While reading a friends blog, I saw her post about this excerpt in "A Mother's Heart" by Jean Fleming:
"As I've thought about the role of love in my mothering, I've been stimulated by 1 Corinthians 13, which I have paraphrased:
If I keep my house immaculately clean, and am envied by all for my interior decorating, but do not show love in my family--I'm just another housewife.
If I'm always producing lovely things--sewing, art; if I always look attractive, and speak intelligently, but am not loving to my family--I am nothing.
If I'm busy in community affairs, teach Sunday school, and drive in the carpool, but fail to give adequate love to my family--I gain nothing.
Love changes diapers, cleans up messes, and ties shoes--over and over again.
Love is kind, though tired and frazzled.
Love does not envy another wife--one whose children are "spaced" better, or in school so she has time to pursue her own interests.
Love doesn't try to impress others with my abilities or knowledge as a mother.
Love doesn't scream at the kids.
Love doesn't feel cheated because I didn't get to do what I wanted to do today--sew, read, soak in a hot tub.
Love doesn't lose my temper easily.
Love doesn't assume that my children being naughty just because their noise level is irritating.
Love doesn't rejoice when other people's children misbehave and make mine look good. Love is genuinely happy when others are honored by their children."
WOW! What a wake up call to ME, a wife and Stay At Home Mom to 4 little ones! How many times a day do I fall into any or all of those first statements?! And how many times do I actually fulfill the last statements?! I have been blessed and given the opportunity to be a wife, to be a mom and to stay at home with my kiddos! It got me reading the actual 1Corinthians 13, here it is (New International Version ) starting in verse 4:
"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known." Which brings me to my favorite verse in the bible 1Corinthians 13, verse 13 : "And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."
It is so amazing to me how a book written so long ago in a completely different time period to completely different people can still speak to us today and in a way we understand! What an instruction manual for ALL of us!!!
