"Mothering With No Regrets"

Hi there this is Lon Solomon and not like to thank you for joining us today. You know God is blessed us and allowed us to be on hundreds of stations around the nation, declaring the uncompromising truth of his work for the wonderful privilege and honor it is to do that. I want to thank you for your generosity because only with your help. Are we able to stay on these stations and hopefully go on more stations with enough giving by our partners and our friends. So go to Lon Solomon ministries.com and everything there. You need to know is on that website and now let's get to the word of God as many of you know I am married credible woman named in the but what you may not know is that Brenda had a younger sister named Sandy who died in 1985 at the age of 27 Sandy contracted breast cancer when she was carrying her first child, and she left her husband Lance with a 13 month old toddler when she died.

For the last several months of Sandy's life and for almost a year after that Lance's mother moved in with that family. She slept in the corner of the living room in their one-bedroom apartment and she would see her own husband on the weekends when he would drive up to New York from Delaware. Lance's mom got up at night with the baby. She change the baby walk the baby fed the babies to fix all the meals she did the laundry to clean the house. She tried to encourage and comfort her son spiritually and then she would collapse into bed every night. Exhausted to rest up for another day just like the one that had ended and I remember once when I was up in New York visiting Lance and I watching what his mom was doing every day that I said to her I said the I'm just curious how you feel about being here and doing all that. And I'll never forget what she said to me she said one day long.

Lance is going to remarry and I'll be able to go back home. She said when that day comes, I want to have no regrets now I'm 61 years old you say would you look like it will. God bless you and God bless you of their I am. And you know I have to tell you I have some regrets in my life on that you have some regrets in your life to it wouldn't be a wonderful thing to think how different the world would be if God gave everyone of us five instant replays a year when that be wonderful where we could go back and we could change something we said or change something we did or change something we wish we would've gone that we didn't do that way today as it is a great idea but you know we all realize that life happens in real time, and there are no instant replay. They settled on this is all very interesting but what does this have to do with Mother's Day. Well, a lot because friends just like life mothering happens in real time. Also, we can't go back and re-raise our children. We can't revisit the years gone by, or recapture lost opportunities and time. So today what I want to talk to us about is about mothering without regrets or at least mothering with as few regrets as possible and I want to talk. I want to use. Actually, the great woman of God. Hannah from the Old Testament as our example and I want to distill out of her life. Three cardinal principles that lie at the heart of how to do mothering with no regrets. Now let me just say that this is not just for moms and grandmom's and future moms but guys as dad's and granddad's and future dad, there's a lot in here for us as well.

So pay attention to Rigo number one want to be a mom that does her mothering with few regrets. Then number one let's follow Hannah's example in that Hannah saw her children as a direct gift from God before we dig in the first Samuel chapter 1 when I give you just a little bit of background we meet. In this chapter, a gentleman named O'Connell who had two wives, Benigno, his first wife had lots of children and Hannah's second wife had not and she was devastated by this fact and we pick up the story as ill, and his wives and family, all are on their way to Shiloh to worship the Lord at the tabernacle there. Remember the temple in Jerusalem is not built yet. The people go to the tabernacle to worship in Shiloh here we go. First Samuel chapter 1 verse 10 in bitterness of soul there at the tabernacle. The Bible says Hannah Webb, and prayed before the Lord and she made a vow and said, oh Lord, if you will look upon my anguish and remember me and gives me a sauna, then I will give him back to you all the days of his life very interesting to me the word that Hannah uses here to describe her heart her feelings.

She uses the word anguish and as every woman knows that's because the pain of childlessness is a deep and gripping pain, but being a godly woman.

Hannah knew where to take that pain. She took that pain directly to the Lord and I know that there are some of us here today that are in the very same situation as Hannah. We've tried to have children and so far we haven't been able to and I would like to say to you as your pastor that I have no idea why God has chosen to put you through that paints but I can tell you where to take it. I can tell you what to do with it what you do with it is you take it directly to the Lord Jesus just like Hannah did and you trust God to do what he knows is best for you ladies, this is what faith is all about faith means trusting God's choices for our lives even when we don't understand them, and even when we don't agree with them or even like them and my prayer is that if you are in Hanna's situation today that you will be able to walk by faith, just like she did well it's going on and see what happened. Verse 19 first Samuel chapter 1 then they went back home and O'Connell had relations with Hannah his wife, and the Lord remembered Hannah and she conceived and bore a son and Hannah named him Samuel in Hebrew, smooth whale, which literally means asked her of the Lord, because she said I asked him of the Lord.

Now this is the important point that I want us to see here and that is that Hannah did not see her son Samuel as a product of biology or as a byproduct of sex or as a product of good family planning, nor did she see him as just a lucky coincidence. She to the contrary, saw her son Samuel. As a direct gift from God to her as a sacred trust that the Lord had given to her. I want to share some very disturbing statistics with you here in the United States of America. Number one, more than 200,000 children are physically abused by their parents every year. That's just the ones we know about here in America.

