.   He desires salvation to be fully effective in all dimensions of our life and character.

Healing or better stated, sanctification, leads to wholeness.  Wholeness leads to more of the glory of God in our lives. His glory in our lives ushers in constant restoration.  And this enables us to truly live in shalom: replacing or providing what is needed in order to make us whole and complete.

Thank you Father, that you never let go of this process in my life. Thank you that you intend for me, wholeness.

Mothering is all about disciple-making.  Take that element out of the equation and what you have left is at its best is ooey-goey nurturing and perhaps the production of good citizens and a relatively healthy family environment where you’ve kissed boo-boos, kept them fed and clothed and ensured their academic potential and even cultural savvy-ness, but still it is essentially void of life’s greatest purpose: to know Jesus and make Him known.

We are all preparing for eternity.  This is not all there is and if a day goes by that I don’t remind myself and my children that at the end of all our work and words is Home, my eyes are not fixed high enough.

I know of no greater way as a mother to maintain a supernatural vision of earthly realities than being consistently intentional in discipling my own children. But what does it look like to make disciples as a mother?  Let me offer some insights:

1.     In order to make disciples, you have to first be a disciple (a learner; one who adheres to the principles and instructions provided by another. There is a whole chapter on this concept here).  If I as a mother lose a vision of my own sin and my desperate need for the Gospel daily I fall into pride and legalism.  Which in mothering often takes the form of control, nagging and perfectionism. That all makes me tightly wound.  And in that case I need deliverance for in that there is no gentleness, no grace, no quiet spirit, no leaving a trail of peace behind me, no trust and I need the Gospel. Again.  I need to be filled with the power of the Holy Spirit in absolute surrender or I am lost.  The Spirit is my counselor, my teacher, my wisdom, the One who is ever leading me.

Unless my children SEE and HEAR this (talk about your walk with Him–it ought to be as natural as breathing, not something privatized and strange to their ears and eyes! And yes, that includes letting them hear you pray and I mean really pray!) they do not know that you too are a disciple!  Yes, to live as a disciple means addressing the brokenness in my own soul that has and does come up so I might come into greater healing and minister more effectively.  It means confessing my sins to one another that I might be healed.  It means my children seeing me do this and hearing that I seek out counselor and mentors. A mother disciple-maker lives out her own constant apprenticeship. 

2.  Disciple out of who God designed you to be: your personality, strengths, interests and spiritual gifts.  If you chose not to, you will fall into exhaustion deep in your soul, fall into the comparison trap and sabotage all your best efforts. Here is a good resource for this if you are not sure who you are.

You do not have to become someone different and new to make disciples;  you do have to become more of you in the fullness and wholeness God designed.

For me this means playing basketball, soccer and baseball with my boys.  It means handing off math and science questions to Dad.  It means making simple and healthy meals not spending hours trying something new to wow my crowd. It means serving kale/spinach/pineapple/coconut oil/lemon protein smoothies for breakfast 🙂  It means not watching TV and reading mounds of books to my kids.  It means using my spiritual gifts of prophecy, knowledge, discernment, teaching and exhortation to cast vision, to speak truth into their lives, to illuminate Scripture, to instruct them on spiritual warfare, to educate them on global needs and affairs, to intercede with them on behalf of others.  It means teaching them about beauty and order in our home and to observe it in nature.

It means taking care of myself and expressing my own needs (and teaching them to do the same).  It means I don’t sew or scrapbook or know the latest technology or lead a PTA group or have my own home business or rush off to corporate meetings or remember that someone might need a meal or sing and play guitar or act in the local theater ..that list could go on.  And I am okay with that fact.

The more your children see your growth and acceptance in who you are in Jesus–mind, body and soul, the more they will feel their beloved-ness by God.

And oh, isn’t one of our goals in disciple-making, for others, for our children to know the deep, deep love of Jesus?  That He longs for them, that He rubs His hands in delight every time He hears their voices calling His name, that He expects nothing of them but what He already did for them on the cross?  That all the rest that we can do and say is gratitude, intentional and joyous gratitude?

