Skip to main content

Being a Mother - Who Loves

Above all things I believe in love. Love is like oxygen. Love is a many-splendored thing. Love lifts us up where we belong. All you need is love!  -  Christian, Moulin Rouge (2001)

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
-  The Bible, Romans 5:8

We often speak of the need to love our spouse, to love our neighbours and to love God.  Love is the subject or many songs, movies and advertising billboards.  Love truly is all around us and God Himself is love.  When we speak of loving our children most of us will have warm fuzzy feelings and think of all the lovely kisses and cuddles that we share with our precious children.  Warm fuzzy feelings are good and a necessary part of life but love is so much more than that. 

In Titus 2:4-5 the older women were instructed to teach the young women to love their husbands and to love their children.  The Greek word philoteknos is used in the original Bible text in this verse and refers to mothers loving their children.  It is specifically maternal love.  Motherly love is a special sort of love that God has given us women to enable us to take good care of our children. 
    The fact that the older women were told to teach the younger women to love their children means that there are things to be learned too.  Love is so much more than a feeling and most certainly much more than a cuddle.  I hope that together we can learn how to love our children in a way that is pleasing to God.
    True love is clearly defined in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8.  This is the standard for loving anyone, including your children.  Have a read through the list of love attributes and measure yourself against them.  Do you truly love your children?

Love is patient
Love is kind
Love is not envious
Love is not boastful
Love is not proud
Love is not rude
Love is not selfish
Love is not provoked
Love keeps no record of wrongs
Love thinks no evil
Love does not rejoice in iniquity
Love rejoices in the truth
Love bears all things
Love believes all things
Love hopes all things
Love endures all things.
Love never fails    

I fall short and I am sure you do too.  Loving is not a warm fuzzy feeling but hard work.  Loving pays a price to love.  Loving takes commitment and dedication.  If we can do our best to truly love our children then they in turn will learn how to give love to others.  We all fall short, only God is capable of loving perfectly, not missing one thing on the list ever, not even for one minute of a day. 
    We cannot love so perfectly but that doesn’t mean we can’t try.  When last did you try and be patient with your child or not assume the worst of them.  Were you provoked by your rude teenager or rude to your nine year old who is getting cheeky?  Yes of course children push us to our limits and I know how difficult loving an unkind teenager can be but we don’t do it for them.  We do it to please God.  Whenever I know I have failed in loving my children the first thing I do is apologise to God because I know that they are very precious to Him.  The second thing I do is apologise to my children and tell them that I was wrong and that they don’t deserve to be treated that way.  
     You see, as parents we reflect the love of God to our children.  They will learn what love is through us.  They will learn how to treat others lovingly by imitating us.  Their ability to give and receive love will stem from how we loved them.    
    I am often ashamed when I see my children be rude or impatient or unkind.  It is clear where they got it from.  More often than not it is from my bad example.  Even though I try my best to be loving, patient, kind and all the things on the list, they will imitate the one time I got it wrong!  I know I need help.  I know that this sort of love is divine and so I ask God for His love to be inside of me so that when I love I can access His prefect love which is everything on the list all of the time.   Like you, I want to love my children as best I can and teach younger mothers how to love their children too.  If that is the only thing we work on as a mother that’s alright because love never fails.

Find out more about Being a Mother here or use this material to host your own Girl's Night or Mum's Group.

Comments

  1. Project Real Life6.11.12

    I really appreciate this post. I found you through the Frugal Living Alexa Blog Hop. As a Christian Mother of four children I find myself struggling with these same issues. I tend to to be pretty hard on myself when it comes to mothering but I think Im hard on myself about material things and should be focusing that energy on exactly what this post is about. Teaching them to love and be loving children. Thanks again!
    Leah from Project Real Life
    http://projectrealife.com

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Angela6.11.12

      Hi Leah,

      I am so pleased that this post encouraged you, I have four children too and I know how hard us mothers can be on ourselves sometimes. Let love be your guide :) May God bless you and your children.

      Love
      Angela
      xxx

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Hope's Journey

"There was a time when all I wanted was to die but now that I have tasted life I really don’t want to die until I have truly lived!" Hope's Journey is a heart wrenching account of Angela's struggle with depression and suicide.   "This book is helpful for people that are going through tough times as well for those who are trying to support them. It gives valuable insight into the feelings experienced in the midst of the situations as well as the tools Angela used to find her way through them. The tools are useful for anyone trying to find hope in dark situations, whatever they may be, and are helpful for leading a stronger, more balanced life." Ali Kirkwood  Available at: Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk | Kindle StudyGuide: Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk | More Info  Contents: Introduction Suicide Eat, Sleep & Exercise Have a Checkup First Things First Make Hope Make List Tell Someone Choose Your Friends Understand Hormo...
23 comments
Read more

Passion & Purity

"God made us girls for extravagant, wild, imaginative, adventurous, fantastic loving!" The heart of a woman yearns for love, fantasises about romance and dreams of being someone’s princess. 21st century living has robbed us of that simple heart cry and Hollywood has fed us lies about romance. We need to fight for our passion & purity to take back the awesome adventure of living and loving without compromising our purity.  Angela openly shares of how her search for passion ended up in adultery and how she managed to find a way back to purity. A must read for any woman who wants to be free to live and love with passion and purity.  Available at: Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk | Kindle StudyGuide: Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk | More Info Contents: Introduction Robbed of Purity     Searching for Passion   Lies of Love     Dating Games     Rescued by the Prince     Rebuilding My Soul  ...
20 comments
Read more

For Such a Time As This

Hello King's Daughters, It's been a while since I've been in touch and King's Daughters has been very quiet, in fact totally dormant.  During this time of dormancy, a seed has been growing inside of me and it's so strong that I have to seriously consider if it's God saying "It's time".  Time to start taking back what the enemy has stolen from us. Time to fight for our families, schools, churches, communities and nation. Time to pray together and be proactive, not reactive to what is going on in the world today. Time to talk about the complex topics that our churches may not be ready to discuss openly such as gender confusion and mental health issues. Time to learn how to generate an income or second income by using what's in our hands and to have extra to be generous to the world around us as we face economic uncertainty.  Time to find balance when everyone else is consumed by busyness. I have a story to tell, a struggle I've been through t...
Post a Comment
Read more