Heart Reflections Live

Labels: feminism, food for thought, Modesty, motherhood

"Anne was not sleepy. She was too happy to sleep just yet. She moved softly about the room, putting things away, braiding her hair, looking like a beloved woman. Finally she slipped on a neglige and went across the hall to the boys' room. Walter and Jem in their bed and Shirley in his cot were all sound asleep. The Shrimp, who had outlived generations of pert kittens and become a family habit, was curled up at Shirley's feet. Jem had fallen asleep while reading The Life Book of Captain Jim... it was open on the spread. Why how long Jem looked lying under the bed-clothes! He would soon be grown up. What a sturdy, reliable little chap he was! Walter was smiling in his sleep as some one who knew a charming secret. The moon was shining on his pillow through the bars of the leaded window... casting the shadow of a clearly defined cross on the wall above his head. In long after-years Anne was to remember that and wonder if it was an omen of Courcelette... of a cross-marked grave "somewhere in France." But tonight it was only a shadow... nothing more. The rash had quite gone from Shirley's neck. Gilbert had been right. He was always right.

Nan and Diana and Rilla were all in the next room... Diana, with darling little damp red curls all over her head and one little sunburned hand under her cheek, and Nan with long fans of lashes brushing hers. The eyes behind those blue-veined lids were hazel, like her father's. And Rilla was sleeping on her stomach. Anne turned her right side up, but her buttoned eyes never opened.

They were all growing so fast. In just a few short years they would all be young men and women... youth tiptoe...expectant... astir with its sweet, wild dreams...little ships sailing out of safe harbour to unknown parts. The boys would go away to their life work, and the girls...ah, the mist-veiled forms of beautiful brides might be seen coming down the stairs at Ingleside. But they would be still hers for a few years yet... hers to love and guide... to sing the songs that so many mothers had sung. Hers... and Gilbert's.

FROM "ANNE OF INGLESIDE" BY L M MONTGOMERY.

Labels: Books, godly wives, motherhood, Quote

I couldn't resist posting this one! This is our 4 year old Zara, who, by her own admission, LOVES TO WORK!!!- both outside with Daddy, and inside with her Mama. "What can I do to help?" or "What jobs have you got for me?" are 2 of her favourite questions.

When she plays, she plays work- cooking, picnics, feeding her babies, or her newest thing "playing homeschool" and teaching herself outside homeschool time.

You know I was thinking just the other day what an asset our children are, and yet so many consider them a stress or a liability. During my last ante-natal visit, I was discussing with the doctors my extreme weakness, breathlessness and lethargy this pregnancy. The doctor said, "It's probably a combination of being 40, carrying twins, having a low blood count and heamaglobin, oh, and of course you have 2 at home."

I had to disagree with the last phrase. Yes, our children aren't perfect, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't have days when they stress me out (especially while pregnant!), but they are such a blessing and a help and a joy! I love home-schooling them and watching them learn, and at the moment being so weak and not being able to keep house to the standard I'd like; sitting down and schooling them makes me feel that my days are not being wasted. My doctor looked shocked when I told him my 4 year old vaccuums for me at the moment. I didn't mention the dishes she wipes or the laundry she folds and helps me hang on the line. ( The sight of Zara turning herself head-first and up-side-down into the washing machine to unload it for me is SO funny! BTW I don't ask her to do that and I try to stop her, but her heart to help is tremendous!). Some people find it odd I guess to find a 4 year old who's not glued to the TV or computer screen or off having fun at daycare.

I may be having a difficult pregnancy, and walking the path less chosen being a Stay-at -Home , homeschooling Mother, but you know what? I wouldn't have it any other way!

Labels: child's play, keeper at home, motherhood, parenthood, pregnancy, Zara

Labels: child's play, family life, home, motherhood, Quote, reading

Little Miss 5 and I were recently having a disagreement and she was desparate to turn Mama's "No" into a "Yes".

"No, Darling."

"But you have to say Yes- God told me to!"

"Oh, really. That's very interesting... He didn't tell me."

"That's because you were listening to God the Son. I was listening to God the Father!"

Before you start questioning our theological leanings, don't worry, we are Trinitarians and Miss 5 and Miss 3 are both well schooled in how God is 3 in 1. But don't let that innocent smile fool you! It's now on record that our clever little girl will even try to missuse Scripture to get her own way!

Here is our little Talitha dressed as "Mary Had a Little Lamb", at a Nursery Rhyme dress-up day at school earlier this year.

