May
11
A Mother’s Aim
Filed under Motherhood“You fulfill yourself by denying yourself, preparing the people you can’t live without to live without you”
~Andrew Ferguson
HT: Kevin DeYoung
“You fulfill yourself by denying yourself, preparing the people you can’t live without to live without you”
~Andrew Ferguson
HT: Kevin DeYoung
“Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her.” Proverbs 31:28
“The virtuous woman is obviously subserving her own interest. For what greater earthly happiness could she know, than her children’s reverence and her husband’s blessing? We may picture to ourselves her condition—crowned with years; her children grown up; perhaps themselves surrounded with families, and endeavoring to train them, as themselves had been trained. Their mother is constantly before their eyes. Her tender guidance, her wise counsels, her loving discipline, her holy example, are vividly kept in remembrance. They cease not to call her blessed, and to bless the Lord for her, as his invaluable gift. No less warmly does her husband praise her. His attachment to her was grounded, not on the deceitful and vain charms of beauty, but on the fear of the Lord. She is therefore in his eyes to the end, the stay of his declining years, the soother of his cares, the counselor of his perplexities, the comforter of his sorrows, the sunshine of his earthly joys.”
~Charles Bridges as quoted in Proverbs, Geneva Commentary Series
“Mothers are always on call, expected to have all the answers and limitless energies. They’re supposed to do everything; it’s taken for granted. How can you be and do everything expected of you? What you need is a habitual sense of the presence of God. Think that Almighty God, who created the stars and keeps the seasons revolving in perfect rhythm, is there in your kitchen, in your bathroom, in the laundry room, in the grocery store. Mothers, be prepared for an arduous struggle. Your calling is impossible without prayer, the comfort and instruction of the Scriptures and fellowship in your church.”
~Elisabeth Elliot
“Who can measure the long-term effects of nurturing helpless infants, supervising wandering toddlers, discipling self-willed children, and counseling self-absorbed adolescents? Of family outings planned, traditions built, memories made, books read, songs sung, Scripture taught? That’s why motherhood belongs under the heading, ‘Engage the World’; no one shapes generations or fashions cultures more than mothers.”
~ Jeff Purswell, Worldliness, (edited by C.J. Mahaney, p. 159).
Take a few minutes to watch this powerful video from Desiring God:
“I am sure that, in my early youth, no teaching ever made such an impression upon my mind as the instruction of my mother; neither can I conceive that, to any child, there can be one who will have such influence over the young heart as the mother who has so tenderly cared for her offspring. A man with a soul so dead as not to be moved by the sacred name of “mother” is creation’s blot. Never could it be possible for any man to estimate what he owes to a godly mother. Certainly I have not the powers of speech with which to set forth my valuation of the choice blessing which the Lord bestowed on me in making me the son of one who prayed for me, and prayed with me. How can I ever forget her tearful eye when she warned me to escape from the wrath to come? I thought her lips right eloquent; others might not think so, but they certainly were eloquent to me. How can I ever forget when she bowed her knee, and with her arms about my neck, prayed, “Oh, that my son might live before Thee!” Nor can her frown be effaced from my memory—that solemn, loving frown, when she rebuked my budding iniquities; and her smiles have never faded from my recollections— the beaming of her countenance when she rejoiced to see some good thing in me towards the Lord God of Israel.”
~Charles Spurgeon, as quoted in Charles Haddon Spurgeon Autobiography: The Early Years 1834-1860 Volume 1
