Good morning busy moms! You’ve made it to Wednesday! *Elmo says: “I’m proud of you!* 🙂 Today, I feel like the Little Engine that Could 🙂 Can you relate?

I’ve been thinking about something lately, and here’s the deal: I’m not gonna lie to you (I’m no good at it anyway.)

I know many wish that there was a formula for homeschooling or parenting that would produce the perfect result.

There isn’t.

There’s only faith.

I read yet another blog post yesterday from a young woman who grew up in a harsh environment and now blames her parents. 🙁 And I don’t know, maybe they were to blame.

But my hunch is that they were just two people who really did want to be the best parents they could be. My hunch is that that desire drew them into a formulaic style of parenting that was rigid and un-yeilding. Unfortunately, more often than not, it does not yield the desired “result”. It often produces rebellion and ends up tearing at the parent/child relationship instead of undergirding it.

Faith is harder than formula-it requires a daily surrendering of both my spirit and my will. It also forces me to look at my own weaknesses as a human being. When I hold those up to the light-well, let’s just say it gives me more grace for my children as I help them navigate the sometimes choppy waters of this world.

No great speaker or author is going to be able to give you ANY piece of advice that can replace the voice of the Spirit in your life. Listen for God’s voice today, busy mom.

And if you’re looking for a place to start, try the Bible.

Colossians 3:12 says, “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.”

There may not be a formula-and that’s okay. We don’t need one, because we’ve got God’s word to guide and direct us.

Let’s pray for each other as we love our husbands and our children. Let’s pray that we might be kind, humble and gentle.

I’d say pray for patience too… but then I’d be signing up for a test of my patience so I’ll just leave that one “implied.”

But I will pray for JOY today.  The kind that will help my children see how much I love them and how much I enJOY having them in our home.

I hope our kids remember that even though we didn’t get it all right, we sure loved them like crazy.

At the end of the day-it won’t be the bookwork or the math problems that will determine whether or not we get a passing grade on our parenting. It will be our relationships that determine what those end marks will be.

I choose joy.

all photos copyrighted by Sierra St. John