Source of my Yelling...

SELFISHNESS! I’ve been struggling to surrender this sin to Lord for a while. I don’t want to yell at my children. I don’t want to see a look of fear in my children’s eyes when they hear their mother’s voice beginning to change tone. I want my children to see the love and patience of Christ in me. Another thing, the Lord is revealing to me, is how He wants my children to see more than just His love and patience in me. He also wants to reveal his selflessness, and His servant’s heart.

I began to realize this week that I get impatient and yell at my children when they are interrupting something I want to be doing. Such as, e-mailing, blogging, instant messaging, or running on the treadmill. It’s also quite challenging to keep a “quiet and gentle spirit” (1 Pt. 3:4) when the children refuse to nap. Once again, nap time = mommy’s alone and quiet time.

The Lord is trying to teach me to relax a little. Enjoy these little interruptions in my day and view them as the precious fleeting moments they actually are. My children are going to become more and more independent each year of their lives. In a blink of an eye, they are going to be grown and gone. When that day comes, perhaps I will long for a few of these interruptions that I often view now as a nuisance, or a cause to YELL!!!!

I believe the MOST important lesson the Lord is trying to teach me through this is…”just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for man.” (Mt. 20:28) As a Christian mother, I am to be like Christ to my little lambs. I am to lay my selfishness aside. I am not here to be served, but to serve.

I often refer to my home as my mission field. I really do believe that. I also believe my mission field is also a battleground. One night during my husband’s Wednesday night Bible study, he taught on habitual sin. He closed in a time for us to confess a sin to the Lord we continue to struggle with and ask the Lord to remove this from our lives. I confessed my sin of getting angry too quickly at the children and YELLING! Wouldn’t you know, Satan started attacking me like crazy the next few days. I had to start fighting this battle with the Word of God and with prayer.

This is something I wrote in my prayer journal one day. “Holy Spirit, control my mind, my words, my emotions, my actions. I pray on the FULL armor of God right now as I go out and fight today for you and for your glory, right here in our home. I ask you Jesus to bind the enemy from our home and from our children. You are greater and mightier than my enemy. Because of You and your power, I have victory! In Jesus name, Amen.”

Another thing that is totally awesome is I shared the gospel with our 5-year-old son and 4-year-old daughter the same day I prayed this. Isn’t it awesome how that morning in my quiet time, the Lord was preparing the mission field, and the hearts of my children for gospel seeds to be sown?

Lord Jesus, thank you for giving me the opportunity to plant these seeds in the hearts of my children. I know Lord neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only You make things grow. (1 Cor. 3:6-7)

(I shared this a couple years ago, and just wanted to share it again. The 5-year-old and 4-year old I mentioned are now 8 and almost 7-years-old. They've seen me struggle openly with sin, and they have seen me yell less and less. I have confessed my sin to them over and over, asked for their forgiveness, and sometimes heard them pray aloud for me afterwards. They know I am a sinner, and I desperately needs Jesus. 20-months after this originally posted my son at age 6 prayed and invited Christ to be His personal Savior and Lord. My daughter also accepted Christ 30-months after later at the age of 5. So, this is simply a reminder that your home IS a mission field! Keep sharing Christ with your children, and constantly pointing them to Jesus. )