Biblical Parenting for Mothers

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In this episode, we explore the profound and often overlooked spiritual dynamics within the family, particularly focusing on the role of mothers. Drawing from scripture like Proverbs BS 31 and personal experiences. The speaker discusses how a mother's inner life, her prayers, her relationship with God, her own emotional and spiritual health can deeply influence her children, even from the earliest stages of pregnancy. This episode also tackles sensitive topics like abortion, breastfeeding, and parenting through a biblical lens, emphasizing that true Christian parenting is about embodying Christ. love daily, not just in outward actions. Join us for a thought-provoking discussion that encourages both mothers and fathers to consider the deeper spiritual implications of their roles and to lean on Jesus Christ as the true source of strength and transformation in family life.

Let's dive in and hear about some faith that's fresh, wisdom that lasts.

Proverbs 31 10th vers Following a good wife who can find she is far more precious than jewels. The heart of her husband trusts in her and he will have no lack of gain. She does him good and not harm all the days of her life. She seeks wool and flax and works with willing hands. She is like the ships of the merchant. She brings her food from afar. She rises while it is yet night and provides food for her household and tasks for her maidens. She considers ers a field and buys it. With the fruit of her hand she plants a vineyard. She girthth her loins with strength and makes her arms strong. She perceives that her merchandise is profitable. Her lamp does not go out at night. She puts her hands to the distaff and her hands hold the spindle. She opens her hand to the poor and reaches out her hands to the needy. She is not afraid of snow for her household for All of her household are clothed in scarlet. She makes herself coverings. Her clothing is fine linen and purple. Her husband is known in the gates when he sits among the elders of the land. She makes linen garments and sells them. She delivers girdles to the merchants. Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she laughs at the time to come. She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. She looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children rise up and call her blessed and her husband also and he praises her. Many women have done excellently but you surpass them all. Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain. But a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. Give her of the fruit of her hands and let her works praise her in the gates. The The scriptures we have been reading from the New Testament in previous lectures are again appropriate here, especially Ephesians 6. So also as our basic text from the Old Testament, train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it, which is Proverbs 22:6. Much of what I have been saying about father's sons and daughters is appropriate to mother's sons and daughters. Many things said there can be applied equally. So I want to talk about other things which I believe are important uniquely. to mothers. Let's begin with what happens when the mother conceives. That ought to be unique enough to see how the inner nature of the mother is effective in the formation of the child's soul in the very beginning. You noticed, by the way, that the scriptures we just read were almost all about exterior things which are done with the hands. Now, how she holds her hands to the daff and the spindle and she prepares clothing. She gets up early and prepare prepares food. A woman's work of course is never done. We see here in the word so many tedious tasks that women have to do with their hands and feet. The little menial things that must be done today and tomorrow and so on day after day. Life for the woman seems unfair and unglamorous, especially in a society without modern appliances. But we need to remember that when this was written. It was not in our commercial culture, not in our materialistic culture. The Bible expresses their culture in which, as Jesus said, the highest serves as the lowest and the chief is servant of all. In their culture, as I explained in an earlier lecture, they believe that the spirit of God is flowing through everything the woman touches. Therefore, they understand that what she does with her hands, through her body, is a spiritual work. Her work, however tedious, is not solely an earthly physical thing. God's spirit flows through everything she does. Then as now, what I said about fathers, sons, and daughters is true here concerning mothers, sons, and daughters. What she is as the spirit of God flows through her is what forms the child. Not what she says, but what she is as she does those tasks around the house. forms the child. The mother herself is the medium. She is the teaching. The same thing applies when we come to talk about the mother and the child at the time of conception. God's spirit in that child is coming to nestle within the womb of the mother. The vessel that she is, her body, her emotions, her spirit influence the formation of the character, soul and spirit of that child who enters her. I know that I what I'm about to say in this section may be difficult for some to believe. But if you can't believe this part, skip over it and believe something later. I am going to risk sharing it with all because I believe that I'm talking to people who are of many different levels of faith and some can receive. So if this is too much for you, skip over it and believe something later. Some of us know from the experiences we have had in depth counseling and from the gifts of the spirit showing us what is happening that many many times something comes from the mother's character into the child while it is living within the mother's womb. Indeed, whatever the mother experiences affects