Sunday Shorts - Taking Instruction

We all know mothers have a tough job.  Although fathers, grandparents, teachers, friends, and family are all pitching in to help out, mothers tend to take the entire burden of child rearing and child care upon themselves.  They worry about their children's health, well-being, and futures while reading as many parenting and child care books as they can get their hands on.  They talk to their fellow mothers to commiserate and seek out solutions to parenting problems.  Sound familiar?

It's a good thing - this knowledge-seeking.  It means one is not content with where she is at and is searching for instruction to help her improve.  I myself have quite a few of these instruction manuals loaded onto my Kindle, with names like The Power of a Positive Mom and Raising a G-Rated Family in an X-Rated World.  The wisdom in these books is powerful and certainly motivating.  But the true instruction manual for life - the go-to book for mothers - is the Bible.  Specifically, books in the Bible like Proverbs tell us to "seek wisdom", to "get understanding", to "attend to wisdom", to "bind it" to our hearts, to "desire wisdom", and to "love instruction."

Here's my Scripture for today:  "Whoso loveth instruction loveth knowledge: but he that hateth reproof is brutish."  I am reminded that God gives us mothers instruction in many ways (like the parenting books mentioned previously).  But sometimes, he uses another person, most likely older and wiser in the ways of mothering, to gently rebuke us or give us "constructive criticism" to get us back on the right path.

I received such correction this weekend.  It was needed - it was kind.  It was from God, and I would be foolish not to listen and heed it. 

What about you?  Are you "loving wisdom" enough to receive it and act upon it?  Are you willing to let go of pride and preconceived ideas to let the LORD work in you as a mother?

"Reprove not a scorner, lest he hate thee:  rebuke a wise man, and he will love thee." Proverbs 9:8