Number two of those same children have are also sexually abused by their parents.

Number three in the United States of America. The number one killer of children under the age of five is not poison or car accidents its child abuse and this doesn't even cover the horrors of verbal abuse which may not land a child in the emergency room but that abuse will do as much damage to a child as any. This can do. So I asked myself the question what's responsible for this upswing in violence towards children by their very own parents, and I am solemnly convinced it is my solemn belief that the answer is the fact that in our culture, we simply don't see our children the way Hannah saw her children here in America we see children as the byproduct of biology or the byproduct of technology.

We see them as little people who often come in and interrupt our plans for life and people that we have to put up with and put up with the burdens they bring on us until they reach 18 and we can get them to leave home and then they still only come back to 22 so you still don't get rid of them.

This is how our culture portrays children but friends. This is not at all. The view of the Bible when it comes to children. Psalm 127 verse three. The Bible says children are a gift from the Lord. How blessed is the person whose quiver is full of them and I love what Jacob said after he and his brother Esau had been separated for 20 years and they need up and Esau said who are all these people you have with you and Jacob said these are the children that the Lord has graciously given me. Listen here mom.

If you are mother here today. The Bible is crystal clear about the fact that your child whether that child is tall or short, whether that child is strong or weak, whether that child is a normally developing child or child loaded down with disabilities. It doesn't matter.

The Bible is clear that God designed that child for you and he designed you as a mom for that child.

That child was a direct, specific gift from Almighty God to you. A sacred trust that God gave to you and as such our children should be treated softly and gently and with tender loving care number two want to do mothering with no regrets. Not only do I recommend that we see our children a sacred trust from God, but number two. We need to follow Hannah's example in that Hannah second of all, put her children squarely in the past of God first Samuel chapter 1 verse 24 says now when she had weaned it here, she took Samuel with her as young as he watches there will how old was he well at that, according to our best calculations.

Samuel, at this point was probably somewhere between two and three years old as young as he was an Hannah brought him to the house of the Lord at Shiloh. Then she brought the boy to Eli the high priest and she said I prayed for this child in the Lord is granted me what I asked of him. So now I give him to the Lord. That's where she putting even though it cost her something to give them ladies.

This is what godly mothers do godly mothers cultivate the spiritual life of their children, they do it deliberately, and they do it intentionally, and they do it aggressively. You say wait a minute long way away to wait. Wait a minute don't you believe the fathers ought to be involved in the cultivation of their children spiritualize to.

Absolutely I do absolutely and I was when our children were growing up, but friends whether a dad is involved or not godly mothers still are fanatical about cultivating the spiritual life of their children. You sell nylon so what is this really look like if I wanted to be a godly mother cultivating the spiritualize my children what is that mean does that mean that I should bring my three-year-old child and dropping here at church with you. Is that what that means, don't you dare do that known all know I did my duty to God my country don't know you keep your three-year-old with you know the limits tell you what it does mean it means you do some of the kinds of things I'm going to suggest to you number one.

What is it look like to spiritually cultivate our children number one it means when their babies when they are up in the middle of the night when were rocking them to sleep that we sing to them songs about Jesus and not row row row your boat number two when our children are toddlers in means that we read to them at night Bible stories not curious George and not Mike Mulligan and the steam shovel, read to them the word of God and teach them how to pray and we get down on our knees with them and we pray with them. Number three.

It means having Christian music playing throughout our house all day long so our children are taking it in and they don't even know they're taking it into means number four putting Scripture on our walls and on our mirrors and on our refrigerators. So, everywhere, that child looks they see the word of God in our house number five. It means making sure that our children are in kids quest every single weekend that we are in town and that their healthy number on number six. It means that we get our children into a one-off and we help them memorize the word of God and implant the word of God into their souls. Number seven, it means when our children disobey. We discipline them friends godly discipline that is done correctly, is an enormous opportunity to teach our children about God to teach them about the justice of God and the mercy of God and the forgiveness of God and the unconditional love of God and if you're not sure how to do godly discipline correctly.

I'd like to recommend you go get a book in our bookstore. The finest book I've ever read on the subject is written by Dr. James Dobson and it's called Dare to discipline Brendan.

I read it when we were young we followed it and I want to urge you to read it and to do what he says I'm telling you.