Labels: family, family life, motherhood, Talitha

"She might be 55 or 60; but hers was one of those faces that time seems to touch only to brighten and adorn. The snowy lisse crape cap, made after the straight Quaker pattern- the plain white muslin handkerchief, lying in placid folds across her bosom, the drab shawl and dress- showed at once the community to which she belonged. Her face was round and rosy, with a healthful downy softness, suggestive of a ripe peach. Her hair, partially silvered by age, was parted smoothly back from a high-placed forehead, on which time had written no inscription, except peace on earth, goodwill to men, and beneath shone a large pair of clear, honest, loving brown eyes; you only needed to look straight into them, to feel that you saw to the bottom of a heart as good and true as ever throbbed in woman's bosom. So much has been said and sung of beautiful young girls, why don't somebody wake up to the beauty of old women? If any want to get up an inspiration under this head, we refer them to our good friend Rachel Halliday, just as she sits there in her little rocking chair. It had a turn for quacking and squeaking- that chair had- either from having taken cold in early life, or from some asthmatic affection, or perhaps from nervous derangement; but, as she gently swung backward and forward, the chair kept up a kind of subdued "creechy crawchy" that would have been intolerable in any other chair. But old Simeon Halliday often declared it was as good as any music to him , and the children all avowed that they wouldn't miss of hearing Mother's chair for anything in the world. For why? For 20 years or more, nothing but loving words, and gentle moralities, and motherly loving kindness, had come from that chair- headaches and heartaches innumerable had been cured there, difficulties spiritual and temporal solved there- all by one good, loving woman, God bless her!"

Labels: motherhood, Quote, Titus 2 Women

What a wonderful priveledge it is to be called "Mother"! There is no higher calling for a woman on Earth! I desire so much, as I'm sure you all do, to bring much glory to God, and many happy home memories, to my children, to take with them as they grow, on life's journey. I want to leave a legacy of God's grace & love, for future generations.

It works in such a strange way! The more I give, the more I gain. The more I lay down my life, the more He'll raise me up & help me run my race with joy. It has taken life as a Christian Mum, to help me totally abhor the selfishness in my own life, as that's one thing I don't want to pass on to the next generation. Through God's grace I know that if I set a bad example by displaying grumpyness or if I react angrily when they misbehave, I can turn my bad example into a good one by displaying repentance & by asking forgiveness to instantly restore the breach. It's a good thing to learn & teach repentance & grace...

I am always inspired to do better by the examples of those who have lived before...
Dwight L. Moody wrote about his Mother...

"It is a great honour to be the son of such a Mother...I could not praise her enough. In the first place, my mother was a very wise woman. In one sense she was wiser than Solomon; she knew how to bring up her children. She had 9 children, and they all loved their home. She won their hearts, their affections; she could do anything with them...
Whenever I wanted real sound counsel I used to go to my mother. She so bound her children to her that it was a great calamity to have to leave home...
I remember when George got work, we asked who was going to milk the cows. Mother said she would milk. She also made our clothes, and wove the cloth, and spun the yarn, and darned our stockings; and their was never in all those years, any complaining... That dear face! There was no sweeter face on Earth...
Now I have the old Bible- the family Bible- it all came from that book. That is about the only book we had in the house when Father died, and out of that book she taught us. And if my Mother has been a blessing to this world, it is because she drank at that fountain."

Mothers, Mrs Moody was a single Mum who raised her brood with no help from Social Security. God was truly her strength. She mourned the loss of her sweetheart so much so that she cried herself to sleep every night for years, but found peace & strength for the morrow from the Scriptures. Let us resolve to spend more time drinking from that fountain ourselves & making time to sit at Jesus' feet, to learn to be more like Him, even when the challenges of life hit. We were never meant to do it alone...
Have a blessed and happy Mother's Day!!!

Labels: DL Moody, motherhood, Quote

I had to sing a lullaby
While the world slept peacefully,
To bring to mind the wakeful nights
That Mother spent with me.

I had to climb the stair at dusk
With sleepy children too,
To know how weary she was when
Her busy day was through.

I had to make decisions that
Brought many heavy sighs,
The way she disenchanted dreams
Of mine that were unwise.

No dearer Mother, I was sure,
Had ever graced the Earth,
But I had to be a Mother too,
To truly know her worth.

by Guelda Nieboer Klooster

Labels: motherhood, Poetry