Browsing Tag

Motherhood

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

DD: An Emphasis for Moms….And More Groups!

Posted on July 29, 2025

Yesterday, while studying our Month 11 Digging Deep lesson, it jumped off the pages of Scripture to me that BOTH of the conversations this month involved nursing women. In the first, from Luke 11, a random woman (although nothing is random in Scripture) yelled out at Jesus, in the midst of mocking Pharisees “Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that you nursed!” 

Jesus responded in agreement, while further stating, in so many words, that the most important thing was not who had nursed Him, but who is being nourished by the Words that proceed from the baby-grown-up…God, Himself. 

The other short conversation was from John 19, a reference to the destruction of Jerusalem, in which Jesus said, “Woe to those who are with child and who nurse their babies in those days.” Here the Word specifically mentions that there were wailing women in the crowd near Golgotha to whom Jesus was speaking. He said these words while in great pain and very near death. Amazing!

Throughout the texts that we have studied this year, there has been a dynamic and dramatic emphasis on childbirth. We have studied: 

…the pronouncement of Eve’s punishment that was about pain in childbirth.

…baby announcements and, when included, some follow up conversations, with Sarah, Hagar, Rebekah, and Manoah’s wife.

…that amazing angel visitation to Mary, the mother of the Lord. 

…these conversations with women in the crowd, both of which included mentions of childbirth/nursing babies. 

When thinking about 1Timothy 2:14, it’s amazing, that yet again, the emphasis from the Holy Spirit, in speaking of the salvation of Christian women, is on what mothers do  “in childbearing.”

Yet she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.

For another discussion, I believe the weight of the passage is that women who raise kids with the above characteristics, will necessarily be living those characteristics, themselves. They will be faithful women if their children grow up to be faithful due to their nurturing and constant diligence. 

This obvious emphasis, through the conversations of God with women, is a powerful testament to the honor and responsibility God places within motherhood, the acceptance of which, even in the church today, is often minimized by the constant pursuits of power careers and the acquisition of material wealth. 

We should be sober (Titus 2:3-5) as we ponder.

AND MORE GROUPS!…

21. The North Jackson, Tennessee group is up and running. Contact Kelli Gough, through facebook, for meeting time and place. SO excited about this one!

22. Another East Tennessee group, in Newport. This group meets on Thursday nights, depending on schedules, at the Newport church of Christ building. Contact info is Elizabeth Gilbert at 731-636-0423.

23. And one more in East Tennessee: This one, in Johnson City, meets at the Central church building on the 2nd and fourth Wednesday nights each month. Kim Seaton is the point person and her number is 423-329-9328.

24. This one is in South Carolina. This one’s a hybrid group, meeting both online and in-person, each Tuesday afternoon at 4:30. St George, the home of this great group, is in between Charleston and Columbia. Contact  Kimberly M. Knight on Facebook for more info. 

25. Contact Terri Lynn Morris Meadows via facebook, if you’re near Crystal Springs, Mississippi. This group watches Julie Orr’s Mama’s Monday Moments DD review together and has some great discussion. This happens on Tuesdays at 6:30. They say they have lots of room for anyone wanting to study along. 

This is an amazing list! More to come!

I love diggers! We’re on a special, eternity-bound, journey, together. And more and more women in this group are searching for the narrow road while traveling. The dig is all about the Word, which is the spiritual GPS. Let’s type in heaven and never look back!

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

For All the Precious New Babies

Posted on May 22, 2025

 

Many sweet sisters I love have given birth in the last few weeks. Several are making plans right now for new babies to come home. What a huge life-changing event for parents This is my prayer for all those mamas and babies.

 

God Bless the Babies

God, give them strength as they enter our lives.
Give wisdom to parents as each of them strives
To make for them places in our world to grow.
Teach them Lord. We’re so small.  There’s so much we don’t know.

God bless them as they to your wonders awake.
Bless them, dear Lord, when their first steps they take.
They’re  so small.  May their scratches and bruises be small.
May mama’s kiss make it better each time they may fall.

Lily Annette Colley

Help them to learn, Lord, just what they should know
To take them in life where you want them to go.
But in all of this learning, may they never forget.
The One who has made them and walks with them yet.

Give them courage when Satan first gets in the way.
May they stay near your word. May they kneel down and pray.
May they put on you Lord.  That’s my most fervent prayer;
And for all of their days cast on you every care.

Olivia Leigh Benavides

When the time comes, Oh God, that they must go away,
In that “letting go”, Lord, still hear us pray.
God, bless the babies.  Look down from your throne.
Watch over them gently, for still they’re your own.

