It's that time of year again - New Year's Resolution time.
As a young mom I made resolutions to yell less, follow through on discipline, study the Word, pray more often and spend more time with my babies. I often felt inadequate despite my serious convictions about my calling to motherhood. I listened to the multitude of voices around me with their endless advice about how to be the perfect wife, mother and woman. I remember dreading anytime a speaker or teacher would bring up the Proverbs 31 woman knowing I did not hit that mark. Most days I was feeling successful if I had a vague idea of what we would have for dinner, and everyone had clean underwear for the next day. I homeschooled my children and felt inadequate in that role as well. Homeschooling at the time was not cool. It was not cool to the world and it was not even cool in the "Christian" community. Voices assured me my children would grow up to be uneducated recluses or flat out nerds! My house was never clean enough, my parenting was lacking, my personal discipline was a failure.
I was listening to the wrong voices.
John 10:27 says, "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me." The voice of my Savior is the only voice I need to listen to.
We all listen to voices that tell us we are inadequate. We hear these voices everywhere we go. We hear them from people we love, we hear them at our workplace, we hear them from the popular media. Even if we try to protect ourselves from these voices they manage to find a crack and slip through into our thought lives. The only way we will be successful at guarding our hearts and minds from these voices is to listen for the voice of our Father.
This is my resolution for 2013. I want to sit and listen to the voice of my Father. I want to go beyond reading my Bible or even studying to a place where I am able to dwell on His word; letting it sink into my soul. As I dwell on His word, I will be increasingly able to discern between His voice that tells me I am His child, His bride, His creation and the other voices that speak of inadequacy and insecurity - these are the voices of the enemy.
Sitting still is by far one of the hardest things for this mom to do. Balancing marriage, a full-time position as a nurse, parenting two young women at home and being available to adult children away from home along with the myriad of other things that pull and tug at me often push out opportunities to sit. But I must sit. I must take the time to hear His voice, to be renewed so that when He says, "Child, I love you just the way you are" I will hear that and the other voices will fade into the background.
Every child needs a mom who hears the voice of Jesus. That mom knows that she is an unfinished story and that Jesus is the author.
