Teach the Young Women to be Good

At first glance, this quality seems to be pretty obvious, but I do think there are some thoughts that bear reviewing even on this character.

We live in a world, where there are really a lot of “good people”. So there must be some things which distinguish this kind of “good” from that which we see in the world around us. In my understanding, I believe that a lot of those distinguishing qualities have to do with the motives which drive our desire to be “good”. As Christian ladies, our desire to be “good” should be motivated by our love for and our desire to please the Lord. And I believe that should in some way be clear to those who know us.

There are many areas of life in which we women should be “good” and I believe the first one is in the area of our homes. In Proverbs 31:12, we read, “She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life.” This refers to the way she treats her husband. We have already discussed some of the ways we can love our husbands, so I won’t go into a whole new discussion of that. But we just need to remember that our husband is a gift from God and no matter how much good we receive from him or how deserving we think he is, we are to be good to our husband. This means that we will spend our life seeking to enhance the ministry God has given him and helping him to achieve his potential before God. Remember, God created the woman “for” the man (Genesis 2:18), so this is our primary responsibility in life! We also need to be good to our children. This doesn’t mean giving them everything they desire, but nourishing and cherishing them and teaching them the things of God.

Then there is the area of everyone else around us. We as ladies are to be seeking to help those in need. Again, in Proverbs 31, though it is obvious that her main ministry was to her family, in verse 20 we read that, “She stretcheth out her hand to the poor; yea, she reacheth forth her hands to the needy.” If this is to be different from every other charity group in the community we need to strive to have a different motive and a different message than the rest of them. Those to whom we minister need to know that our motivation is to please God and carry out the ministry that He has given us to do. In other words, with our giving of good things needs to be a message of hope and salvation that is different from the others,

And finally, I think that the meaning of “good” in this passage has to do with a general life style and pattern to promote goodness in every area of our lives. It should influence the way we talk to our children and our husband, the way we interact with everyone around us, the general atmosphere that is evident in our homes when strangers come by and just the wonderful way that others can see Jesus living in our lives and affecting even how we look!

I trust this will give you a little insight into what it means for a Christian lady to be “good” in the Biblical sense of that word.

Let's Take a Break and Make Muffins

I thought it would be good and fun to take a break from the very serious things we have all been dealing with this week and just have lunch! If you were to come to my home for lunch, chances are VERY high that I would serve you muffins of some kind as part of that lunch! I love muffins and so I thought I would share a couple of recipes with you today just for fun!

Old Fashioned Blueberry Muffins
(no mixer needed)
½ cup milk
¼ cup salad oil
1 egg
½ cup sugar
1 ½ cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 – 1 ½ cups blueberries (fresh or frozen)
Stir milk, oil and egg together. Add dry ingredients and stir until just moistened. Gently stir in blueberries. ( frozen blueberries may make the batter turn somewhat blue, but the flavor is not damaged!) Fill 12 muffins cups that have been greased. Bake at 400 degrees for 20 – 25 minutes.

Chocolate Chip Muffins
(Makes 10 large muffins or 22 regular muffins)
1 stick butter or margarine
½ cup white sugar
½ cup brown sugar
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla
Cream the above.
3 eggs – add to above mixture
2 cups flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 cup sour cream
Mix dry ingredients and add alternately with the sour cream.
1 cup mini chocolate chips
Stir into above batter and mix well. Spoon batter into greased muffin cups and set aside.
TOPPING for muffins:
½ cup brown sugar
2 Tablespoons butter or margarine
2 Tablespoons flour
Mix with a fork until mixture resembles coarse meal.
1/3 cup mini chocolate chips
Add to above mixture and sprinkle over muffins. Bake at 350 degrees for about 15 to 25 minutes (depends on size of muffins). Check often after 15 min.

Older Women To Teach The Younger

The concept of the older women teaching the younger women is one that has gotten somewhat lost in the culture. In our culture, even within the Church, age has become something not to be revered, but something to at least dread and at most to be totally avoided if possible! It is not commendable to look older, much less to have thoughts and ideas that are from a bygone era. However, Biblically, God has given older women a very important duty, that of teaching the younger women! Maybe that is why husbands aren’t being loved (respected) as they ought to be. We as older women need to be obedient to God’s mandates no matter how the culture dictates and according to
Titus 2:4, one of our main duties is to teach the younger women “to love their husbands and to love their children”. (I will address exactly what I see that means at a later time, but for now, I will focus on the teaching.)

So who are the older women? Well, we are all older than someone and some of us are older than many! If we have experience in the Christian walk and if we have young ladies or girls that are under our realm of influence, then we are to teach them the things that God has instilled on our hearts through His Word. We are not all able to have audiences of hundreds or even tens as some of the godly ladies that God has gifted for public speaking, but most of us have daughters and others in our families who need to be taught and encouraged to step out from the mold and do what God has commanded!

How do we go about teaching these principles? “Example” is one good way, and it is VERY important that our example support our words, but the words MUST be there as well. Without the words of admonishment from God’s Word, our example may be considered just that, an example or a preference. This principle of the older teaching the younger is not just a preference, it is a command, and we need to be sure that we let that be known. Our culture is so relativistic, and we need to be sure that Christian young ladies know that God’s commands are not relative, they are mandates backed up with Truth. And if they truly are commands of God, then not to obey them is sin.

Let’s make a difference in our homes and our churches and let’s be “doers of the Word and not hearers only!” James 1:22. This is part of the motivation for this blog! May God use these thoughts in the hearts of my own daughters and grand daughters and if He so chooses, may He use them in the hearts of many other young ladies for His Glory!

She Is Blessed

Well, we are snowed in here in West Michigan, so I thought it would be a good day to just relax and write my first entry to the blog I established last week.

I wanted to first of all let you know how we came up with the title for this blog. One reason we came up with “She Is Blessed” was that many of the other titles we thought of were already taken! After we came up with this title, we were actually quite pleased with it.

Proverbs 31: 28 says of a virtuous wife that “her children rise up and call her blessed”. Next to my desire to hear the words, “Well Done”, from my Savior, I long to hear the words of my children rising to call me “blessed” as a result of the life I have lived before them on this earth. I once heard it said that the only thing you can take with you to Heaven is people. And who would I desire to take with me more than my children, assuming that my husband is on his way! And who better to lead them there than a mother and father who are totally committed to the Lord, to each other and to the family that God has given to them? Therefore to be called “blessed” by my children and grandchildren would be the crowning touch to a life lived here and would make a reward of many of the difficult things we have endured in this world!

Just a little note of praise and a reminder that our job as moms and grandmas never ends, we were blessed with a new baby grandson this week given by our son and daughter-in-law in Ohio. His name is Iain Paul and we were able to meet him about 5 hours after he was born. We were to have been there for the birth, but he came almost three weeks early by C-section.
May the Lord bless the coming week and may you find the Lord to be your faithful guide throughout each day!