Spiritual Culture in the Home

Being a SAHM or any kind of mom means battle.

There are countless times when I just went into my bedroom, closed the door and cried.  It was not because I was fed up with motherhood but because of the intensity of the spiritual battle that was waging in my home.

Nowadays the battle is not so obvious but comes in the form of discontent, grumbling, and complaining.  Sometimes it’s from me and sometimes from my kids.  But we all know that kids mostly mimic what they see.  Over the years my grumbling mommy heart has showed them the path.

The secret culture I was creating along the way while I struggled to figure out how to pull things together.

If you’ve read my book, “So You Wanna Be a Stay at Home Mom?”, you’ll see the financial and mental obstacles I’ve had to overcome all while trying to heal my firstborn of leaky gut, eczema and allergies.

I was a mess those first few of years.

Having all strong-willed children didn’t make things easier.  After all, I have a pretty strong personality myself and the result: bitterness and complaining.  I complained about the children not doing what I wanted, about having to deal with so many health issues and, of course, about not having some type of guide through all of this.

I think you struggling mamas are hearing me.  I’m not saying I had a right to complain.  On the contrary, I had every reason to praise God and be thankful but I wasn’t.

Every time my kids heard me say, “Every time I…”, “Don’t you see all I’m doing…”, “Can’t you be thankful…”, “Why do I have to…”, really they were building up a worldview of discontent.

Instead, I’m just now trying to tear down that foundation and instead build a spiritual culture of contentment, gratitude, and grace into my family.  As mother’s, we are the foundation of the family’s culture. You affect your husband and your kids.  You place within them the outlook of ability and options or the closed door of inability and dissatisfaction with life.

So what are some ways that moms, especially if you are a mom at home, can inject a right spirit-attitude?

Be Thankful

Our kids see our example.  One mistake I made was thinking that by being thankful in word was enough.  No, we need to actually display our thankfulness.  Write thank you cards, smile more, thank God during family prayer.  Sometimes in our prayers, we center on our needs, but take time to just pray a prayer of thanksgiving.  And when we see our kids doing something right, thank them for it and show them real appreciation, just not a quick thanks.

Have Gratitude

Sometimes we need to go beyond thanking someone to being grateful.  I think this shows best by remembering others for what they’ve done in the past.  Maybe on a birthday, don’t just get a present but write a letter, say a short speech noting things they’ve done in the past and encourage our kids to do the same.

Also helping them bake cookies or write a card when it’s not a special occasion, and talk with your kids about why this person or group of people are special to us.  Remembering situations and speaking of them.

Maybe even keeping a prayer journey where you as a family write the answers to those prayers and read through it sometimes.  This will not only help your family members (and yourself) remember things to be grateful for but also allow your faith and trust in God to grow.

Give Grace

I think this is the biggest factor for me in changing the spiritual culture of my home.  Me, slowing down and giving grace to my kids and my husband.  But also, giving grace to myself.  Life is messy and no matter how prepared you think you are, you still aren’t.  Things happen.  There are times when you need sleep, you can’t cook, you miss an appointment and you expect your family to understand.

Well, equally there will be times when the kids forget or just get caught up in play and they don’t finish the job, get a bad grade or yell in anger when they know they shouldn’t.  We need to give them grace, a hug, and a smile as we discuss how to do better next time.

Being quick to anger is not what God commands us.  He actually tells us to be SLOW to speak, SLOW to anger but quick to LISTEN.  James 1:19

 

 

What kind of culture do you want in your home?