What spoke to me in a thoroughly powerful way this morning!

"You are a mighty woman of God, and He has a great plan for you - a plan that goes beyond personal comforts and small dreams; a plan to live free and to help secure the freedoms of others. Yours is an important destiny, a life-changing call. God's highest and best will for you involves a plan that will deeply affect your life and the lives of those you are destine to bless. They're hoping you'll have the courage and conviction to step up to all you were created to be and to accomplish. He has anointed and appointed you for such a time as this. " This is from Susie Larson's book - Embracing Freedom.
Thanks to my friend Kari for sharing it with our prayer group this morning. It was exactly what I needed TODAY, just now, a reaffirmation of my yesterday and a promise for my tomorrow.
Eight  children at home, one preparing to leave for Cambodia to bring back his fiance and begin a whole new life as a married man, one a busy high school junior, the other 6 homeschooled active busy and all wonderful  keep life so full and rich! We care for Grand baby Charlie all week, and are very actively involved in the lives of married, working,  daughter Hannah and family as you may know,  working,  pre-dental school college daughter Esther and fiance's Casey too, and Gideon, single working college student, have a small homestead farm which blessed us with 3 baby goats a moth ago and 9 more babies between Friday and yesterday afternoon. Since Saturday  we have been caring for our dear friends Anita and Eric's 4 children while Anita is in Ghana. SO, 12 children at home. What did we do Saturday night? Invite the  basketball team Malachi put together for off season tournaments to have supper with us after their long  day of travel and basketball!  Took them all out for pizza after church and before the next round of the tournament Sunday too. Yesterday was one of those STEP UP kind  of days with one of our older children, the one with whom I have to STEP UP the most often. Its my prayer that very soon Older Child will come and ask forgiveness of all who were certainly  offended yesterday by the ugly nasty outbursts churning from insecuritiy, jealousy and feelings of inadequacy and spewed upon far too many with nothing to do with the CAUSE of the spewing. Let me as a Mamma, never for a second forget that   "He has anointed and appointed you   (me) for such a time as this. " in the lives of even my oldest children. It is a deep truth.
Something that I shared with my mother yesterday after  "The Spewing" was over  was that as parents there comes a day in which we realize that our children are not "just " Ephesians 6:1 creatures, if you will,  but those for whom we also must apply Titus  principles to and respect those principles growing up in them. A big part of parenting older children IS as older more mature believer to younger, possibly less mature. It is ALSO listening to THEIR counsel when they, as maturing believers see a situation  in their parents' lives or home situation, and God puts it on their hearts to address it. A big part of "The Spewing " was a total rejection by one Older Child of  the SOUND, SOUND WISE  counsel of a Younger-Older Child. That's not God's way. And as I have seen so often in my family  "Iron sharpens iron"  so I am  now also awaiting the sure -to-come- sharpening of  my Older Child  "arrow tips" as they are  valueable "arrows of our quiver".  God gave me grace and mercy and "power, love and a sound mind " yesterday and He gave a huge portion to Esther as well, as He also  used her to also be "iron sharpening iron" in helping to diffuse "the Spewing"...........truly  as I have seen God speak over my sweet Esther many times, right from the story of the character she's named after."FOR SUCH A TIME AS THIS"!! What a blessing to see the fruits of raising children to walk in the ways of God on their own, and to be able to fellowship with them  and even to take counsel from them!
Our weekend? VERY full, very fun. The basetball team guys who came to dinner were AA boys , some from some pretty broken homes. They told Charlie yesterday after dinner that they really love coming to our house coz even though we have so many kids, there is so much love and kindness, they know they are really welcome and that all of our children are loved and truly happy. They loved playing with all the kiddos  and gave a good big bunch of kindness out themselves!! I wanted Samren 8   and Bright 4  to have friends to play with who were clsoer to their ages (and BOYS) so we invited our friends over who have two Liberian boys GREAT trampoline and baseball fun as had by all! None of the visitors wanted to leave! SO, they are coming back this afternoon and so is dear friend Lynn with her youngest boys Peter ( Noah and Isaac's good pal) and Josh who is 7. Between going to the chicken coop for eggs, seeing the miracles (and gookiness) of babies born on a farm, a treehouse to do school in and hang out, maybe camp out in if the "night noises" don't scare Taevy in again tonight, playing with the ever-busy baby Charlie, and sweet chattery Kendi, there is not a dull moment at Calico Acres Farm!  Samren,,  said yesterday at one point he couldn't think of anything to do, but AMAZINGLY when I suggested that if her were bored he could sweep the dining room for me, he found a whole list of things he could and most certainly WOULD go do!! The boy vanished before my very eyes! Six pounds of spaghetti disappears pretty quickly when you have 8 kids, a basketball team and 4 visitors at dinner, but WHAT  A BLESSING TO BE A PART OF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm sure I 'll be reminding myself of the words with which I started this post often!