Serving Others Serves Yourself.. A Teaching Moment

Today in Sunday school we started reading Kings.  We have been studying King David (I use the term "we" loosely because "we" have not been to Sunday school in about 5 weeks).  Anyway, one thing we learned about David was he was not a fantastic parent.  Are any of us?  He failed greatly at disciplining his sons.  At the end of his life he did to the right thing by standing up to one son and making Solomon king, but it took a lifetime to do this.

Our Sunday school teacher mentioned that it is never too early to start teaching your children about the ways of Jesus and how to act accordingly.  Ding, ding, ding!!!  I LOVE my Sunday school class, the people in it, our teacher and how Jesus is in the room every week with great reminders.

I have had a hard time recently with our three year old fireball.  Parenting is all about walking a fine line.  This weekend has been about disciplining without riding her the whole time.  Reining her in without stealing her joy.  Appreciating her help "Can you please give Annie some snacks?" but not giving her full ownership "If you shake your sister by her head one more time you are getting a spanking!"  I feel like I am constantly on these babies.  I do not want to be Mommy Dearest but they need to know their boundaries.

This afternoon I took a different approach.  In all of my dramatics over the past few weeks, Ben has encouraged me to serve others.  Find an opportunity to serve.  "Wash the feet of others" has become our family motto (this includes washing feet in our own household). 

We have a friend who has been sick.  It started with her children and then found the way to her.  Being a mom who just came off of being sick for 3 weeks, I completely understood her struggles.  Honestly, I am so emotional that it almost brought tears to my eyes thinking of how a mother of 3 copes with running a fever and being sick. 

Once I knew the weather called for rain, I declared it Soup Sunday.  It's very easy to double and triple soup recipes so we made dinner for our family and theirs.  Why not wash feet with soup?!  While Big Sister and Daddy napped, Annie and I cut up potatoes, bacon and onions to start the potato soup

Of course, she is too young and too caught up in Cheerios to know what is going on, but I did talk out loud about making soup to make our friends feel better.

When Amelia got up she helped me make some cookies.  By "make" I mean break and put on the cookie sheet.  We talked about how our friends were sick and that making them cookies and dinner would make them feel better. 

I don't know if this day will stick but you never know.  I try so hard not to miss a teachable moment.  Especially about Jesus!!

And doing this small gesture for our friends made my day!  There is no doubt that if you want to help yourself crawl out of your hole, muster up the strength to do something for others.  It can seem like a mountain to climb but it really does help.  My husband has been lovingly encouraging me to do this and I am so glad he has.

OH!  And with reading my Proverbs day by day, today was Proverbs 31.  I have read this in the past feeling like I would NEVER become this woman. Tonight I read it out loud with Amelia then read the notes at the bottom of the page (Life Application Bible).  It suggests that the Proverbs 31 woman may not have been one woman at all but a composite portrait of ideal womanhood. Your days are not long enough to do what she does.  Do not see her as a model to imitate in every detail but an inspiration to be all you can be. I don't know about you but that makes be feel a lot better!  And encouraged!