Jan
14
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Filed under Biblical Womanhood | 52home10:56 a.m.
It’s been so exciting to have so many of you join us for the 5 O’Clock Club! I especially love it when you post a picture or a verse you read that morning. It’s great to have friends all over the world waking up early, and I love that everyone’s goal is different. As we’ve said all along, the 5 O’Clock Club is not about waking up at 5:00 a.m. but about rising early to meet with God and care for your family. So if that is 7:30 a.m., great!
Whether you feel like you are making progress in establishing a daily habit or struggling to wake up early, we thought it might be helpful to post a few quick tips about the club:
Several people have asked how early we go to bed at night. This varies, depending on the person, day, etc. but typically each of us are in bed or asleep between 9:30 and 10:00 p.m. Sometimes earlier, sometimes later. The point is, to get up early you have to go to bed early the night before. For me, I can sometimes manage to stay up late one or two nights a week and still get up early, but more than two late nights and I am seriously tired and seriously grumpy! And experiment with naps. If I get a 20 minute power nap (or two!) each day, it helps a lot.
If you keep trying and failing, keep trying. That’s how the alarm clock outside our kid’s rooms idea came up. My husband and I were frustrated because we kept oversleeping, so we decided to take more drastic action. But I know many of you still have babies waking up at night or getting sick. After nights like this, I always sleep in, guilt-free! Just try again when your child gets better or set a more realistic goal. But seeking God is worth it, so don’t give up.
It often takes several weeks of consistently waking up at a new time before your body starts to adjust. And it helps to remember this. Just give it time. Keep pushing through. This doesn’t mean you won’t ever stop feeling like pressing snooze, but after a time, you will find yourself more alert and awake in the early hours of the morning.
That’s all for now. More testimonies and Q&A in our blog archives.
See you in the morning!
Minus the dog, this is a pretty accurate diagram of my bed!
One of the most powerful illustrations is from the relationship of Annie Sullivan and Helen Keller. You may know the story. Helen was a young girl who, at the age of nineteen months, became deaf and blind as the result of an unknown illness. Her parents, at a loss as to how to help their suffering daughter, provided little restraint or discipline. So when Annie was hired to teach Helen, she made no progress at first, due to Helen’s wild and violent behavior. “It was useless to teach her language or anything else until she learned to obey me” Annie reasoned. So Annie began at the beginning. She insisted that Helen obey.
After an extended battle of wills, Annie won. Helen became calm and submissive, able to listen, and able to learn. And oh what she learned! This little girl, whose life was up until now a dark and lonely place, learned to communicate. She learned to “speak” and to “listen” through her hands. She learned to read. And so, Annie wisely concluded: “Obedience is the gateway for knowledge to enter the mind.”
So it is with our children. We have this all-precious gift to give to them—the good news of the gospel. We have much to teach them about God, who He is, what He has done, what His Word has to say about the world and about their lives. And yet to truly practice effective gospel-centered mothering we must first teach them to obey.
“Training must come before teaching” insisted Katherine Howard, Elisabeth Elliot’s mother. “[Teaching] is impossible unless the children cooperate. And they don’t cooperate unless they are disciplined from their earliest days. This discipline lays the groundwork for teaching.”
This is why Scripture equates a parents love with discipline and hatred with a lack of love (Prov. 13:24). Counterintuitive to the post-modern mind, but as true as ever. “Train up a child in the way he should go” Proverbs exhorts us, “even when he is old he will not depart from it” (22:6).
This is both an exhortation and encouragement to mothers. It is an exhortation to moms when we are tempted to neglect loving discipline and training—whether from laziness, busyness, fear of our children’s rejection, or biblical ignorance. We must not neglect this most important biblical mothering priority.
It is also an encouragement to moms who are “in the trenches.” You are faithfully—not perfectly, but consistently—training your young children to obey. You may see very little in the way of results so far. You may be worn out and discouraged. You may wonder if you are on the right track. You may worry because your mothering doesn’t “feel” very gospel-centered at the moment. But your child’s obedience isn’t opposed to the gospel. It is the gateway through which you can bring the gospel message.
