Red Crown

Raising Daughters Of The King

Princesses that bring Honor to their Royal Father

Giving practical tips and encouragement to mommies of girls

From One Mom To AnotherApril 2019

A Multitude of Emotions

Good day, friends! I hope you are doing well. As these beautiful spring days are here, I hope you are finding time to enjoy the weather even as the activities seem to ramp up. I wonder if daylight saving time feels like you finally got the extra hours added to your 24 hours so you can actually accomplish all you have to do. Do you ever wish for more hours in your day – or maybe more hours for your sleep? I do remember wishing for that several times. I think I had convinced myself that if I just had a few more hours I’d clean my house, or workout, or enjoy gardening, or do something for myself.

Looking back now, I realize that the things that really mattered to me were the things I made time for on a regular basis. Unfortunately, many times, taking care of ourselves is at the bottom of the list. (That seems to be the case for so many women.) But I’d like to encourage you to take at least enough time to refresh and recharge a little bit so that each of your days is filled with life and joy (even if you are a little tired.) Sometimes just that little bit of peace and quiet in the middle of the day can give you a moment to breathe as well as a boost to keep going till bed time.

I want to also encourage each of you to get away for a little bit longer whenever you can (maybe weekly or at least monthly) to give you enough recharge to get through the month. Recently, we read that it takes four years to make up for the sleepless nights of newborns and toddlers. For moms whose children don’t sleep through the night till much later, I’m sure it takes even longer. For moms of babies with health issues and many sleepless nights and emergencies, it’s even longer to recuperate. As you work on your goals for the week, month and year, add in taking care of yourself.

Struggles for Today’s Kids and Moms – Emotions!

I’d love to share with you, a fairly simple way to pour into your child’s spiritual life and healthy personality. This is something we are seeing many experts mentioning and treating in today’s kids. They are showing us that many of our children are not learning to identify or express their emotions. Sometimes counselors’ first step to healing seems to be training patients to identify their feelings. I don’t know if this is due to the social media influence or the fast pace of our lives or some other cause; however, I’d like to encourage you to step in to help your precious babies learn how to do just that. If you can help your children begin to understand their feelings, you may be able to help them express them in a healthier way and with more control rather than impulse.

Do Your Kids Know How To Handle Their Emotions?

Healing for Moms

An exciting opportunity came my way recently that I want to share with you that also dealt with emotions, among other things. It is an amazing Bible course I was honored to offer to a group of courageous women. These ladies had gone through really tough, trauma-filled experiences. Each one had managed to overcome and live successful lives, but God had more to offer these women. He offered them even more healing for each individual need. One key element was examining the feelings of those that lived out the Bible stories. We didn’t focus on struggles and traumas but rather on growing relationships with Christ. This unique study was designed to help people in their healing journey. Interacting with God’s Word with other women in a similar situation, allowed God to help these ladies continue to move forward on their paths to healing. What an amazing opportunity! During these days of “Me, too!” awareness, the more we can encourage our daughters and our sisters to find healing through God’s transforming Word the better.

I hope that we will continue to offer this healing opportunity in the future; the group is confidential and private. I find myself amazed at how God dropped this training in our laps. The first step towards finding this course was when Bob and I went on a mission trip to Europe. Because of that, we were invited to a conference in Virginia where we saw the sample of the training. Then I reached out to ask a question and was invited to Florida for the actual training. When I think of how God led me to this training, it makes me all the more aware that God desires for all of His daughters to move forward in their healing. One step after another, until He brings about healing. Crazy, isn’t it?! (If you are interested in being on the waiting list for future groups, please send me a message here along with your phone number or email, and I’ll contact you with more information once I have some news.)

Being a Grandmother

Life for me has been crazy lately – wait, maybe I should say: “Life is usually crazy!” Of course, you feel like that as well. We can embrace it, or brace for it – depending on our personality and general approach to life. Haha! I hope you find your way to enjoy the life you’ve been given! There actually have been a few slow or non-crazy days in my life once in a while. One day you’ll find that as well when your kids are grown. I expected empty nest to be that constantly for me and thought it was defined as boring and lonely. (And at times it is.) However, it has been a really fun and adventure-filled time. It helps that my kids come home to visit and that I have six delightful grandbabies.

To moms of tweens and teens (and maybe even young adults): if you are having struggles with your kids and they are choosing paths that you don’t approve of, sometimes tough love is the approach to see great changes and improvement, but whatever you choose, realize that keeping a loving relationship going with your children will help allow you to have input into the lives of your grandchildren in the future even if your children are not receptive to you. Total breaking of relationship can cause you to never have the opportunity to pour into your grandchildren. (I’m not aiming guilt at parents that are separated from their kids. You have enough heart wounds that I would never add to that. But God can bring healing into any situation. Keep praying in faith.) For mothers still raising young children: when possible, keep the relationship alive and healthy. Fight for your opportunity to impact the world through your children and your grandchildren.

