Saturday, October 3, 2009

I can't naturally 'love my children'!

I think a lot of people know that I have never naturally been drawn to babies and kids, not like I was towards animals...!

The first time I ever really held a baby, changed a baby, dressed a baby, was when my first daughter was born. It's not that I didn't like babies or kids, I was just never really around them much to be able to gain a love, and appreciation for them!

So something that I pray, almost every day, is that God would help me to love my children, because it doesn't come naturally for me.

I have been mulling over Titus 2:4-5 a lot lately,

"that they(the older women) admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, 5 to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed."

I came across these messages by Carolyn Mahaney the other day, I listened to the one on Loving my children. She reminded me that the love referred to in this verse is an uncommon love.

Her book, Feminine Appeal is a follow up of these messages, and she writes about this love.

...Yet it's in the midst of the trials and challenges of motherhood that the command comes to love our children. Once again the Greek word phileo is used to describe the kind of love we are to show. As with our husbands, we are to love our children with a tender, affectionate and passionate love.

Although many mothers are committed to caring sacrificially for their children, they sometimes neglect to enjoy them. They fulfill the responsibilities of motherhood but overlook the pleasures. I have often erred in this way myself.

Now it is noble to be faithful to the task of serving our children. But Titus 2 calls us to something more (and definitely not less) than a sacrificial and dutiful love. We are to delight in our children.

I know that the only way I can truly love and delight in my children is if I spend time loving and delighting in God. They received the overflow I received from Him, and I know that the love I show them is sincere, genuine because it comes from His grace, His strength, His Spirit at work in me.