Teaching Our Children About Broken Fellowship

Guest post by contributor Andrea

Last year when I was struggling as a mother of four kids under the age of four (including newborn twins), a dear friend gave me a book called “Loving the Little Years” by Rachel Jankovic.  That little book has been read several times now, as well as the sequel, “Fit to Burst”.  I love these books because they are short, and the chapters are short.  They are random thoughts on motherhood in no particular order.  I could usually finish a chapter while nursing the babies.  It is chock full of humor, practical suggestions, encouragement, and lessons on motherhood – specifically in mothering little people.

Perhaps one of the reasons I “connected” with the author so well is that our children fall into the same birth order, two toddlers, then twins (and now she has two other children).  So many times I wondered if Rachel had been sitting in my living room watching me mother my children, and then gone home to write a chapter about it!

One of the biggest things I took away from this book was how to teach my children to restore fellowship.  I’m sure you’ve been there – the kids are fighting over that same toy, again.  One child gets mad and hits his sister, while the sister spouts off unkind names to her brother.  And there you are, trying to figure out who had the toy first, who did what, and who gets the discipline.

I am always frustrated when this breaks out in our home!  {And it happens quite often…just saying.}  But now I approach my teaching and discipline from a different perspective.  Instead of dealing with who had the toy first, we talk instead about broken fellowship.  You see, my children had both decided that the toy was more important than the fellowship with their sibling.  They assigned more value to the item that to the relationship.  They don’t realize they are doing that, but it provides a great opportunity to counsel them about sin and relationships.

We now go through questions something like this:

What is more important, your brother, or that toy? 

What did you act like was the most important? 

What should we do to show your brother he is most important? 

How can you restore the fellowship? 

It takes several counseling sessions to help your children understand the concept of fellowship.  You want them to understand that relationships (people) are more important than things.  If the rift in the fellowship is really bad, I do take away the toy.  I explain that it would be better to throw the toy away than to have it in our house if we are going to break fellowship because of it.  And when push comes to shove, the kids usually find a way to share the toy rather than have it thrown in the garbage.

To restore fellowship, the kids need to say something like, “I’m sorry I wasn’t kind and I broke fellowship with you.  Will you please forgive me?”  Then they hug, and make-up.

This has not only been very helpful in solving fights, but it is also a valuable opportunity to teach them about the Gospel.  Every one of us is born into broken fellowship with God.  The only way to restore fellowship is to ask Him to forgive our sins through the blood of Jesus, and to come into our life and be our Savior.  Even as Christians, we experience broken fellowship with our Lord on a daily basis every time we sin.  But the fellowship is easy to restore when we ask for forgiveness.

Every time my children my children experience broken fellowship with each other, I get to illustrate their broken fellowship with God.  I am praying that one day soon my oldest will understand more completely and choose to accept Christ and the restored fellowship He offers.

Feed My Lambs

Our pastor just finished preaching through the book of John.  I love the end of the book – chapter 21 – when Jesus meets His disciples on the shore of the Sea of Galilee.  He gently restores Peter by reaffirming his call three times – the same number of times which Peter had denied Jesus during the crucifixion.  Jesus states His mission for Peter – “feed my lambs” one time, and “feed my sheep” twice.

We know that Jesus was calling Peter to be a leading force in the newly formed New Testament church.  The reference to lambs likely refers to new believers.  Jesus wanted Peter to gently care for those who were new in the faith.  “Sheep” could refer to more mature believers.

As my pastor was preaching through these verses he mentioned how lambs have to be fed more often.  Sometimes the shepherd might have to get up in the night to care for these vulnerable little ones.  On a recent missionary deputation trip we stayed with a family who has a hobby goat farm.  One of the goats died giving birth to twin kids.  The family members alternated who got up every four hours during the night to give the goats a bottle of milk.

My mind wandered to mothers of newborns and young babies.  We get up in the night to meet the physical needs of our children by nursing them or giving them a bottle.  We comfort them when they are sick, hold them when they are teething, and soothe them after a bad dream.  We don’t tell them to feed themselves or to go back to sleep – we deal gently with them, even though we are weary. 

