pressing on in His grace

Does anybody else ever get all wound up by the tremendous amount of responsibility of teaching young children at home? Especially when you know/believe that these early formative years are the most malleable of their lives? And the responsibility is all on your shoulders to make sure that they love the Lord and love others and share and sing and dance and help with chores and live responsibly and ten thousand other crucial character-development things?

No? That's just me? Okay, well, no pressure.

So I'm reading a book about the Montessori method of preschooling, something which I have been totally sold on ever since reading about the amazing effectiveness of it in the book Nurtureshock (which everyone should read, in my humble opinion). I really, really like what I'm reading, and it corresponds well with the majority of what I'm doing, but it is also giving me all kinds of new ideas. Rilla and Abraham are both reaching ages where they are ready for new games, new stimulus, etc and I am trying to adjust my brain to be able to help guide them best where they are at now as they each move into slightly new developmental phases.

As always, I find that the most challenging part of parenting is making myself be faithful to God, self-controlled, living earnestly and joyfully, and being imaginative and energetic day in and day out, with nobody watching. Choosing kind words when nobody else hears. Choosing to come up with something creative to do on the 712th rainy day in a row (okay, maybe not quite that many, but it's beginning to feel like it), something that will make them giggle and boost their brainpower and be more than just something to get us through the doldrums that can set in during late afternoon.

So in the last few weeks I have been deliberately not stressing about the housework. I give up; our home will never be as clean as I want it to be. And it's great how when I give up, it magically becomes cleaner. (Like not stressing about it somehow helps. Weird.) And I'm trying to just play with my children more, to savor these times with them and the times that Keith is home too, to enjoy this beautiful time together as a family and to be purposeful about how I parent and live. That's why this blog is called purposeful living, of course... not because I'm there, but because I'm trying to get there. I feel like I've been failing a lot lately, particularly in the aspect of majoring in the minors.

And I'm finding that once again, repentance and running to Jesus and confessing my sin and accepting and swimming in His grace is - surprise! - the best, best, best best BEST.

"Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:12-14).