Answers to Prayers

1 John 5:14-15: "This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us - whatever we ask - we know that we have what we asked of him" (NIV).

Parenting tests this passage like few other experiences. Because we love our children, we assume we know what is best for them. We pray for God to honor our plans and are shocked when God sometimes leads us down a more difficult path, with testing and pain.

For me, the turning point came when I realized I was looking at God as a "cosmic vending machine". When I prayed, I somehow felt He was obligated to comply. Then, a colleague gave me a simple guide that changed my perspective on prayer. He said, "Prayer is asking God to align you with His will, rather than asking Him to be aligned with yours."

God knows what you and your children really need. When we pray, He is at work answering those prayers, but in a way that suits Him and His Kingdom. Faith trusts the wisdom of His answer, even when His answer is different than what we expect.

Pray for God's will to be done and your prayers will be answered.



COURTESY: DAILY PARENTING DEVOTIONAL

#2 Let the Praises Flow

Appreciate your daughter. Girls primarily need love and security. A critical spirit destroys their fat and prospering souls. The aim is to build up rather than destroy.
Be diligent in praising your daughter. For what, you ask?

Not for her achievements…for just being her.

Girls are not naturally competitive like boys. But women that we are, we are more competitive with our own kind. Be it Mother or sister or friend, girls compete among themselves. Only Mother can nurture acceptance and security and confidence. Identify her particular gift and encourage using it instead of imposing your unfulfilled dreams on her.

Daughters, being women ourselves, are quite easy to read and therefore we are harder on them. But a lot of love and patience does go along way. Look back and see that all you had to is to find your particular trigger to success (read that as doing what your mom wanted happily.)

Mothers And Daughters

In Job 42:15, we see that Job’s daughters were the fairest in the land- not just in beauty and brains but in temperament as well. Now how would we who strive to be good Christian mothers make our daughters beautiful in temperament, attitude and behavior?

I recently found myself being asked this by women I consider my closest sisters in Christ. The first time it happened, I gave in my bit of understanding and left it at that. Then it happened again—not once, not twice, but five different times. Literally, God has been asking me to post on this! How do we live in Christ as mothers to future Women of God? How do we bring our daughters up?

It’s hard for me to accept I’m having difficulty getting thru to my daughter in spite of being a woman myself. But haven’t we all heard of familiarity breeding contempt?

Instead of giving y’all a list of what to do, upcoming is a list of what we must take care not to do: spoken from experience (mine and others).