the child in the womb. If the mother for instance has had tremendous fears or has been brutally treated by the husband while she was carrying the child, the child may later have an irre professional fear of men. The child may never know why. Hundreds of counseling instances have revealed that fears, senses of being rejected, angers, and hurts have come into babies in uterero. And again, let me refer to you to that scripture from Luke 1 where the babe John the Baptist leaps in Elizabeth's womb. When Mary carrying Jesus comes in, the spirit of the baby John encased in Elizabeth's womb. perceive both that Mary had entered the womb and that the Lord was within her. The word of God indicates in several places the ability of our spirit to know things while the baby is being formed in the womb. Let me quote to you from Jeremiah 5 where God says, "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. And before you were born, I consecrated you. I appointed you a prophet to the nations." Look at that. I formed thee in the womb. Who is forming the child in the mother's womb? God is forming the child in the mother's womb. So, you see how important it is for the child to be held in the womb of a mother whose spirit, body, and soul are being made into a clean vessel through the body of Christ where old hatreds and fears are not harbored within her soul, becoming part of that child. Now, one might think this is impossible and has nothing to do with the scripture. It sounds like superstition rather than the word of God. Let me show you a place in the word of God. It is hidden, but I will see if I can explain it to you. This is in Luke 1 24th and 25th verses. And after these days his wife Elizabeth conceived, and for 5 months she hid herself, saying, "Thus the Lord has done to me in the days when he looked on me to take away my reproach among men." Some people have said in answer to the question, how come Elizabeth hid herself that maybe she did that in a day in which women were ashamed to be pregnant? No, no, no. That's not the scripture. They were ashamed if they were not pregnant. In that day, a woman was under reproach if she could not bring forth sons. Therefore, if she was pregnant, she went out and showed people, "Look what I did for my husband." She made sure, because everyone who had been taunting her would now see that she was bearing a child. for her husband. She was not ashamed to be pregnant. That wasn't why she hid herself. Also, how come when Jesus was conceived in Mary, Luke 1 says in the 39th verse, "In those days, Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country to a city of Judah, and she entered the house of Zachchariah and greeted Elizabeth." And we can understand that because the angel said that Mary would be given a sign and that Elizabeth would be the sign. So you can see why she hastes to see Elizabeth. But why then does she stay with her? Listen to the rest of it. Mary remained with her about 3 months and returned to her home. How come she didn't go home to Joseph immediately? Why a stay of 3 months? What is the matter here? How come Elizabeth fled off from Zechariah when she became pregnant? How come she hid herself? How come Mary went away from Joseph for three months? Bishop Fai, a man raised in the eastern eastern culture, explained to me what is behind that. He said that in the east when a woman conceives and knows that she has a child within her womb, she secretes herself from her husband and from her family from all her involvements. She goes to some relative who is a friend, one who is loved by her, and there she abides for about 3 months. The reason she does that is that during the first 3 months while the child is being formed within her womb they believe that the child's character is being formed. Therefore they must hide from the world. Why do they remove themselves from the husband? They also believe that during those first three months it was not good for sexual intercourse to take place. Do you know that the doctors have recently discovered that in those first three months hunts. If the mother engages in sexual intercourse, sometimes it deprivives the baby of oxygen and affects the brain. The doctors have only recently discovered that fact. These people did not have the advantages of our modern science, but they were moved by the spirit of God. Our modern science is only beginning to discover what God knew as he guided their culture. While the expectant mother abides with her relative during those three months, s she prays. If she wants her child to be musical, she plays music and sings and thinks about music. If she wants the child to be meditative, she meditates a lot. She believes that what she is putting into her inner psyche is becoming part of the child. Do you see why Mary was chosen so carefully? The very same thing I have just been talking to you about that belief is what the Bible culture was based upon. So you see the importance of Christian death of self, prayer and Bible reading if the mother would be a fit vessel for the child within her. We have thought in this antichrist culture that spirit is something over here and the body is something over there. Therefore we have thought of the growth of the baby is only a bodily thing. We have therefore thought that the mother can go back to work, do anything she wants to be smoking, drinking, gossiping, thinking harsh thoughts, and then we wonder why the baby has the kind of nature he has. We no longer live the wisdom that was in the Bible. Having counseledled thousands of people, I firmly believe that if the mother is praying and meditating as she carries the child, her baby will be blessed accordingly. Once I was in a lecture series where a prominent psychiatrist was asked, Can what the mother thinks and feels really affect the baby in the womb? He replied, we know that the mother's emotions a affect the rate of the blood coming to the baby affect the oxygen affect many things