Monday, January 31, 2011

In the mundane moments

"You shall teach [God's words] to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise." Deuteronomy 11:19

So....basically all day, everyday, no matter what I'm doing I should be teaching Emery God's words? Yep. It can't get much clearer than that! I read this to Dustin the other day then laughed...when I'm sitting, walking, lying down, or rising up. Is there any other state to be in?! This verse really hit me hard when I first read it and made me realize exactly what I am called to do as a mother. As she is getting older and able to communicate more and more with us, it's crystal clear that we already do teach her so much without even realizing it, for good and for bad.

I'm reading a great book right now titled, "Treasuring God in Our Traditions" by Noel Piper, and in it she writes,

"God wants us to remember to see him in the most mundane parts of our lives. And what we see, he wants us to talk about with our children. When that level of significance is added to the ordinary repetitions of life, a tradition is created." 
and 
"We'll do lots of good things, but only a couple times. One of the great strengths of good traditions in our lives is repetition -- not something done once, then something else, then another thing altogether, but good things done regularly, dependably, until they become habits."

This definitely won't come easy, especially for me, but I want to create good habits that become traditions for my family, so that my children would be able to look back and remember those mundane parts of of their childhood and remember that we prayed together in them, we sang songs, danced and worshipped together, played and read books, and no matter what we gave God the glory in those moments. 

And just for fun, here are a couple recent pictures of our baby, ahem, toddler!


 Yogurt, one of her favorites. num, num, num...

 Bundled up and ready to go!

 Her "car" as she calls it as she pushes it while, "brrrrrrrrrrrrr-ing" along

 Loving rocking on her chair that grandma gave her and putting on her mittens, then off her mittens, then on, then off....

Oh it's so fun to splash!!

2 comments:

  1. I love your urge to treasure and make holy the ordinary and mundane! Thanks for this reminder this morning.

    Em looks so TALL all of a sudden!! She looks like she has thinned out and shot UP!

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  2. I think she has grown taller but hasn't put on any extra pounds despite all she's been eating lately! She's still hasn't reached 20 pounds yet, or not according to my weighing methods (on our scale at home). :)

    I had a dream last night that you were came back to MN and we got the kids together to play! I watched the videos you had on your blog of Steve and Caleb throwing the ball back and forth right before bed last night so that may have been why, haha! I love his cute laugh!!!

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