Grandmother Influence

What can grandmothers do for their precious grandbabies? Oh my goodness! Unconditional love is the first thing! Modeling a well-lived life! Sharing Bible stories, reading books, being their biggest fans, and telling them how proud they are of them are just a few of the biggest gifts! Basically, you can do all those things you did as parents to pour into them without being in that continual state of exhaustion that you lived in as young parents with sleepless nights and exhausting care-taking. Maybe, we can help our grandchildren by unpacking the emotions and feelings in Bible stories. Wouldn’t that be an incredible blessing to those sweet children?! Since that seems to be a deficit these days, then what an honor to help with that. If understanding emotions and feelings can help children and adults deal with impulses and genuine healing from forms of trauma, what an opportunity we have to give tools for a lifetime to our grandchildren!

On top of that, make your words mean something to your grandbabies. Use the filter God gave you to never take God’s name in vain and to speak truth always to those babies. I urge you as grandmothers, as I urge moms, to plant positive seeds or eternal truth in the hearts of your grandbabies. Eternal seeds will produce fruit long after you are gone. One of those most powerful ways to impact those precious children is through our prayers (which also last long after we are gone.) I know one great-grandmother who learned late in her adult life to pray lots. I dare say that she has made up for her younger days of not praying by praying so much in her older days. Imagine the lives we can affect if we start praying often even when we are young. I encourage you if you are just beginning in your life of prayer that you just dive in. Don’t worry about form or style. Just start and let God evolve your way of praying. An incredible drawing teacher encouraged quantity over quality. The more you do, the better you get. This principle applies to prayer as well.

For my sweet readers who have lost their mothers too early: In hopes to add a little sweet to the bitter sweet, know that your mama’s prayers and their effects remain long after she left. Also, her influence in your life, still remains to affect her grandchildren even the ones that didn’t know her.

Moms deserve respect

I am teaching a Principles in Parenting Class right now. I love these sweet moms! It’s fun to think back to days when my babies were little and try to help these moms with tips and encouragement. I remember some of the lessons I had to learn about how making myself more secure made me a better parent. Many new moms have trouble separating their emotions from their child-training. For example, as an adult, I never felt if appropriate to tell my friends to say “thank you”. In fact, it would have felt quite rude to do so. Yet, when training my little ones, I had to overcome that feeling in order to train them to be grateful children. Once over the initial challenge of expecting, even demanding, gratitude be expressed towards me, it became an excellent habit for both myself (self-respect is a good trait to cultivate) and for my children. (The health benefits of gratitude in both adult and child are worth striving to attain! Habits of gratitude reduce stress and depression in all.)

Reminder to Find a Mentor

Another thing I’m reminded of from those early days of being a mother, is the seemingly endless attacks of guilt and criticism. Today, we call it mommy-shaming. I’m so grateful that I didn’t have to experience the bombarding from the internet. If you are a young mom, find someone who will be your encourager to counter the effect of the criticism. If you are not in those hard days of early motherhood, consider finding someone who is and determine to be a word of encouragement to her. An encouraged mommy does a much better job of parenting. And again, you can affect the next generation.

If you really want a blessing, find a mom with a baby or young child with chronic health issues to pour into. It may be out of your comfort zone, but comfort is highly overrated when it comes to the spiritual realm. Ask God to help you to move past always wanting to choose “easy”. These moms with sick babies often feel isolated and worn out, yet are some of the strongest and kindest people that you and your children will ever know. Reach out to help and you’ll be the one that is blessed!

For you moms with chronically sick babies: You are stronger than you think! You have gifts and strengths that others do not. You can celebrate those little triumphs that others skip over not realizing how important those tiny steps are for babies that have a different normal. You have eyes that see beyond the usual, the surface and sometimes the shallow goals of this world. Even your other children, research has shown, develop into kinder young people and adults. I know that you must feel totally exhausted at often and as if you just don’t know what to do, more often than not. But, I want to encourage you that feeling “needy” cause people to seek God. Seeking God, causes you to find Him. Remember that He has ALL the answers to every need. It’s mothers that don’t seem to need Him that are stuck relying on their own strength and efforts. You, however, need your God for your every thing! So, hang on to Jesus! And be brave enough to find someone or several someones to be your mentor/friend/mentee. While needing help, you can gift these ladies with the opportunity to get out of their comfort zones and think on others. Don’t apologize for needing a little help. Hugs to you sweet ladies and my sweet daughter!

If you know of a group that could use some encouragement in a Parenting Class, please let me know. I’d love to try to affect future generations by encouraging a few moms.