Be Encouraged "Stay at Home Mom"!

In 2009, 5 years ago, I wrote a simple post called: Stay at home mom encouragement. Five years later it is still my most visited post! It's a pathetic post really, with a simple picture and a quote... that's it! And yet, this tells me stay at home moms need to be encouraged to stay at home. I thought I would do a more detailed post on this including more of my very favorite quotes that inspire me in this stay at home mom journey!

Scott and I knew from the beginning of our marriage that I would stay home. I got my degree in psychology and planned on pursuing my masters in biblical counseling but got married and had babies instead :) Even though there are days I want to run away (just being real) I am forever thankful that I get to be the one to train my children, be with my children and clean my home without having to worry about a secular career on top of all that. 

Our society screams: "Get out there and make a name for yourself!" and it also screams: "you can't do that by JUST staying at home all day!" And yet, the Word of God screams: "Keeper of the home, you are doing a mighty and noble task. Do all you do as unto the Lord and don't grow weary in doing good."

This quote has been my all time favorite quote on being a stay at home mom: "The woman who makes a sweet, beautiful home, filling it with love and prayer and purity, is doing something better than anything else her hands could find to do beneath the skies. A true mother is one of the holiest secrets of home happiness. God sends many beautiful things to this world, many noble gifts; but no blessing is richer than that which He bestows in a mother who has learned love's lessons well, and has realized something of the meaning of her sacred calling." J.R. Miller

I recently listened to a very encouraging message on motherhood from revive our hearts and here is one of the quotes from that: "your children are an unreached people group. They come to earth without an understanding of God. They don’t automatically know Him as their Savior. Someone has to teach them. Someone has to train them. They’re your mission field."- Erin Davis. You can listen to the message here. 

John MacArthur said: "To be a mother is by no means second class. Men may have the authority in the home, but the women have the influence. The mother, more than the father, is the one who molds and shapes those little lives from day one."

How true it is! God has given men the authority, they are the "head" of the home but you mom are with your children (especially if you home school) exponentially more than any other person in the world and therefore you are the greatest influence in their life! The question is, what kind of influence are you? Do you influence your children to walk in the ways of the Lord? Do you push them toward grace and love or do you push them away with your grumpy mood? Will your children say they learned much about the Christian life from you and how to run a godly home? Or will they talk of a controlling, unhappy mother that moped around the house all day shouting out orders? Your influence and potential as an influencer is continually great stay at home mom!

"Mothers, don’t let anyone ever dupe you into thinking there’s anything ignoble or disgraceful about remaining at home and raising your family. Don’t buy the lie that you’re repressed if you’re a worker in the home instead of in the world’s workplace. Devoting yourself fully to your role as wife and mother is not repression; it is true liberation. Multitudes of women have bought the world’s lie, put on a suit, picked up a briefcase, dropped their children off for someone else to raise, and gone into the workplace, only to realize after fifteen years that they and their children have a hollow void in their hearts. Many such career women now say they wish they had devoted themselves to motherhood and the home instead." John MacArthur

How could time with your little gifts from God EVER be a waste? Do you ever hear older women say: "I just really regret all that time I spent with my children!" No. (Unless they are ridiculously selfish, and you don't want to be like them anyway right?)

If God calls something good and worthy you know the enemy, our culture and our flesh will want to say it is bad and futile. Remember that God designed you to be a mother and a homemaker. Embrace it! Accept it! Love it! Or you can despise it, hate it, refuse it and fight it and make everyone (including you) in your home miserable. Stay in the Word and out of the television. Look to your Creator to encourage you in this wonderful calling! 

"She watches over the affairs of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness." Proverbs 31:27

"After years of society belittling the calling of motherhood, something wonderful is happening – something wonderfully counter-cultural! In the midst of the anti-life, anti-motherhood philosophies which pervade the culture, there is a new generation of young ladies emerging whose priorities are not determined by the world’s expectations of them. They have grown up in homes where fathers shepherd them, where children are not merely welcome, but where they are deeply loved. Some of these women have been home educated, which means that many of them have grown up around babies and their mothers. They have learned to see motherhood as a joy and a high calling, because their parents see it that way. And when asked about their future, these girls know their own minds. These are the future mothers of the Church. Young women who are not afraid to say that the goal of all of their education and training is to equip them to pursue the highest calling of womanhood, the office of wife and mother." Author Unknown