So persevere. Be faithful. And I promise—better yet, God has promised!—that you will reap a harvest if you do not give up (Gal 6:9).
~Found this one in the archives the other day. From a grown up daughter of a mom who rose early to seek God. Hope it encourages all of you in the 5 O’Clock Club!
For almost thirty years now, my dear friend Nancy has inspired me by her passionate, faithful, practice of meeting with God each morning. So I wasn’t surprised when, last week, her daughter Anna sent us this testimony to encourage moms with young kids.
I keep seeing these posts with emails of moms of young children who are hoping that their children see their example of rising early to seek the Lord in his word—I want to say, keep it up, your example really can be pressed onto the hearts of your children.
I cannot remember a time when I didn’t get up every morning and find my mom reading her Bible, praying. Not only did I see the habit, but I also remember that she was always filled with joy when she was done. Some of my earliest memories was getting up before all my siblings (I was an early riser when I was really little…it’s a little harder now!) and my mom making an extra cup of tea for me, and playing on the floor while she read her Bible. (I was a talker, so she also had to train me that Bible time was No Talking time)
One of the biggest ways that I was motivated to read my Bible was seeing this example—and my mom always encouraging me that it was a friendship, a delight, and not a task. Because of this, I had an interest to know Jesus through his word at a young age. I have journals of consistent reading and prayer from age 10 on. I cannot tell you, now as an (semi-)adult, how much of a blessing this has been. It has given me a history of love for God’s word and a confidence in prayer. It has taught me the habit, and the value for God’s word. So, if you are seeking to set this example, don’t give up! You might not see fruit now, but Jesus has promised that we will reap (Gal 6:9).
Your example makes a difference—but if you feel like you have failed as an example, take heart. If you have fears for your children’s souls, fears that they will not come to be satisfied in Jesus, let your heart take courage. Remember the promises of our Lord:
“I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten” (Joel 2:25) and “The Lord has done great things for us; we are glad. Restore our fortunes, O Lord, like streams in the Negeb! Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy! He who goes out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves with him.” (Psalm 126:3-6)
Moms: May the faithfulness of God strengthen you as you strive to faithfully seek Him. I pray that the little ones who watch you sit at Jesus’ feet will one day seek Him too!
Cuz marshmallows make everything better. 
52home
Whenever I get overwhelmed and mothering seems as complex as a calculus problem, my mom always helps me put things in perspective. “Gospel-centered mothering at this stage is simple,” she tells me. “Not easy, mind you. It requires sacrificial love, hard work, and consistency. But it isn’t complicated.”
My problem is that I am a professional complicator. If “complicating the simple” was a science they would have tenured me as a professor at some prestigious university by now. I chase every new rabbit trail of a mothering idea, and fret about the roads not taken with my children. In this self-constructed maze, I quickly lose sight of God’s priorities for mothering young children.
But Mom’s right. It isn’t that complicated. It comes down to two basic but crucial priorities: Obedience and Respect. Paul summarizes these twin child-training “musts” for the early years:
“Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land” (Eph. 6:20).
There are many good things that we can—and should—teach our children. But these two are essential if we want our children to enjoy a long and a good life, a life of gospel fruitfulness. This isn’t moralistic mothering. Training our children to respect and obey is God’s command. And it is essential to helping our children understand what it means to fear the Lord, to walk in obedience to Him.
“The child trained in biblical obedience is better able to understand the gospel” explains Tedd Tripp. “The power and grace of the gospel is most deeply understood, not by those who never face their biblical duties, but by those who do.”
Obedience is the gateway to understanding the gospel.
So as I consider at the beginning of this year how to train my children, I return to these two simple priorities. I ask myself: How am I doing at training my children to respect and obey us? How can I as a mother be more consistent, more effective, at teaching, training, and disciplining my children in these two areas?
Gospel-centered mothering in 2013? Not easy. But real simple.
