God deserves all our praise and thanksgiving, but He also wants us to have a grateful spirit toward others. God says in Matthew 25:40 that when we do something for others, it is like doing it for Him.

Everyone needs to feel appreciated. Make thank you notes for people in your life that you don’t normally think of thanking, such as the mailman, doctor, teacher, grandparent, the men who pick up the trash.  Be creative and let everyone participate in making the cards.

]]> http://www.trainupthechild.org/2008/11/18/keeping-thanks-in-thanksgiving-thank-you-notes/feed/ 0 http://www.trainupthechild.org/2008/09/24/prenatal-care/ http://www.trainupthechild.org/2008/09/24/prenatal-care/#comments Wed, 24 Sep 2008 16:37:14 +0000 Sheilah http://www.trainupthechild.org/?p=47

What a mother-to-be eats during pregnancy feeds the child physically.  It is necessary for the baby’s normal, healthy physical development.  In the same way, what the mother takes into her spirit feeds the baby’s spirit.  Andrew Murray, in his book, How to Raise Your Children for Christ, points out that in that holy time of mystery, when mother and child are still one, and influences from a mother’s spirit pass into the child, God says that the mother is to obey all that He commands. (Judges 13:14)  God wants the mother obeying His Word and thus feeding the child’s spirit with scripture.

It is interesting that there are 9 Fruit of the Spirit listed in Galatians 5:22-23 and there are 9 months of pregnancy.  Take one Fruit each month of pregnancy to study, pray, and meditate on.  I did this with my 4 pregnancies and now I am praying with my daughter-in-law as she is praying the Fruit of the Spirit into her first child due in November (Grant William at 20 weeks pictured above).

Listed below are my notes from studying and meditating on the Fruit of the Spirit when I was pregnant.

1. Love – giving to others’ basic needs without having as my motive any personal reward

John 17:26 And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.”

2. Joy – the exultation of my inward being that results from genuine harmony with God and others

John 17:13 But now I come to You, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves.

3. Peace – harmony with God, others, and self

Philip. 4:7 and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

4. Longsuffering – patience, endurance, inward strength to withstand stress

2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count

slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.

5. Gentleness – expressing personal care appropriate to another’s emotional need

Titus 3:2 to speak evil of no one, to be peaceable, gentle, showing all humility to all men.

6. Goodness – righteousness, loving-kindness

Romans 11:22 Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God: on those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in His goodness. Otherwise you also will be cut off.

7. Faith – visualizing what God intends to do in a given situation and acting in harmony with it

Mark 11:22 So Jesus answered and said to them, “Have faith in God.

8. Meekness – controlled, humble, yielding my personal rights and expectations to God

1 Peter 3:4 rather let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible beauty of a meek and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God.

9. Temperance – self control, mastering one’s desires and passions, instant obedience to the initial promptings of God’s Spirit

1 Cor. 9:27 But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.