physically. He is merely talking about how the anxieties the mother has affect the baby physically. How much more may the baby be affected emotionally and spiritually? You see how in our culture we have forgotten that we are spirit. that we are souls and that we are responsible for the formation of the soul within us and within our children. How important for mothers to know that. How important if they would do what Mary did and what Elizabeth did to secrete themselves for 3 months to pray and meditate and read the word of God. The rest of the time the child is in the womb, the mother should also be careful about the kind of intake which is happening. Now, Now on the other hand, I do not want us to flee into the old superstition some women used to have. Oh, I marked my child because I saw this horrible thing. That was too far the other way. We are talking about the influence of the mother's nature upon the baby's character and soul, not speculating about anything marking the body. I don't believe that at all. If a negative negative thing has happened which can put fear or hurt through the mother into the baby's nature, then praise God, that is why we have a Jesus Christ. Mothers should be praying about any negative thing that comes into them that the Lord may heal that and let beauty and light come into their child in the womb. Nothing but beauty need affect the child in the womb if the mother walks with the Lord Jesus Christ. The birth trauma we now know is very important. In the Bible times, the midwife came and comforted the woman as she was being delivered in order also to affect the baby's reception into the earth. The entire family gathered around and sang spiritual songs while waiting for that delivery so that around the child and the mother would be an atmosphere of sweetness and light from the Holy Spirit. How much we have lost in our cold, sterile hospitals. Thank God for those nurses in the hospitals who love their work, who ho newborn babies and love them. How wonderful that that's happening. But nothing can replace the mother. Now I want to talk about another thing that is so important for mothers with with sons and daughters and that is breastfeeding. Oh uh before I get to that, I want to say in passing that I am utterly against these new laws about abortion. A child in a womb is a child in a womb. The baby is not an it. A fetus is not a thing. When we allow a mother to have an abortion, we are committing murder with her. I wish you could sit in my chair and listen to women who have had abortions.

Proverbs 22:6

Somehow we have thought that if man makes a law that makes it all right with God. Laws contrary to God's laws do not make it all right with God. Murder is murder. How could we ever have fallen so low in our thinking as to fail to see that a fetus of any age is also a spirit and a soul? Now to leave that subject and come back to this matter of breastfeeding. Again in our culture we have split the spirit and the body so that we are unaware of breastfeeding as anything more than a bodily thing. We have thought why not supply the baby with a milkfilled bottle? The baby doesn't know the difference. It doesn't have a mind yet. No, no, no. A thousand times no. The spirit knows. The spirit of the baby needs the mother's breast. Doctors will tell you that antibodies coming through the mother mother's milk are specifically designed to supply what the baby needs to ward off disease, which a bottle can't do. Doctors will tell you that a mother's milk is designed for the baby as no other milk can possibly be. But far more importantly, the baby needs the holding and cuddling. More than the milk of a body is coming into the baby when a mother breastfeeds. Because you cannot touch a body without touching spirit. A breastfeeding baby is being infolded in the mother's spirit. Again, a healing comfort the baby badly needs. The baby's body and spirit need that comfort, that feeding and nurture. However, I recognize that there are some mothers who are too nervous to nurse. But may I remind you again that I believe that if the mother had lived with Jesus Christ and had released her tensions to Jesus Christ, if Jesus Christ were really ruling in her, then she would behold to nurse. Our nervousnesses are a result of being apart from Jesus Christ. Thou will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee. Even so, there may be cases where the mother has tried to be with Jesus. And in our culture, she didn't know all the things we've been talking about. Therefore, she was disturbed so that she couldn't nurse. We understand that. And I'm not blaming some mothers who could not nurse. How important it is though if you can nurse and you don't nurse. And how important it is if you can nurse and you do nurse. The baby needs that. And nothing can supplant what is coming from the mother's being to her baby. Nothing is as beautiful as a mother feeding her child. In other areas, the same things apply in growing up with the mother as with the father. If the mother is there to hold and comfort, the boy is being evoked, called forth in the ability to respond to a woman. If the mother is hard and brutal and her hands are rough, if she changes the diaper and slaps the baby down on the bed and sticks a plastic nibble nipple in its mouth and props the bottle in place, face and runs off and turns on some blaring music. Then a boy is being formed by that who later on will most likely not have the capacity to unfold and relax in the arms of a woman. The baby is learning automatic responses much as he learns to walk, concentrating on learning until the ritual of walking is accomplished. In the same way, a baby's heart is learning how to give and receive affection, how to build defensive calls or to be an open sharing human being. These things once learned are forgotten but nevertheless effective in controlling adult relationships. How important it is to talk, to cuddle, to play with, to