Though there could be many applications from this passage, one was important to me, and I have meditated on it many times over the last couple of weeks.  As mothers, we have an important role to take care of the physical needs of our young children.  Sometimes we feel alone, home-bound, weary, lost in the monotony of routine tasks, and even unimportant, unaccomplished, and unappreciated.  But our efforts are not lost to the Savior.  He recognized that those who are young or immature need more care.

Yet our responsibility to feed our young children extends far beyond the tasks of meals, laundry, cleaning the home, etc.  As Christian parents we are responsible to spiritually feed our children.  They should hear the Word of God from our lips, and they should see it lived out in our daily choices.  It is not the Sunday School teacher’s job to teach our children the truths of God’s Word.  Their ministry is reinforcing what our children should be learning at home…from us.

We “feed the lambs” by teaching them God’s Word, living God’s Word, explaining God’s Word, helping them memorize God’s Word, and applying God’s Word to everyday situations in the lives of our children.  We feed the lambs when we pray for our children, and refuse to let the enemy get a stronghold in their lives.

Sometimes I get tired of going through the same lecture, the same discipline, the same scenario with my little ones.  Are they bickering over that toy AGAIN?  Did he just hit his sister AGAIN?  I want to say, “I shouldn’t have to tell you this again!”  But just as there are times physically when I don’t think I can squeeze another ounce of energy out to pry myself out of bed and nurse the baby, so there are times spiritually when I don’t think I have the strength to shepherd these little lambs and their delicate hearts to the Savior.  And do you know what?  I don’t have the strength.  I can’t do it alone.  As He gives me strength to meet the physical needs of my children, so the Lord gives the wisdom and the strength to go over that lesson on kindness with my children one more time.

We just started homeschooling for kindergarten last week, and I am very weary.  It seems like things are grating on my nerves more quickly than normal.  Each task seems to take more energy that I have.  But I have been encouraged from this passage to continue on feeding His lambs.  He has entrusted four of them to me, and I don’t want to fail the Savior in my task.

Dark Sayings of Old (and a Free Devotional eBook)

Guest post by Imperfect Homemaker contributor Ellen (my mom!)

I Am Blessed With a Beautiful Mess

Every day I face mountains.

Mountains of laundry.

Mountains of dishes.

Mountains of exhaustion, frustration, and confusion.

Motherhood is the hardest thing I have ever done.

Last night my husband took the kids out for a couple hours, and I had a quiet house to myself.  (Well, I had the baby with me, but she seems like no work at all when you're used to three other tornadoes in the house!)

You would think I would have enjoyed the quiet.  Having a chance to go to the bathroom without having to referee sibling bickering through the door should be blissful, right?

But you know who the happiest person was for those kids to get home?

Me!

I hardly knew what to do with myself while they were gone!  I was (dare I say it?) bored!

You see, while they are a challenge to face each day,  every one of those mountains in my home is beautiful.

Those mountains of laundry represent a little boy who is full of healthy curiosity about the world God made.  They represent siblings playing outside with one another, climbing trees, playing on the swing set, and picking honeysuckle together.

I want these to be the memories my kids have of home; not of how mom was always complaining about how hard they made her work.

Those mountains of dishes represent meals around the family table, talking and laughing together.  The discussions about how to read the clock on the kitchen wall will all too soon turn into discussions about how their college classes are going.  I don't want to waste precious memories that will pass too quickly by spending my time focusing on the dirty dishes.

The mountains of exhaustion, confusion, and frustration represent long days teaching children how to be kind, responsible, honest, and obedient, even when they are not the most cooperative students.

But each “Yes, ma’am” that I hear brings a renewed energy and determination to work diligently so that one day those “Yes, ma’am”s will turn to “Yes, Lord”s.

And one day when I see my grown children living a life for God’s glory, I will look back and reflect on this beautiful mess that defines my life as a young mother. And I will declare that every mountain I scaled was worth the effort ten times over.

Thoughts on the Sacrifice of Motherhood

The following is a guest post by Imperfect Homemaker contributor Andrea.

The Lord has really been working in my heart recently about one specific area of motherhood: sacrifice.  I don’t even feel qualified to write about it because many days I kick against the sacrifice involved in rearing my little people.  But as the Lord has continued drawing my heart, I am realizing the incredible privilege and reward involved in being a sacrificial mother.

