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Good morning, dear friends! What a lovely, spring day in May. The month we celebrate so many things. Mother's Day, up next! It's a month of new life, as flowers blossom, little critters show up, and we take time to reflect before life gets entirely too busy on the farm. Or anywhere, for that matter. There are ball games and family gatherings, yard work, gardens, and field work. Plans, we make our plans, but God.
Jeremiah 29:11 is a verse we love quoting. It gives us comfort. While the verse was written in the context of Israel's punishment and suffering, being banished from their homeland, and the Lord offering them hope, we, too, take comfort in this verse: "For I know the plans I have for you," says the Lord, "plans for your well-being, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope." How often we have found peace here. As we celebrate Mother's Day this year, I want to be the first, and maybe the only mother, to confess, I needed that verse and relied heavily on it as a young mother. Today, I still need to be reminded. Not everything in life goes according to our own plans, but God promises to give us a hope and a future, if.
Verses 12 and 13: You will call to me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you-this is the Lord's declaration.
How often the circumstances of being a young mother drove me to my knees to find Jesus waiting there for me to help me in my time of need. I remember saying to our oldest child, "This is my first time being a mother of a teenager, and this is your first time being a teenager, so let's offer grace." As life continued, I was so very blessed to be the mother of seven more teenagers. And I survived…but only by the grace of God! What I didn't realize back then, and maybe will never know to the fullest extent, is that there were godly women covering me in prayer, lifting me and my family to the throne of grace. I see that now and will forever be blessed and changed by that one thought. There were those standing in the gap for me!
Not only did these godly sisters stand in the gap in prayer for this young mom, but they may never know the extent of their influence on me by the example they set for me to follow. Truly, they took the admonition in Titus 2 to heart: "Older women are to reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not slaves to excessive drinking. They are to teach what is good, so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands and to love their children, to be self-controlled, pure, workers at home, kind, and in submission to their husbands, so that God's word will not be slandered." How often I failed, and continue to fail, but God's grace goes before me and makes a way, while His mercy comes behind and offers grace and forgiveness again.
At times as I've shared with you all over the years, I have been very candid about personal struggles. This is one of those areas; mothering. I wasn't blessed to have a Christian mother. I had to make my own way through those early years. My mother-in-law died within six months of our marriage. We felt so all alone in the world with our growing family. Is it any wonder, then, that my all-time favorite word is "grace"? If not for the grace of God. He placed so many godly women in my path to teach me and guide me along the way. Did I make mistakes? A resounding Yes! I like to think that I learned from those mistakes and that God hovered over our family as we grew