Manna For Moms

Devotions for Moms Like You!

August 2010

Simple Gifts

Megan Breedlove No Comments

If f I had to name the thing I miss most from my pre-mommy days, I would choose “good sleep”. I miss those days when I could count on a good, solid eight hours. I also fondly recall those long-ago times when I could stay up late, knowing that I’d be able to sleep in the next day.

Sleeping in doesn’t happen very often anymore. When I go to bed late, that just means I lose sleep that night. That’s because my body isn’t that one that determines when I wake up. Often, someone else’s little body decides when mine should be awake.

The other day, I was awakened by a little hand patting my shoulder. I opened my eyes and saw Jessica’s sleepy face mere inches from my own. “I want to get in Mommy’s bed,” she said.

I knew that if I let Jessica into my bed, any chance of getting further sleep was gone, because she likes to lie right up next to me with her head against my face. She tries to lie quietly, but when she lies that close, I feel every little squiggle (and the big squiggles, too). On the other hand, if I told her to go back to bed, she’d start wailing, and I wouldn’t get any more sleep that way, either.

So I pulled her up into bed with me. She snuggled against me, and I covered us both up. As I lay there, relishing the sweetness of having her little body curled up next to mine, I confess that I also felt a little bit crabby. I love Jessica, and I love cuddling with her, but couldn’t we have cuddled later? I was tired. I wanted to sleep.

If I had been able to sleep in that morning, I would have missed a gift from God. I would have lost precious time with my daughter, and I wouldn’t have heard God saying to my spirit, “Look how secure and relaxed she is with you. Don’t you love it that you can do that for her?”

As I thought more about the gifts God gives me through my children, I realized that I’ve probably been missing a lot of them. I’ve been hearing the requests for attention and missing the greater gift that comes with them.

When my son asks me to play trains with him, God is offering me the gift of knowing that someone wants to be with me just because he loves me.

When my daughter asks me to read to her, I receive the gift of getting to pause and take a moment out of my day to do a favorite activity.

When one of my children says, “Mommy, you look really nice today,” I get to know that someone thinks I’m beautiful.

On a regular basis, God offers all of us mommies the gifts that matter most to us, and He allows our precious children to be His means of delivering those gifts. The requests our children make of us are not just duties to be performed or annoyances to be gotten over. They are God’s way of meeting the deepest needs every mom has. The next time one of our children asks us for something, let’s see beyond the request. Let’s hear not only what our child is asking, but what God wants us to know.

You’re needed. You’re loved. You’re special. You’re a hero.

Philippians 4:19—And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.

Surpassing Grace

Megan Breedlove No Comments

Most of the time, I think I tend to be a pretty patient mom. Even the kids will tell you that I’m usually patient. (“Yeah, you’re just crabby sometimes.”) Sometimes, being patient isn’t very hard. Other times—like when I’m tired or annoyed, or when I’ve had a long day—my patience wears thin. I can still vividly remember an incident when I was mad about something else, and poor Ellie (then about two years old) came up to me, trying to get my attention. “What!?” I snapped, totally out of line. Ellie burst into tears.

I immediately dropped to my knees and hugged her, apologizing more than once. “Mommy’s so sorry, Ellie,” I said. “You didn’t do anything wrong. I shouldn’t have yelled at you. Will you forgive me?” She clung to me and said she would forgive me, but it took me much longer to forgive myself.

I had been completely ungracious and unloving in my response, and I felt terrible.

We’ve all been there. We’ve all yelled, or been impatient, or done something else that was uncalled for and hurt our precious child’s feelings, despite the fact that we love our children deeply and forever. Somehow, instead of offering grace, we’ve all delivered unkindness, whether our behavior is the exception to the rule or is, tragically, the rule.

I’m sure glad God offers me more grace than I sometimes offer my kids. When I think about what my life would be like if He only showed me the same measure of grace I show my children, I shudder. I don’t want His unkindness to be unpredictable or capricious—which it isn’t, because He’s never unkind. I desperately need His grace to be constant and overflowing, no matter what I do—which it is.

