how do you hug God?

find out here:  http://lisanotes.blogspot.com/2010/02/how-do-you-hug-god.html

the prayers i need to pray as a parent

still on the subject of parenting, Kath wrote this on her blog ( http://alisteningspace.blogspot.com/2010/08/prayers-i-need-to-pray-to-parent.html  ):

The prayers I need to pray to parent

They are so simple, yet I just keep losing track. This is my reminder for today...

Pray for wisdom
Pray for patience
Pray for love
Give thanks for each and all of them
Pray for them to grow, in all ways
Pray for forgiveness for all the times I am not enough
Pray that they will learn grace from my not being enough
Pray that they will find God enough

What else do you pray? (Yes, I really do want to know...)

I am unfit to be a mother

I think a lot of moms have felt this at one time or another in their parenting journey.  I know I have.  I am fighting it right now because I find these teen years so daunting.  How will prepare them for their life?  I can I train them when I myself feel untrained and still learning. 


This morning during my coffee time I read this (found here:  http://mybigthree.highcallingblogs.com/2010/08/24/parent-credentials/   click on link to read all of her thoughts, this is just a portion, just the portion that spoke to me).

Whenever I feel this inadequacy, I turn to these Scriptures . . .

For I am the least of the apostles, who am not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am . . .

. . . and my feeling is confirmed: I am unfit to be a mother.

Yet here I am, a mother; three undeniable evidences sit around our dinner table, drink four gallons of milk per week, and throw their dirty socks in the laundry basket. I am, in fact, a mother. This means that God has made me what I am not fit to be. Every time I try to understand that, I can’t, really. God gave me this job, even though I am under qualified. Counter intuitively, this knowledge—this realization that I am unfit to be a parent—strengthens me as a parent. My best parenting credential is God’s grace. By the grace of God, I am what I am . . .

. . . and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me.
(above quotes are from 1 Corinthians 15:9-10)

The parenting role is overwhelming, but I strive and try harder to be a good parent, even while recognizing that I am a parent only by God’s grace.

how to parent teenagers

Ann has some great thoughts over at Holy Experience:
http://www.aholyexperience.com/2010/08/figuring-out-how-to-parent-teenagers.html