bounce on the knees, to be there for the baby. I understand that Dr. Spock has produced much better works lately, but in the beginning, people read, whether he said it or not, that babies were to be put on 4-hour rigid schedules. Mothers were taught to put the baby down for 4 hours, pick the baby up, feed the baby, put the baby down for 4 hours, don't hold the baby too much, don't handle him, you'll spoil him, etc. And again, no, no, no, no. Hold him, carry him, love him. The spirit of God is flowing through mother's body to the child, awakening the soul of the child. A baby is only spoiled by permissiveness and the giving of things without affection. True affection can never spoil a child. Did you know I just finished reading a book, The Whole History of Japan, and the author there talked about in all the chapters the aggressiveness, the strength, the ingenuity, the liveless of the Japanese people whose economy is outstripping everybody else's. In the end, he gave his estimate of the reason for the character strength of the Japanese people. You know what he was? He said, he said, "The reason is that the Japanese mothers nurse their babies until they're 2 years old, and then they play with them and carry them and keep them with them until they're 5 years old, and they give them constant fun and games and physical attention." And that he analyzed as the reason for the strength of the Japanese nation. If a man comes to me who cannot believe that Mary was a virgin, or he can't believe in women being any good, I don't don't defend the honor of Mary and I don't defend the honor of women. I say, "What was your mother like? Did she give you affection? Could you run and jump in her lap? Did she read you stories? Was she there with you?" Never have I found a case if the person would be honest in which the mother gave herself to the baby in affection that he held those opinions about women. A boy relates to his mother in the same way that a girl has a crush on her dad, of which we spoke earlier. her. The boy needs to have a crush on his mother. He needs to test what it is to be a man by relating to his mother. He needs to watch her the way she carries herself, the way she dresses, the way she takes care of herself, the way she relates to his father, if she is warm and affectionate to her husband, if she hugs the husband and kisses him, if she treats the husband with respect, that builds into the boy a good expectancy. It builds in him the capacity to relate to and trust the woman of his life later. If the mother fails in some or all of these things, then to that degree, that damages his capacity to relate to his wife later. The mother is the medium that teaches. Her life is God's teaching of the child, how important a life given to Jesus Christ is. As a boy moves on to teenage into that time of testing and rebellion, mothers more than father. Others tend not to understand. Mothers are exposed more than fathers to the feelings and trials of teenagers. Mothers live closer to their children. Mothers usually are more quickly threatened by what their children do than fathers are. I am talking here about what is the most common pattern. What counselors have to deal with most often concerning mothers of teenage children is that the mother most often does not know how to let go. The mother usually is still trying too hard. I've all too often seen good mothers, I mean good mothers, mothers who are very moralistic, mothers who attend church every Sunday, mothers who have been good in every way, go wrong with teenagers because they don't understand teenage. Not knowing about the need of a teenager to internalize to test everything, they start driving that teenager determined to keep him from going wrong. The more moral the father, the more determined she is that the child will remain good, the more fiercely she drives the teenager into immorality to find some area of independence from her. I watched my mother drive my brother deeper and deeper into rebellion. In the end, he went to live with my aunt for a while. I watched another mother drive her daughter, and she came to live with us for a while. Both mothers were good. well-intentioned mothers only like so many they did not understand. However, even understanding is not enough for sometimes women who do understand cannot stop because they are so determined to be good mothers. Once that pattern sets in in which the son or daughter is set over against the mother to cut the apron strings and declare independence, the emotional forces are so strong that seldom can the teenager establish his own world. Short of getting into some form of legal or moral trouble. I believe it is important, therefore, in such a case that a teenager be allowed to go live with a relative for a while. This is quite important. They cannot stop. Once that dynamic sets in, the mother almost invariably drives the child into greater trouble. The child must hit bottom on his own. He has to fall to his own depth. If the mother keeps trying to keep the child from falling, then he has to find a worse depth to fall to both parents most often do not understand that it is not a copout to let a teenager live with a relative for a while. The teenager needs moral and physical space in which to establish his own world, let alone he most often will. Here again, you see, death of self-centered concern in Jesus Christ is what enables true love. Not all mothers and sons get into such a dynamic, especially among those who have both the Lord and proper understanding. But if it does set in, please do not fear to give them space from one another. And what is involved in this lesson? Trust. I am not saying permissiveness. Parents must yet set the rules. There is unavoidably a tense boundary line. A teenager needs to know that our rules and that if he goes beyond the rules, out too late, driving too fast, etc., penalties are involved like being grounded from the use of the car. No weight of moral