Great opportunity is lost when people don't discipline their children biblically number eight when we have teenagers making an impact on their life of Christ means that we make sure junior and senior high group are nonnegotiable. Sunday morning, Wednesday night, weekend activities missions trips summercamp winter camp. You know God gave Brendan me the privilege of raising three boys Jamie, our oldest just in our middle son and John our youngest son and they're all walking with the Lord today, for which I'm incredibly grateful to God and I give him the glory for that. But when our youngest son John was 16. We had an argument one day about the fact it Brendan I made him go to every senior high event that McLean Bible Church And is part of the argument. He said he said don't get any say in this and I said no you don't. Every time the senior high group has an activity. Every teenager named the Solomonic. Is there he said well I don't really think that's very fair and I don't really think that's taking me in the consideration and blah blah blah. And I said John I'm sorry but let me tell you some. This is exactly what I said to him I said John as it was with Jamie and as it was with Justin, so it will be with John, world without end up a man yes sir 91 real thrilled about that. I thought it was hysterical.

Myself, I still think it's funny. I and that's what we did there were there was no discussion about this. Number nine.

If you want to cultivate the spiritual life of your children. Here's another suggestion. Reward your teenagers for having the quiet time we used to double our children's allowance. Any week that they had five nights of quiet time out of the seven nights.

Why, because we wanted to encourage them to be in the word of God and let me say finally number 10 moms don't forget it's not just about what we make our children do. It's also about what we model for them to our children see us reading and studying the word of God to our children see us submitting to the authority of God's word over every part of our life to our children see us praying about the everyday issues of life lost keys, parking spaces, what ever to our children see us as moms living authentic Christian lives not to do this ladies takes a lot of energy. It takes a lot of output but I need to tell you in 30 years of pastoral counseling. The number one laments that I hear from parents whose children are grown, is that they regret that they did not spend more time intentionally cultivating that child's life when they were younger don't have that regret mom do it. Number three. And finally mothering with no regrets, means number three that we follow Hannah's example.

In the third panel sacrificed for her children.

First Samuel chapter 2 verse 18 says now Samuel was ministering before the Lord in Shiloh and each year, his mother would make him a new road and bring it up to him. When she came with her husband to offer their annual sacrificed now in these verses do you see personal sacrifice on the part of Hannah because I do think about it now.

Hannah took time that she could have been spending on herself and instead she spent it making roads for her son Hannah took effort that she could have been spending on herself. She took money that she could have been spending on herself and instead she spent it on her son, Samuel, and this is not even mentioning the mental energy and the spiritual energy and the emotional energy that she certainly spent thinking about Samuel worrying about Samuel writing Samuel praying for Samuel friends.

We either sacrificed for our children. We sacrifice our children, moms, grandmom's future moms. This is our goal. No regrets or at least as few as possible and how do we do this well at summarize, we do it number one by seeing our children as a sacred trust from God, and by treating them like fine.

Number two we do it by deliberately and intentionally cultivating the spiritual life of our children and number three we do it by sacrificing for our children instead of sacrificing our children a moms look here. Look here, I want to say one more thing to before we close and that's this.

I don't care how you've done up to this point, or what you've done up to this point is never too late to make a change.

Ladies never too late. If you need to go back and apologize to your children for how you've done it.

Up to this point are urge you to do that children don't expect this to be perfect mom. They just expect us to be honest if you made some mistakes. Be honest with them even if they're grown but it's never too late start mothering like this with the help of the Lord Jesus Christ, you can make a change now and I encourage you to do it. Don't worry about the past, Jesus will redeem the past, just worry about what's the present is and asking the Lord to use this in the present to be a mother account with our heads bowed and her eyes closed. I would like right now to pray especially for you moms in your grandmom's a special prayer of dedication. So I wonder what I had gotten eyes close. If your mom here or grandmom to stand so that I can pray for you, please go ladies, God bless you. Let's pray heavenly father, I want to lift up the women who are standing right now to you moms grandmom's soon to be moms and Lord, I want to ask for your special grace and mercy on their lives bother you know that being a mom is hard being a godly mom really hard being a godly mom who raises children with few regrets is the toughest job in the world and so father, I want to pray for these dear ladies and when they are perplexed that you will give them wisdom, Lord, when they are tired that you will give them strength. Father I pray that when they are discouraged that you will give them encouragement when they are unsure what to do that you will give them discernment and father when they feel like they're making no difference at all as moms often feel. I pray that you would give them hope. Hope that flows out of the word of God which promises them that if they train up their child in the way that child should go when that child gets old, he or she will not depart from it. Lord, give them a long-range view of their job, not a short range, few that I pray that you would flood each of these women's lives with the resiliency and the tenacity in the bull dogged determination to do mothering with no regrets.

Lord, we commit these moms and these grandmom's to you. Bless their lives.

Lord, let them understand today how deeply, not only we treasure them. How deeply you treasure them. We pray these things in Jesus name, all the rest of us said a man ladies happy Mother's Day given listening to silently nonchalant. Solomon said, when is an outrage of Milan, Solomon, ministering to listen to today's message, or for more information visit our website. Solomon ministries.org. Thank you for your support. If you would like to contact us, please visit our website or call us at 866-788-7770 and we had the will join us next time in line to answer one of life's mission question