In my selfishness, I don’t want to take the time to teach my children new things. While it was cute to have my toddler next to me “helping” me in the kitchen, and changing out the laundry, it’s not so cute at age ten. The weary years can make teaching a chore. Just get out of the kitchen and let me make dinner, is sadly my tone most days.  It can be emotionally taxing after a long day to teach a child something else when I could just do it myself.

Then I’m reminded by a gentle nudge from my Heavenly Father that I’m raising the next generation. While it would be much easier to fall into the trap of letting musical.ly, and other social media apps, keep my child’s attention, that is not what I’m called to as their mom.

Mom is so much more than a babysitter.  A mom should be:

• A mentor
• A safe place
• A shoulder to cry on
• A motivator
• A life coach
• A discipliner
• A spiritual example
• A person who lifts heavy spirits
• A giver of laughter
• A teacher
• A grace-giver

“And so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.”

Titus 2:4-5

If my daughter doesn’t learn things from me, she will learn them from someone else.  It’s my goal to daily capture my children’s hearts for the sake of the gospel. Some days I don’t feel like putting in the work.  Some days it looks a lot like just making it until bedtime.

But what about five years from now? She’ll be fifteen.

Just ten years away?  Twenty.

What do I want to pass down to her?

Do I want to be remembered as a mom that was too busy to look up from her phone?  Certainly not.

So moms, let’s do the hard work now so we’ll have the deep and lasting friendship with them later.  While it’s no guarantee how our children will turn out as adults, we are given an abundance of precious promises from God’s Holy Word when it comes to investing in future generations. Obedience always breeds bountiful blessings!

Just this past Sunday at church I was making coffee for our family ministry group. My daughter walked by and instead of giving a casual nod hello, I was prompted to teach her how to make coffee. Step by step I taught her the simple steps involved. Pour cold water into coffee pot. Turn on burners. Insert coffee filters into the basket. Pour the scoop of coffee grounds into filter.  Slide the basket into place.  Pour the water into the spout.

It probably took me less than five minutes to show her how to make coffee.  Will making coffee change her life? Maybe not (although some would beg to differ). But little connections like these are what I’ve seen that she craves. My attention. My desire to teach her.  I didn’t sit down and give her a sermon that Sunday morning, but I’m thinking this meant a lot more to her!

Ten years from now I hope she tells her friends at college, yeah, I remember my mom taking the time to teach me how to make coffee when I was ten… that meant a lot to me.

Fellow moms, we don’t know how much time we have with our children. While making homemade slime, or having extra little bodies in our crowded kitchen can be more of annoyance, it will bring them joy!

Time with our children is one of the best things we can give them. 

It provides a pivotal foundation of connecting hearts. Hearts connected with our children makes it easier to talk about the hard conversations to come. If a simple five minutes teaching my daughter how to make coffee makes her feel safe enough to ask questions about the importance of purity one day, it was all worth it!

So won’t you pray with me that we would be a generation of moms that really see our children?

Let’s not just make it to bedtime. . . let’s break free from the weary mundane and teach with joyful hearts.  For all too soon we won’t have those muddy shoes cluttering our doorway.  We’ll miss the mud and the chaos.  Let’s live with no regrets.

Will we always do it perfectly? No.  But we can give it our all today!

Guest post by Traci Michele Little