Wherever You Are

Love God, your God, with your whole heart: love him with all that's in you, love him with all you've got! Write these commandments that I've given you today on your hearts. Get them inside of you and then get them inside your children. Talk about them wherever you are, sitting at home or walking in the street; talk about them from the time you get up in the morning to when you fall into bed at night. Deuteronomy 6:5-7 (The Message)

I don't know if I'd ever read this verse in the Message until today. I love how it's worded. Talking about God wherever you are is so encouraging to me.

Have you ever thought that being a good Christian family meant you had to do certain things a certain way?

I used to feel like us becoming a good Christian family meant I would have be a good Christian mom and fit into a good-Christian-mom mold. For many years I didn't even come close to what I thought that looked like. After several failed attempts to do daily devotions or get through a whole Family devotion workbook with my kids, I determined we might never become a good Christian family.

Oh, how I wanted to be consistent. I wanted to memorize Bible verses with my kids. I wanted to develop a routine of morning devotions. But there just wasn't anything "routine" about me.

My personality requires randomness. I can get bored and distracted easily. I need variety. So when God gave me the idea to create a character chart where we could learn and live God's Word in our everyday lives in a "wherever you are" kind of way, it was a perfect fit.

Now, God knew this "wherever you are" woman still needed some focus. So He gave me a simple way to start with a simple goal in mind - His character traits would be our family's focal point. He showed me that my kids had no clue what the traits meant so I found simple ways to define them in easy to understand terms. Those child-like definitions helped me. Obviously I hadn't a clue either.

Since our goal was to get God's Word in our hearts and apply it in our lives, each character trait needed a verse to go with it and simple application ideas we could do "wherever we were." Knowing my kids hadn't responded to my "preaching" in the past, God gave me a gold-mining mom" mindset which helped get His Words in my heart and His perspective in my thoughts.

Soon after all that happened, I said good-bye to guilt and embraced my new identity as a "wherever you are" kind of mom.

Have you been feeling like you don't measure up to the good-Christian-mom standard? Maybe you've fallen short of your goals of perfection. Me too. But you know what, we just need to get rid of those expectations and like Lysa's shared in her great post about embracing who we are as moms, we need to do just that - be the mom God created us to be.

If you simply long to be a mom who loves God and does the best she can to show it by teaching your kids about God's love and how they can experience His truths in their everyday lives, you can be! You don't have to be perfect. You don't have to have it all together. You just need to get started - wherever you are!

The winner of Friday's drawing is: Michelle from My Journey to Hope

Michelle, whether your family loves structure or needs something that fits "wherever you are" I pray that our Mining for Gold in the Heart of Your Child CD and Chart will be a great tool to help you talk with your kids about God's ways and His Words "from the time you get up in the morning to when you fall into bed at night."