Give them shelter, dear Lord, from this world’s raging storm,
In a place where your love shines; a place that is warm.
Give them people to help them seek you throughout life.
Give them one of your own, for each husband or wife.

And one day may they know the joy we now feel,
Of a life just beginning, but precious and real.
May something we put in their hearts make them sure

That even souls in the womb are yours, precious and pure.

 

Amos Hiram Moon

So Father, my prayer is for  life you’re now giving;
And, more, for sweet souls that will always be living.
Our task is so great.  We’re so small.  May we see
That “through Christ I can do all, for He strengthens me.”

CCSig

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

The Lily Annette Contest!…Go!

Posted on February 6, 2025

She will be here next month! Lord willing, some time around the middle of March, Lily Annette Colley will grace our family with her sweet presence and this mammy, whose name is Cynthia ANNETTE Colley, cannot wait. Her North Jackson family has given her every material thing she could need for the first year of her life (at least) and her older siblings, Maggie and Ellis have been thinking a lot about how to be the best-ever sister and brother. Lily will be a blessed baby, for sure. God is supreme, of course, in all His care. But he exhibits his marvelous wonder, perhaps most of all today, when he breathes into tiny lungs the breath of life and lays a baby in the arms of a Christian mother for the first time. Glenn and I are already praying for heaven for Lily. 

So, in the tradition of The Colley House, we will present the best “weight-guesser” upon Lily’s arrival, with a $50.00 gift of choice from www.thecolleyhouse.org. Any item(s) you want from the site with a combined value of $50.00 for the one who most correctly guesses the birth weight of Lily. Please also guess the time of day of her birth, in case we have a tie. All submissions must be sent to byhcontest@gmail.com and must be received at least 24 hours prior to Lily’s birth. SO go! We need a birth weight and a time of birth (not a date…too much pressure there…just the time of day). 

Blessings and prayers for all the spring babies! So many sisters are carrying, in wombs right now, the next line of Spirit sword-bearers for the greatest Cause!

(Colleyanna is going first. She says this Lily-cousin will weigh 7 pounds, 6 ounces and be born at 3:30 pm. Good luck, Colleyanna!)

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

From the Dig, but for every Kingdom Mother…

Posted on January 28, 2025

Now there stood by the cross of Jesus His mother, and His mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing by, He said to His mother, “Woman, behold your son!” Then He said to the disciple, “Behold your mother!” And from that hour that disciple took her to his own home (John 19:25-27)

“From that hour at the cross, he took her into his own home” signifies that this relationship was for as long as Mary lived. We are fairly certain John outlived her because he was the most aged of all disciples, as far as we know, at his death on Patmos. We know that he was faithful in all things, and especially in persecution, both from the epistles he wrote and especially from Revelation. The fact that he took her into his own home permanently seems to me to indicate that they both would have looked back on the statement from the cross when they first beheld each other as mother and son, as the beginning of something very wonderful, instigated—even commanded—by the little boy she raised, who was, simultaneously, the Son of God.  

Who gets to physically care for the mother of the Lord? I KNOW John felt the privilege. But, additionally,  what Mother would not look back with fondness when she knew her son had the whole world on his shoulders—all the sin and sorrow—and, yet, He looked down and connected Mary and John. Wouldn’t that be a very dear relationship forged by her son? 

Jesus  had said “I must be about my Father’s business,” and “My hour is not yet come,”  and “For this hour I have come.” Yet, in all the import of the establishment of the kingdom , He settled her with the most trusted disciple. If she was there on Pentecost, and she, almost assuredly, was, then she surely came there with John. When she became old or sick, John was the one who made sure she had the elder-care that she needed. I just think this had to be an amazing relationship. 

John was at the tomb, outrunning Peter. Don’t you know that Mary, living in the house of John, from the hour at the cross, knew he was going and was anxiously waiting to hear about the “state of the tomb.” I just think so…and I think Jesus, after the resurrection, had to see his mother. We know he saw John and he would have made sure the situation He provided was what he wanted it to be. 

These are just some thoughts relevant to a portion of our dig this month. Just thoughts. But I think there’s evidence in the very words “from that hour.” There was a lot ahead of Mary and John and they were destined to look back at this moment at the foot of the cross as they faced the days of triumph (Acts 2) together and then almost immediately the persecution of John began in Acts 3-5. 