3.  Discipling your children, or anyone else for that matter, does not mean you have to know everything.  About the Word, ethics, science, social behavior, relationship issues, politics and how it all relates to God.  If we all waited until we were 100% prepared to be mothers we would all still be pregnant. Can you imagine?  None of us were ready when those babies were placed in our arms.  But God had this ingenious plan; as they grew we would grow, going from glory to glory. It’s called synergy.  Nothing grows in utter isolation.  When we agree to mother, to disciple, we agree to depend wholly on a miraculous God to show Himself mighty because we are not enough.

Our pastor recently spoke about discipleship, pointing to the story of Zacchaeus.  He noted how Jesus did not wait to be invited by the wee little man.  He initiated.  He pursued.  He built a relationship in 10 seconds just by knowing his name.  I get frustrated with women who wait for their children to show interest in Jesus or church or other things they deem holy.  They don’t push, they don’t expect, they don’t teach, they don’t talk, they wait.  Sometimes for a lifetime and then wonder why their kids are so far away in every sense of the word.  Discipleship takes proactive tenacity and though you must inquire of the Holy Spirit who He would have you disciple this year, you never have to pray that prayer about your children or grandchildren.  They are your disciples   So, get on with it!

Let them ask their questions and find the answers together.  Most of disciple-making is getting on someone else’s turf and letting them ask questions.  It is not time for motivational pep-talks or preaching, but of mutual sharing and learning.   Search the Scriptures together.   Memorize and meditate on Scripture. We do this very slowly, no verse a week in this house; we “chew” too much!

If you need a fantastic structure to start moving through with your children check out my personal favorite here.  Again, after five years we are still not done with book two because we don’t rush.  Scripture is more than often something to linger in, not to accumulate. Worship together and for heaven’s sake get out of any stiff religious or cultural boxes and lift your hands and dance with them (sorry, it’s biblical!).

There is no true discipleship without a love-affair with the Word of God and worship, hungering for His manifest presence. 

4.  Discipling our children builds within them the true skills to live and love well. Remember the two greatest commandments–to love God and love each other? God actually gave these to us for our benefit because He knew that to walk in these is to live in the two greatest blessings in life; true relational intimacy with Him and others.  Obviously then, these should be the focus of our mothering as we raise disciples of Jesus.  This boils down to teaching our children then, relational skills.

I once read that the quality of our earthly relationships determines the quality of our heavenly ones.  That would make sense that the foundation we are building now will be that which we add to for all eternity!  So, let’s get practical about this, discipling our children how to:

•      Listen to others–teach them to ask good questions, to make themselves students of others, to truly hear hearts.
•      To settle conflicts–teach them the goal is not to avoid them for they actually help us grow, but to figure out how to bring two opposing opinions together as close         as possible for good resolution.
•      To put others interests before their own–an attitude of humility, service and care for others.
•      To co-operate–how to work with and not against others, to “ark” together as a family in a common goal or vision not live separate lives.
•      To function appropriately in various specific relationships–friendships, siblings, marriage, boss/employee.

Relational dynamics centered on Jesus produces love and service.  When my children are in the thick of it I sit them down and without any other words start reading the book of First John to them. We linger there for quite awhile and the Word is enough.

I’ve mothered now for almost thirteen years.  We have three children here and we sent one on up ahead.  I know each one of my children are miracles for I was not supposed to be able to have them.  But that was before God healed my body and every other part of me.  I  greet my children each morning with a joy that we are alive together in the here and now.  This is our time in history ordained by God before the foundations of the world.  And this is your time.

I know there is a cost to being a mother disciple-maker. Believe me, I know.  There is always a cost for that which is noble and lasting.

But if you commit to discipling just one of your children and they in turn this year disciple another (and even my seven year old can do this) and their disciples do the same, then at the end of 10 years there will be 1,024 disciples!  At the end of 15 years, 32,768 disciples!   At the end of 20 years, 1, 4800,576 disciples and in 30 years over one billion people made disciples of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

I don’t know about you, but I am aiming for 3 billion.

Yes, three billion worshipers of Jesus that know Him and make Him known.  I want to stand with them and my sweet husband and our children before the Throne one day and together cry, “Amen! Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever!”

I’m counting on seeing you and your gang there among the billions.

So don’t waste your motherhood.