Oh What Consolation!

Sally Clarkson's Mom Heart Conference is going on right now up in Irvine, California.  Last year I got to go for the first time with a small group of women from my church.  What an experience it was!  It was so inspiring and encouraging!  From that conference, a once-a-month Mom Heart Group was birthed.  All five of us ladies who went to the conference have been studying through Sally Clarkson's book, The Mission of Motherhood, plus an older mom who was asked to lead our group and two other new moms who were invited to join us.  We have two more meetings left.  Unfortunately, none of us were able to make it to this year's conference.  I really felt I could use some refreshment.  Lately, with a [fairly] new baby in addition to the 2-year-old I already have and my husband in his last semester of college before grad school, I've felt very stretched trying to meet four people's needs every day.  And then there's the uncharted realm of discipline my husband and I have been stumbling through ever since our oldest daughter became a toddler.  We've gotten mixed opinions from other Christian parents on what the Bible means when it mentions in the Proverbs disciplining a child with a "rod."  I honestly haven't felt right from the beginning about spanking a child that can't talk yet.  But when I did a word study on "rod," looking up its original Hebrew meaning... rod was a literal rod.  It wasn't symbolic of [insert method of discipline].  Okay, so I'm one that tends to lean towards trusting that God knows what He's talking about 'cause He made everything and knows how His creation works and sees the future and knows how everything is going to turn out.  So who am I to question how God says to discipline?  So that settles it, right?  Well, not exactly.  My husband and I tried to come to an agreement that we would reserve spanking for, you know, the "big" stuff, for deliberate disobedience.  But even when we followed through with that plan, we noticed a result in our daughter that we haven't liked; she starts hitting and kicking.  How do you explain to a toddler who's still learning how to talk that it's not right for her to hit us, or her sister, or things when she doesn't get her way, but that it's okay for us to "hit" her when we're not getting our way with her?  What really made me think was one day when I was giving our oldest a time out for swinging at her baby sister and I told her, "It's not nice for you to hit your sister.  Would you like for someone to [oh...] hit you?"  So yeah, we've been desperate for awhile when it comes to knowing how to discipline our children as Christian parents, so I finally ordered a used copy of the still out-of-print book by Clay Clarkson, Heartfelt Discipline.  I ordered it to get some more clear direction on this issue and as a consolation for missing Sally's conference this year.

And what should I find in the mail the night the Mom Heart Conference began in Irvine (as I was hoping it would be the night it would arrive)?  A like-new copy of the book Heartfelt Discipline!  I literally thought in my head, "Oh what consolation!" and proclaimed it to my husband out loud when I came in the front door from checking the mail.  So I set my notes from last year's conference, my copy of The Mission of Motherhood that I'm still doing a study through, my copy of Dancing with My Father that I've been reading through for personal encouragement, and my newest addition to my Clarkson collection, Heartfelt Discipline, on the counter and lit a candle Sally Clarkson style!

So the next best thing to getting to go to a Mom Heart Conference?  Having a Mom Heart Group that I get to be a part of, where I can get that refreshment I've been needing as an overwhelmed mama lately.  Having my own copy now of Heartfelt Discipline so my husband and I don't have to feel like we're floundering around when it comes to trying to faithfully and lovingly discipline our 2-year-old daughter.  Getting to read the reports from moms who did get to go to a Mom Heart Conference this year like here and here and reading Sally's follow-up thoughts after she spoke at the Mom Heart Conference in Colorado.

Plus, if I was in Irvine last night, I wouldn't have gotten to enjoy eating dinner with my handsome husband (or help him work on a desktop publishing project for school later that night) and witness my 2-year-old daughter paint pizza sauce all over her face (which I'm sure I wouldn't have thought was that cute or funny if Gregg didn't offer to clean her up afterwards).

And I wouldn't have gotten to wake up to greet my lively Leala and enjoy spending the morning with her or gotten to be with my cutie, Adella (who I was unknowingly pregnant with last year at the conference) in the comfort of our home and watch her get closer to being able to grab her feet.  There is a time and season for everything and this year it was my time to keep applying what I've gleaned from Sally and be thankful for what I have.

Note:  If anything else is shared online about this year's Mom Heart Conference, I would be more than happy to add the links on here!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunday, January 5, 2012 Revision

This mom shared some of the things she learned on her Facebook profile:

Tracy Schulte
Sally Clarkson, so refreshing for this mama's heart! A few tid-bits...
A happy mom is a real gift to her children.
Discipleship takes a long time, but it changes hearts.
I am the PERFECT Mom for MY children.
Put down the work and pick up the child. [LOVE that; it's been stuck in my head since I read it!]
Guilt kills a soul.
Moms are advocates for their children, doing everything they can to make sure they make it in the world.
Guide. Inspire. Encourage.

AND...

She did it!  Adella touched her feet for the first time last night!  I knew she was getting close to doing it!  I love watching the different stages of my girls' growth.