Older Women

Yesterday I spent the morning with a youth pastor's wife from the church I grew up in. Actually, I was in the youth group with her husband when we were teenagers. She is about ten years older than us, so needless to say I was "all ears." They have 6 children (5 girls and 1 boy)! I learned so much in just a few hours of chatting while drinking our blueberry coffee (that stuff was amazing, by the way). It reminded me of Titus 2:3-4 "Guide older women into lives of reverence so they end up as neither gossips nor drunks, but models of goodness. By looking at them, the younger women will know how to love their husbands and children, be virtuous and pure, keep a good house, be good wives." She gave me pointers on homeschool and discipline, shared how being a mother is a process of death to self, and how it gets easier to have patience through the years if you submit to God's inner working. We laughed, I almost cried, and I even left with a book and some suggested resources, which I ordered the minute I got home! I got to see how she kept her house, how she interacted with her kids and her husband, how patient and kind she was, especially how good and obedient her kids were - which is the true test! And none of it was a front. Between her kids and mine, we had 9 kids in her house and I felt God's peace from the moment I walked in. That meeting encouraged me in so many ways. It also inspired me to have young girls over more often for the sole purpose of them watching and learning. I've never been a fan of that because I feel pressure to perform and I feel bad when they are interrupted, but it wasn't a big deal when it happened to me. I just gave her a moment and we picked up right where we left off. "Lord help me to be the woman, wife, and mother you want me to be! Help me to be a good example as a younger woman and to learn all I can from the older women you've placed in my life."