Season's of a Mother's Heart: Freedom from Guilt

Thank you for joining me once again as I review the book Season's of a Mother's Heart by Sally Clarkson.  If you would like to read other moms' reviews, check out my friend Erin's website: http://homewiththeboys.net every Friday afternoon as other bloggers link-up.  Erin is also hosting a 31 days of all things women series...very interesting...check it out. 

Chapter 8:  Freedom from Guilt

This chapter posed quiet a few thought provoking questions...

         ~~~The way you think, dress, keep your house, care for your kids, act in public etc....are you doing these things a certain way to keep up with the Joneses'?

         ~~~Did you see a magazine of a beautiful home and perfect family...or a movie....or a friends' house and family that makes you feel like you just aren't keeping up with they way things should be (or what you believe they should be?)

         ~~~Do you feel like your kids aren't the smartest cookies on the block and feel guilty for that...wishing they could be like so and so's "perfect" kids?

         ~~~Does a family member or friend make you feel bad or guilty because your kids are living up to their expectations?

~~~***Do you judge yourself guilty by someone else's standard?***~~~

Whose standard's should we live by?  The world's?  What someone else thinks/says/does?  

Obviously if we are married we should submit to our husbands'.  If our husband says it is important to do something specific...then we are to abide by what he says...some husbands think it is important to have a nice, kept bedroom...a picked up house...a meal ready when they get home from work....

Ephesians 5:22:  Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.

 Colossians 3:18: Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.

Besides our husband's authority....who or what sets the standards...the Bible.  Without the standards set before in the Bible, where do we go, where do we tend to look, how should we live our lives?  The Bible has it all laid out for us.  

2 Corinthians 5:7:  We live by faith, and not by sight.

I couldn't have summed up this chapter better myself, so I will quote it verbatim:  

We lost the burden of our sin and guilt at the cross (you know when Christ died on the cross for our sins--my addition)  Yet even after experiencing the freedom of forgiveness, we seem eager to pick up new burdens of guilt created by ourselves or others.  We try to carry around man-made rules and regulations because we have been told they will enable us to please God.  It is a heavy and unnecessary burden to carry.  God is pleased when we simply live by faith, in the power of the Holy Spirit, in the freedom WE found at the cross. (pg. 161)