judgment or blaming needs to be attached. The teenager must be free to choose even if wrongly and not free to get away with the breaking of the rules. But the choice and the consequences must be his, not a parental burden. The teenager must take responsibility for himself. So what is involved here? Again, death of self. If the child perceives that in upholding the rules, the mother is not defending her own honor at his expense. If the teenager perceives that the mother is really concerned for his sake and that he is free to make mistakes, then the rules can be there and he is free to learn. Our son Lawrence said to his uncle Jerry that the reason mom and dad could trust him now is that they trusted him at a time when he was not trustworthy. I think that's beautiful. It was difficult for us to do that, to let him go, to make his mistakes and know that he would come back. Now he is a student for the ministry. It hurts the mother and the father to let the son go, but a parent must simply let the child fall. If the parents can do that, he doesn't have to fall so far. But if who can't do it. He is going to have to fall far enough to get out from under you. God the Father was unafraid to let us fall to our death, knowing he could raise us again through Jesus Christ. Again, we see that the life of the cross is central to understanding the Christian family. Let's make a picture so as to see this more clearly. Suppose a pine cone falls under a pine tree. Now, the pine tree underneath begins to grow and teenage, the little pine tree begins to hit the bottom rows of the big tree. Now it can't grow any anymore. A teenager like the tree has to be set out into his own place in the sun where he can have his own chance to grow. Mama has preempted all the ground of being righteous. So there I can't find myself as an individual. Therefore, I have to do something unrighteous. Give me room. Do you see? Mama has to get out of the way. If she can do that the son will be free to find his own way. Now let us speak of mothers and daughters. If the mother with the daughter is understanding, sharing affection and laughter, the daughter is learning what it is to be a lovely, lovable woman by relating to the mother. It is not simply that the daughter mimics everything that the mother does. She becomes the way the mother feels and acts. If the mother with the daughter is worshiping God, coming to God and confessing her sins and being cleansed and praising him, then the vessel she is is what is coming through to form the spirit of the child into a beautiful woman. I'll tell you a rule. If you want to perceive areas in you that are not yet healed, in which you have not yet let Jesus Christ find your old wounds in your inner nature to heal them and transform you. Look at what your children are doing. Our children express what is in us in our inner man. Did you ever come into a woman's home and in that home for some reason which you can't see the children are well behaved. They may be normally cutups of course but relaxed and well behaved. You go into another home and outwardly it appears that it is the same thing that the mother is doing but the children are wild, destructive, mean and abusive. Before Paula and I were converted converted. Our son Lauren was getting into all kinds of trouble as a kid. He was into the dirty books, swiping things in a gang that destroyed things, etc. After Paula and I were converted, the Lord Jesus came into our hearts and the Holy Spirit began to cleanse our inner heart. Lauren's behavior changed without our saying a word because now he was expressing the other side that was in us, not the brokenness that was children express what is coming through from the inner stream from the parents. Now we can't make this an absolute rule. Children express their own life too and therefore make their own mistakes. But you can see very often that what your children are doing is what you were doing as a child. Most often the thing that you are furious at them for is the same thing that you hated in your own spirit as a child. And you scold your child wrongly. in that area because that is not healed in you as yet. You are trying to keep your child from being what you were. All too often that self-centered concern is really what you are acting out in your attempts to discipline. So you see again the need to be healed inside if a mother would be with her daughter and with her son. We need to be transformed in the inner man in our Lord Jesus so that what comes through us to our children children is whole. Let me repeat therefore that if the mother is relating to the father in kindness and love and affection, her daughter sees this, that is most likely how she will be enabled thereby to relate to her husband also. If the mother insults the father, if when the father leaves the room, the mother starts making snide remarks to the daughter about the father and undercuts his authority. If the mother is conniving against the father, all that destroys in the child the capacity to relate to her husband later. She will mimic even if she detests what her mother is doing. She will most likely do what her mother was doing because that is what was written in her heart. You see what we are talking what we are is what our children become. The Christian family must learn to express the life of Christ in its daily walk in gentleness, kindness, love, mercy, understanding, forgiveness, etc. Jesus Christ in his holy spirit is the enabler is the uniqueness of the Christian family. Let me speak of one more thing about coming into teenage specifically between mothers and daughters. Many many many times one of the wounds which surfaces in counseling is that a girl comes into the time when her periods begin with absolutely no instruction. All too often if she received any instruction from her mother. It was that sex was nasty. We don't talk about that. The mother was embarrassed as to what it is to be a body. That