Even though I want to offer my children this kind of grace, I’ll probably never reach that goal this side of heaven. But I’ve learned that instead of berating myself when I mess up, or, worse yet, making excuses for my sin, I should use the occasions of my failure as reminders of God’s incredible grace to me. Yes, I absolutely should confess my sins against my children both to them and to God, and I should make every effort, under the Holy Spirit’s direction, to repent of my sins and treat my kids differently. But I should also take it a bit farther and allow my failures to turn me in humble gratitude toward the One Who never fails, despite the fact that I’ve sinned against Him far more than my children have sinned against me.

Will you do that with me? This week, when we treat our kids wrongly, let’s not only make it right, let’s thank God for being perfect in grace and abounding in mercy. Let’s ask Him to change our hearts to make us like Him in this way. And then, let’s go hug those precious children and pour out our love on them instead of our anger. After all, that’s how our Father treats us.

Matthew 18:32-33—“I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?”

Cleaning Up

Megan Breedlove No Comments

It’s amazing how quickly the house can get messy. Sometimes, I have it clean, but then I blink, and when I look again, the kids’ toys are scattered out all over the place. So I decided a long time ago to make the kids responsible for cleaning up their own messes. Each child has to clean up his or her own stuff throughout the house, as well as help Mommy when necessary.

One day, when I saw that the floor in Kenny’s room was covered with his favorite toys, I told him to go clean his room. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, and went in to start cleaning. That’s nothing new. He is almost always quick to obey when I ask him to clean. But this time, his response turned out to have been even more extraordinary than consistent obedience.

A couple minutes later, I went to check on him and found him cleaning up his toys. He had obviously been working since I told him to begin, but there was still a lot left to do. “Kenny, who was in here playing with you?” I asked, intending to have that child help him.

Kenny paused a second, considering the question. “Nobody was playing with me, because I wasn’t playing,” he said. Then he added willingly, “But I’ll clean it up.”

Wow. What an awesome attitude. Even though he had had no part in the mess, he willingly went to clean up when I told him to. He could have protested that he hadn’t been the one to make the mess and therefore shouldn’t have to clean it up, but he didn’t. He simply went and did as he was told, and with a good attitude.

I guess I need to take a lesson from my son. Sometimes, when I’m told to do something, I protest. I’m not the one who did the wrong thing. Why should I have to be the one to deal with the mess that other person left behind?

But Jesus would have far more of a legitimate complaint than you or I would. After all, we’re the ones who messed up our lives by sinning. Yet He came to earth, lived, and then died on a cross for us so He could help us clean up our mess. He wasn’t the One Who made the mess; in fact, He never sinned in even the smallest degree. Yet the perfect righteousness of His perfect life now stands in place of our filthy rags, so that when God looks at us, He doesn’t see a mess. Instead, He sees us as spotlessly clean.

Most of us try to teach our kids that everyone in a family needs to pitch in a little extra to make the family run smoothly. But Jesus pitched in more than a little extra. He gave everything.

So the next time He asks us to help someone clean up his or her mess—whether that means forgiving an offense, providing instruction, or showing compassion—let’s do it with the right attitude. It’s not my mess, but I’ll gladly help clean it up. After all, You cleaned up everything for me.

Psalm 51:7—Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.

Forever Kisses

Megan Breedlove No Comments

I’ve written before about how Lindsey loves to come give me a “nighttime kiss and nighttime hug” each night. She is so dedicated to showing me love like this that even on a recent overnight visit to her grandparents’ house, she called the first evening so she could say “nighttime kiss and nighttime hug” over the phone.

But one day not too long ago, this routine became even sweeter. “I’ll give you another kiss,” Lindsey said, and kissed my shoulder. “Now it’ll be there whenever you need it,” she said. “A forever kiss!” I responded, and hugged her tightly.

She gave me a few more forever kisses that night—one or two on each shoulder, I think. Then, I gave her one. I told her that any time she needed a kiss from Mommy, she had one right there on her shoulder.

Forever kisses. They’re one of the most precious ideas any of my children has ever come up with. And even if someday, Lindsey forgets she ever gave me forever kisses, I won’t. I’ll remember they’re right there on my shoulders.

But Lindsey isn’t the only one who’s given me forever kisses. You have some, too. They’re from our Father.

