humility Archives - The Mom Initiative

Spills, The Best Way to Grow Grace and Humility in Kids

Perfect moms don’t blink an eye when a child spills…the rest of us, perfectly imperfect moms, roll ours! I noticed the spillage at my home was often accompanied by another unrelated episode which would increase the liquid mess. For instance, in remarkable and unbelievable kid timing, while one child clandestinely fed the dog bacon under the table, the spiller knocked his cup. A series of unfortunate events ensued. It may look like this (You might be wondering how I know this. My lips are sealed!): The dog freaks, blasts out from under the table, runs beneath the shower of white, …

How to raise kids with holy hearts

Venomous words came out of my small mouth without even thinking. When the church lady asked how I liked my new baby sister, I answered her with jealous words of a displaced youngest who was suddenly in the middle after 7 years. My mother’s wounded glance awakened my prideful spirit as we walked to the car. Back home, she handed me the phone to apologize for my words. I apologized with my mouth, but my heart was angry. I felt far away from my changing family and from the God we had worshiped that morning at the church building. An …

Eek-ing the Toothpaste

Many years ago, I was in charge of the newsletter for our women’s ministry at church. I enjoy newsletters. I like to read them, too! It has been such a blessing to share the stories of various women in our church and to use my gifts to do so. There is so much of this-n-that, which can be tied together into a theme–to bless, encourage and give others a reason to laugh or pause to think. I have greatly enjoyed locating such material. In one book, I found a story where Elisabeth Elliot shares a tidbit that she learned, while scraping …

Downplaying Your Teen’s “Drama”

I’ll never forget the day my then 14-year old (now 16) daughter argued, “Well, I’m not you, Mom. I haven’t been abused like you were, but my pain still hurts. And I hate admitting that to you.” I’m not gonna lie, I learned something that day. But even now with a 19-year old son and 16- & 14-year old daughters, I’m still tempted to revert back to showing them how much better they have it than I did (or many others do). And you know what? Dismissing, downplaying, diminishing…dissing my teen’s troubles, though understandable at times, is the wrong approach …

Love is Not a Doormat

Doormats are handy things–dusting off the snow before entering a somewhat-clean floor, wiping off the mud from the now-melted snow, stomping your tennis shoes to get the ever-living sand out of them, especially if you live by the beach. Doormats are weathered. Doormats can be pretty and decorative–that is until the above happens and they become grubby. Doormats are lasting. We usually keep the same doormat by each door until we move, then we finally throw the things out, like old rags. Sometimes, whether it’s learned behavior, taught behavior or even caught behavior, we decide that Christians must in every …