was what came through to the girl. Therefore, the girl became terribly embarrassed about what she is. It is more important for a girl than for a boy that she be relaxed and confident about being what she is as a person in the body. It is more important for a woman than for a man because so much more of human life comes through her body. It is important for her to know the virtue, power, holiness, and goodness of her body, not to be disparaged about it. Not to think that what she is is nasty. Let me plead then with mothers to remember, please, that it is very important to talk to the daughters about what it is to be a woman. Don't let the streets educate your child. child. Most of the time when I deal with a child who is in trouble, I find that the parent conveyed that sex was naughty. I want to share with you a rule. This is one of Pia's moral laws. I don't know, you may not agree with him, but I found this to be very true. Pia says, "If a girl or a boy commits fornication, that girl or that boy hates or disrespects his mother and or father. I found that to be a very true maxim. Many times people will come to me who committed fornication as a child. They have subsequently confessed to Jesus about it but may never have felt clean. Every time they look back, they still look back with a sheddder and they can't understand why they still don't feel clean and free. Jesus forgives, but they cannot feel forgiven. They knew with their minds they are in fact forgiven, but They could never feel that forgiveness. They still felt unclean, dirty, and messed up. Do you know why? Because that fornication was not a thing in itself. It was not simply and solely sexual. There were feelings associated with the mother and the father which were connected with it. A counselor was needed to help the person see the things connected to it. The scripture says, "Therefore, in James 5:13 following, confess your sins. s to one another that ye may be healed. We know that we will be forgiven if we will only confess to Jesus. But most of the time our sins are not isolated events. They are tangled up with other things. A counselor is needed to help us see it all and then to pray over us to help our psyche receive the forgiveness. Therefore, the command is confess your sins to one another. You know, we can believe that other person's prayers will be answered more easily than we can believe that our own prayers will be answered. Then it is easy for us to believe that we are really forgiven. The counselor prays about all the other things connected with it too and peace comes upon us. I found it to be so true that if the child respects the mother and father, he has a check in his heart and he will not so easily fall into sexual sin. Our children have often said that they wanted to go do the things the gang was doing, but they knew how much it would hurt us if they did. Therefore, in some cases, they didn't do it. This is important. It was the same with me. My mother's teaching was very careful at this point. She said, "Remember always that what you do in public reflects on your parents." I didn't want to hurt her. I didn't want to hurt my dad. And that is why Pia's moral law says it that way. Whoever commits for fornication. You can say the same thing about stealing or lying. Whoever commits fornication hates or disrespects one or both of his parents. That's so true. If you have a good relation with your daughter, she may yet sin simply because she is overpowered in temptation. That can happen. But if it does, then that may also mean that there were some things going on between the daughter and the parents that we didn't know were going on. And so there was a break in our communications. Therefore, let what the children or teenagers do teach us as parents to see where we must examine our own hearts. And let us see that we give our teenagers understanding and trust. Again, we see that taking up the cross daily to follow Jesus is the way to providing the kind of home in which a teenager can become his or her own person. We also tend to think that a girl or boy in teenage does not need the mother's affection anymore. Actually, Teenagers need it more then only it has to be given more carefully. One must not be saying in the giving of affection, you are still a child. Our son Lauren came to Paula one time and honestly said, you know, I still need a hug and a kiss now and then. And so she began to give it to him because he was honest enough to let us know. Teenagers still need affection. You may have to act in more cunning ways to give it. You may have to say I need it when you know they need it. But they still need human physical touch and affection as teenagers and they need it more than earlier except when they were under 6 years. At teenage affection is again important as well as approval and affirmation. Again it is Jesus Christ ruling in our heart who is the strength of the family. If we don't have that kind of a walk with him wherein daily to be cleansed and instructed our heart closes down. and our children are not going to receive what they need. We cannot have this antichrist way of being spiritual on Sunday and physical the rest of the week. The life of Christ has to be pervading our life every minute for the child to be whole. Let us bow in prayer. Lord, I thank you for mothers. I thank you that you have given unto them the most wonderful and holy task on earth. to give birth to your sons. Forgive us for every way in which we have not respected who and what they are. We have thought of mothers only as a vessel for our body and have not realized that the whole spirit, mind, heart, and soul were formed there. Oh Lord Jesus, help us to renew respect for motherhood. Oh Lord Jesus, I pray for every mother, asking that your forgiveness might be upon each one who feels guilty. Restore unto us your picture of what a mother is in Jesus' name. Amen.

James 5:13

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