You see, God loves us even more than Lindsey can love me with all the overflowing love in her precious, four-year-old heart. And just like Lindsey, God wants us always to know we’re loved. So He’s given us forever kisses, so that any time we need them, we can remember His love for us.

What are some of God’s forever kisses? The Bible, for starters. It’s not merely an instruction manual, though it certainly is that. It’s also God’s forever kiss to us, one of His ways of reminding us of His love. All through it is the story of how God redeemed us, though we didn’t deserve it. It’s the story of how He sent His Son to take the penalty for our sins so we didn’t have to. It’s a love letter.

The Holy Spirit is another of God’s forever kisses. We know that one reason the Spirit resides in our hearts is to convict us of sin. But do we ever stop and think that another reason the Spirit lives within us is to remind us of God’s love for us? He is a constant “forever kiss”, because He’s constantly with us.

What about our families? Our husband? Our children? Forever kisses. Our friends? Our church families? Yep. Forever kisses.

God doesn’t place things in our lives for merely utilitarian purposes. No, each blessing He grants us is a constant reminder of His love. And even if some of the blessings don’t last for eternity, but fade into the past, we can be sure that others will take their place. That certainty is in itself a forever kiss.

How many forever kisses from God can you spot in your life right now? Look around. I bet there are more than you can count. Let’s try something this week. Let’s make it a point to notice at least one forever kiss from God each day. He’s given us far more than that; surely we can notice at least one. And I bet that as we start noticing one, we’ll begin to notice more and more, until we recognize far too many to number.

Jeremiah 31:3—“I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness.”

Off the Deep End

Megan Breedlove No Comments

I remember the city pool I used to frequent when I was a kid. I loved that pool, and I spent many hours there every summer. One of my favorite things to do was jump off the high dive. That diving board was at least a hundred feet up in the air. You had to gather your courage just to climb the ladder and walk out to the end of the diving board. Then, you had to muster up some serious courage in order to take the leap off the end of the board, into the water that waited for you a mile below.

Even though I was a good swimmer, and even though I’d gone off that board a million times, I still felt that shiver of fear when I got ready to jump. So I can understand why my kids, who are still learning to swim, are afraid of jumping off the side of the pool and into their swim instructor’s waiting arms. It’s scary. Sure, the teacher says she’ll catch you, but will she really? Or might you somehow go under water? Like all the way, with even your head under?

As I watched my children’s instructor trying to coax them to jump to her in the water, I thought about how much we moms are sometimes like my children. We fear entering something that might be dangerous. So we stand there, arms outstretched, bouncing a little, but afraid to get our whole body into the jump and leap forward, because we’re afraid we’ll go under. We’re afraid He won’t really be there when we hit the water’s surface. After all, bad things happen sometimes in life, right? Even to good people. So how do we know we can trust God to be there for us when we really need Him?

Or perhaps we’ve been pushed off the edge of the pool by someone’s death or by tragedy, and we’re desperately hoping Someone will be there to catch us and help us keep our head above water. Will God meet us? Or will we drown?

Those are honest, heart-wrenching questions, and they deserve an honest answer. The answer is this: yes, sometimes bad things happen to us. Sometimes, when we leap into the pool, we do go under. But it’s not because God is simply standing by, arms crossed, not even trying to catch us. If that’s what we think, we’re badly mistaken. No, when we jump into the pool, God is standing there with His arms reaching for us, ready to catch us as we begin to fall. And if we go under, He goes under with us, holding us tightly in His arms.

God didn’t promise that we’ll never have trouble, but He did promise to go through everything with us. He also promised that our trials won’t overwhelm us. Yes, sometimes they seem overwhelming, and relief takes forever in coming. Sometimes, it doesn’t come until heaven. But it will come. We’ll shake the water droplets from our hair and wipe them from our eyes, and we’ll realize we’ve made it. God has safely brought us through one more time. And then, I imagine we’ll do what my children always do when I catch them when they jump—we’ll cling tightly to the One who saved us and rest our head on His shoulder. He’ll set us back on dry land, and going under will have become only a memory—a memory, and a testimony to the grace of God in bringing us through.

Isaiah 43:2—When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walkthrough the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.

John 16:33—I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.

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