For my Making Your Home Sing Monday post I get to tie together two blogs I really enjoy reading. Heather over at the Striving Wife issued the challenge to join her for a complaint free week this week and I am jumping on board with her! How many of my utterances during the week are complaints? I would probably be shocked and saddened to know the exact answer.
The challenge I am giving myself will be two-fold, but connected. In addition to a complaint free week, I really want to praise my children and husband more. If you watch TLC or Discovery Health I am sure you know about the Duggar Family. I am always amazed at how sweet and patient Michelle is with her children. In their book they say they really try to praise their children 10 more times than they correct them. Tonight Anna finally used the potty of her own free will (PTL!!!) and I quickly saw just what an impact praise had on her. She is now completely stoked to use the potty tomorrow. We printed a Tinkerbell potty chart and put it on the bathroom wall and she can't wait to get more stickers on it. Now this is about the 7th potty chart we have attempted, but for whatever reason, it clicked tonight. (Thank you for praying.) So while I won't neglect correction, I am going to really strive to praise my children much more than I correct them. And if they are having a particularly trying day, that will be that many more things I will have to praise them for. Mondays are always particularly tiring for my husband. I can imagine its tough to hit the ground running on Monday morning after preaching on Sunday. So I am going to strive to make sure he knows just how much I appreciate all he does for our family. He works so hard to take care of us, especially so I can stay home with our children...and he still comes in and does laundry. I am truly blessed.
I hope you will join me in Heather's challenge. As I commented on her blog, I know we will emerge from this week a little more like Jesus as we focus on building those in our homes up rather than tearing them down through our complaints. A complaint free Monday will surely make my home sing! Head on over to Momstheword to see how other's are making their homes sing today.
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"I know we will emerge from this week a little more like Jesus as we focus on building those in our homes up rather than tearing them down through our complaints." Amen, sister. I too want to build my home with encouragement, not tear it down with criticism.
ReplyDeleteComplaining just leads us to an unhappy/ungrateful spirit and keeps us there too. Now being thankful, on the other hand, really opens our eyes to His grace all around us.
My husband is tired on Mondays after preaching too, I think.
Funny thing is, he usually has at least one meeting scheduled on Mondays, sometimes two! But at least he can sit and talk in the meetings.
I love this challenge...I've been trying to live it, too, and it is interesting to find out just how much you do complain once you became aware enough to try to stop it. Thanks for the awesome post!
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