Most moms are self-sacrificing for their children.  I was blessed with a godly mother who sacrificed day in and day out to stay home with her three children, homeschooling all of us from kindergarten to graduation, cooking for us, cleaning up after us, and much more that I am sure I will never fully realize.  And while I knew that being a mom involved these kinds of sacrifices, I didn’t truly understand the full extent of it until I was knee deep in the trenches of motherhood myself.

Especially if you have little people in your home, I’m sure the sacrifice seems very real.  I know – I have four kids, ages four and under.  Sometimes I think they wait for my head to hit the pillow and then they start crying.  I am usually the last one to sit down to eat, and often my meal is cold by the time I get to it.  Just when I finished the breakfast dishes there is a pile of lunch dishes to wash.  I can change bed sheets pretty quickly – I do it nearly every morning right now on at least one bed/crib.  Some days I feel like I discipline for the same thing all day long.  The laundry and floors are two things that are never clean!  Yes – motherhood is sacrifice.

Many times I have struggled with all that I have to do, all that I need to do, and how fast the time seems to fly away.  I have lamented to my husband that I never get to scrapbook anymore, or that I just spent all day cleaning the house only to have it messy again at bedtime, or that I am so tired from being up several times in the night with sick children.  Sometimes I just want a little time for myself.  Sometimes I just wish I could stop and take a vacation from mothering.  But then the Lord reminds me: motherhood is sacrifice.

This point was really brought home to me when I came face to face with these facts.  Did you ever stop to consider that your child is an eternal soul?  That one day – he/she will spend all of eternity in either heaven or hell?  If that is not sobering enough, consider that your child is entrusted to you for the first 20-ish years of this eternal existence.  And then consider the fact that we only get one chance at this mothering thing.  We can’t put it off until later or a more convenient time, we can’t start in when they are a teenager and hope to fix all the problems, and we can’t go back and do it over a different way.

I had never seen parenting from that perspective before.  I get to be the one to influence and raise my children for the first 20-ish years of their eternal existence.  My children are really the only thing I can take with me when I die.  The house?  It stays here.  The money?  It will be left to someone else.  The scrapbooks/hobbies?  They will probably end up in the garbage one day.  But my kids – I can take them with me for eternity…If I am willing to sacrifice what I want now for what I want my kids to be someday.  Because motherhood is sacrifice.

It really comes down to what is most important to me.  I could put my kids in day care so that I could pursue a career which will ultimately be of no lasting value.  I could be selfish with my time and energy, insisting upon “me time” instead of pouring the Gospel into my children’s lives and living it before them.  I can fuss over having a clean house instead of playing with my kids and building  life-changing relationships with them.  Motherhood is sacrifice.

Now I am not saying you can’t ever have any “me time.”  Or that you can’t ever leave your children with someone else.  But I am saying we should be willing to sacrifice some of the temporal pleasures and entertainment in order to be the right kind of mother to our children.  My scrapbooking can be picked up again when my kids are bigger or on their own.  Eventually I will not have a living room full of toys.  There will be time for  hobbies or pursuits later.

If I neglect my children now for other things which I deem to be more valuable, then one day I will be left with empty arms and fading accomplishments.  But if I sacrifice temporal things now in order to influence my children in their foundational years, then when my kids are grown I will have a full heart and rewards in heaven.   Proverbs 22:6 promises, “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”  When my kids grow up to serve the Lord, I will get to share in that reward because I will have poured my life into discipling them.  That is something that is worth the sacrifice in my book.

Mothering is a hard job.  It is not for the faint of heart!  Many days I earnestly desire to be done with diapers and discipline.  But until then I am trying to remind myself that this sacrifice now will bring rewards and benefits far into the future that I cannot even begin to imagine.  So be encouraged to keep giving, to keep teaching, to keep sacrificing because your rewards are eternal!

“And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.”
Galatians 6:9

Free Illustrated Bible Verses (KJV)

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Each verse directly applies to things children will face in their daily lives, such as:

• Salvation
• Obedience
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• Being generous
• Being cheerful
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You can use these along with the Bible time suggestions for toddlers and preschoolers to help your little ones get to know God and his word better.

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