True Woman - Delighting in your children

Nancy's email teaser:

Delighting In Your Children

Every mom would claim to love her children, but what does it really mean to show Christ-like love in a home? The Bible offers some practical ways to delight in your kids.*

• Mothers can get so caught up in the practical responsibilities of mothering that they forget to really love their children.
• Do you love your husband and your children more than you love your other friends, your outside involvements and interests, or your job?
• Don’t lose the joys that you could have in the present, and the opportunities God is giving you today, by being impatient for the future.

Listen to or read more from “Delighting In Your Children”

well...I'm almost done the follow-up emails to the true woman conference devotions that I went to last October. It's been an interesting study. Good in many ways to do. :) And today we get to look at the theme of delighting in one's children.

I have one. He is my delight...98% of the time...sometimes he drives me round the bend....but he's a good boy and oh boy...do I delight in him. But enough of me...let's see what Nancy has to say about this topic ....and God's word too!

From Titus 2:1-5 we read:

1But as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine. 2Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness. 3 Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, 4and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, 5to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.

We need to love our children...why? that the word of God may not be reviled. Remember...that's the reason. We don't love our children simply because they are ours. We love them so that GOD's word will not be reviled.

So what does it mean to love our children?

I know from other scripture that loving means discipline, extending grace, being there, helping, giving tasks/duties and teaching. Just look at how God loves us! He's provided us with a whole world to live in! He gives us jobs/duties. He disciplines us when we are in need of it, and gives a hug (figuratively speaking) when we need one too. He helps us, trains us, calls us to be more than we think we can be. He tells us over and over that he loves us and cares for us and protects us.

This is how we love our children, at least that's how it seems to me. We love our children as God loves us.

Do I go that well all the time? no. I don't accept it well all the time either.
but does it give me an example to live by? for sure.

If in my parenting I try to treat my boy the way that God treats me I think we'll do okay. :)

Nancy speaks about how children are a blessing, and how we are to love on them through all the tasks that parenting brings. Makes sense to me. :)

Older women are to train younger women to love their children, according to Titus 2:4. This word love their children, in the Greek language in which the original text is written, is just one word. It’s a combination of two words made into one compound word.

The first word is the word philos, which is the word for friend; the second word is teknon, the word for child. It’s a person who is fond of children, a lover of children, somebody who enjoys children.

So older women are to teach younger women just how to love their children, how to enjoy them for who they are.

Learn to enjoy your children
Try not to be sucked into the world's view that children are a burden. They aren't. They are a delight! We are to care for them, love them, enjoy them.

Let us learn to be better parents! :)