Teaching the Young Women to Love Their Children

Titus 2:3-5 KJV says,

3 The aged women likewise, that they be in behavior as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things;
4 that they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children,
5 to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands that the word of God be not blasphemed.

Portrait of an Old Woman

 

Years ago as a young mother, I cried out, "Where are the older women?!" I longed for a mentor to walk and talk me through the wife and mother issues.  As I looked around me in church and even community, I found that most of the older women had quit with only two or three children and had sent those to the public schools for training.  They were now free to pursue jobs and individual interests and had filled their lives full. They didn't have time or answers for me. I promised myself and the Lord then, that when I got "old" I would be an older woman to the younger women.  I'll be 55 in March and my "baby" is nine years old.  I'm thinking I might be entering that "Older woman" category.  From this vantage point, I can see some of the reasons the older women of my younger years were reluctant to speak.  From this position, my own failings seem much more apparent.  Ideals have not always been realized and even when they have, I see how I missed other important things along the way.  But there are certain decisions I made and stands I took, that I wouldn't go back on given the choice again.  I'd like to talk about one of those here.  When wrestling through how to plan our family we decided to trust the LORD to design our family and the spacing of our children (more on that story here). I want to encourage you too, to love the children God hasn't given you yet, to consider them a gift and to welcome them into your life and home.   I have yet to hear a woman say, "I wish I hadn't had so many children." Even in my darkest moments with a rebellious teen, I never wished I'd had fewer children and now today with her walking with the LORD again she is a daily joy to me. But I've had dear friends who with tears of regret bemoan the fact that even reversal surgery wasn't able to bring them babies now, and their arms are empty and their hearts barren.  I can say that after years of home schooling, though I am still learning I have years of experience that would be wasted if I had no one to educate and train at this point!  You may feel that to welcome these yet unborn children is to love the ones you have less, but that has not been my experience.  If you quit having babies, you won't necessarily spend more time with the children you have - other things will come in and fill your time and you may even end up eventually spending less time with your children as your focus is much more easily diverted outside the home, when you don't have small children to keep your focus there.  Focusing on a baby or toddler doesn't need to exclude your older children from your attention, actually, it is something you can enjoy together, a wonderful way to train them for the future with their own children.  Raising little ones is a wonderful training ground and discipleship opportunity, to be embraced together as a family team. When your first few children are born, you imagine that you will be continuing to add to this chaos exponentially and feeling at the breaking point yourself with the child/adult ratio getting out of control you may desperately decide to nip this disaster in the bud.  I want to encourage you to plant liberally - you will turn the corner and begin reaping benefits of your love soon.  It may take a few years, but eventually those older children become much more of an asset than the drain they seem in the early years. You turn a corner and those you served are serving alongside you and even serving and blessing you with spiritual insight and physical service.  I looked around my kitchen the other day and there were six girls all working happily together.  A team like that can accomplish a lot in a short time!  I have gained more spiritual insight from my children than all the sermons I've ever sat under. As they share their spiritual journeys there is rich fellowship! Each of my eleven children is unique with unique gifts and I wouldn't want to be without a single one of them.  The possibilities for the advancement of the Kingdom of God through your offspring is multiplied if you are willing to embrace the children God wants to give you and divided if you reject them. Psalm 127:3 says, "Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward." I do want to say here, that God doesn't give all of us big families and if he chooses to give you none or one or two - I believe He has special ministries for you and that this is a gift to be embraced and explored.  He's not in a box. My friend and neighbor years ago conceived on her honeymoon, didn't have another baby for three years and then, though they didn't do anything to avoid children, they never had any more.  This was God's plan for their family - all His plans are good!  But if you choose to reject the children God would like to place in your family, it is a burying of your "talent" your resources, your life. If you embrace His gifts, it is true that you will be called upon to pour out your life.  Even though I don't have babies any more, I am still stretched thin - my Mom (Dad's already in Heaven) and my in-laws are aging, I am now a grandma to ten, add to that time spent with my young adult children as well as the ones still in school and you have a very busy life. But  as Jim Elliot said, "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot loose." It is my belief that you won't regret  the exchange of your life for a single one of the eternal souls God blesses you with. And remember, without Him we can do nothing, "Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it." Psalm 127:1  But as you allow Him to "build your house" and family in His way, walking with your hand in His, in obedience to His will, you will see that He does all things well.