I also have to remember another mother (Matthew 20:20) who asked Jesus if her two sons, James and John, could have the places of preeminence in the kingdom of Jesus. Salome’s  presumption was pointed out by Jesus who made her aware that she did not even know anything about what she was asking: 

You do not know what you ask. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?”

In Mark 15:40, we see that Salome, ironically, did come to know the suffering Jesus spoke about in Matthew 20:21. She was looking at the cross from a far-away vantage point, while John and Mary were apparently close enough to hear his voice clearly; likely close enough for Mary to see her son’s blood as it ran down his face and poured forth from his hands and feet. Salome was also one of the first to peer into the empty tomb in Mark 16.  Her request that her sons be elevated in the kingdom had been granted. She didn’t know that, in the asking for the top spots in the Lord’s kingdom, she was asking for servant positions and the agony of persecution. But she was.  In a kingdom where service equals greatness, her son John, was to be baptized with the suffering to which Jesus alluded when she asked if her sons could sit on the right and left hands of Jesus in the kingdom. And what greater place at the right hand of the Lord than the servant’s honor of caring for the sweet mother who had given the Lord birth?  

This digging has enriched my mother’s heart! If my son is ever ridiculed or chastised for his faithful heart (…and sometimes he is, though in much more benign ways), may I rejoice in this kingdom privilege that honors him. 

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Mrs. B Bright Ideas… Go check it out!

Posted on October 10, 2024

I’ve been meaning to tell you about this for at least a year. Can’t wait another day. If you are a homeschool teacher, a traditional school teacher, or just a mom persevering to find good safe curriculum-boosters and, as the website touts, bright ideas for the students you love, here’s the place. 

Anna Benavides is one of the most talented people I know and her resources are a click away. They are here: https://mrsbsbrightideas.com/. She’s a faithful New Testament Christian married to a computer geek (in a good way) and daughter and daughter-in-law to a couple of my very good sister/friends, Janet Hudson and Jenn Benavides. Anna teaches second grade and takes care of Michael, her pretty amazing husband. She also is teaching women in various spiritual venues. You may have heard her at PTP or on a recent Sisters podcast. I recently heard her in a women’s Bible class and her talent for teaching just naturally emerges there. 

I could go on and give you details about some of the products, but if you go exploring on the site, you will find not only what you need to tailor your own best package for the student who is needing accelerated math projects or the one who is challenged at some point by phonics or fractions. But bonuses are that you will also find her blog and it will be a win for your homeschool or classroom; and you will  connect to her instagram for extra ideas. She finds creative ways to organize your classroom space, your instructions for your substitute teachers, and even your personal spaces. AND.SO.MUCH. MORE! 

My favorite selling point may be the original whimsical art style that’s a part of every product. And the products are organized by the months of the school year. So, for instance, the math has an October section, so you can make your learning space fresh and seasonal. You just have to see. So go!  If you’re in Alabama, you may have a couple of extra hours this week in your fall break. You will not regret the time you spend here. https://mrsbsbrightideas.com/

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Parenting is not for Sissies; It’s for Mommies.

Posted on May 13, 2024

 

I ran across this letter to my daughter when she was expecting her first child and several moms around her must have been going through PPD. They were less than encouraging to her about life after giving birth.

She already knew all of these things I wrote to her. You do, too. But, every mama needs a reminder now and then. One day, soon, you will peer into a quiet dark room and remember the days you looked at the mess in that room,  considered the immaturity, the childish tantrum or the poor grade and said “Why don’t you grow up and take responsibility?”

And you will hear the soft whisper echoing back: “I did.”

Dear Han,

IT IS SO WORTH IT! Every time that little boy brings you dandelions and kisses, it’s worth it. Every time you lie down with that little girl for nap and she falls asleep on your breast and drools on your shirt, it’s worth it. Every time she fills in the blanks when you tell her the story of Noah or David and the Giant, it’s worth it. And, especially, the first time you tell him about the cross and tiny tears roll down his cheeks, it’s worth it a thousand times-plus. Every time you blow bubbles and she chases them, every time you build towers and forts and tents under quilts pinned to chairs in the living room, it’s worth it. When you are drinking lemonade that you paid for at the grocery, made this morning and then carted out to the end of your driveway for that lemonade stand, and then you paid for it again (only it was more expensive the second time around), it’s still worth it. Every time you see tiny hands folded in prayer or hear that little shrill voice beside you in worship singing “He loves me, He loves me, He loves me, this I know,” it is worth it. And, oh, for that one moment…that moment when you take her in your arms when she’s fresh up from the waters of baptism…just that moment is worth it over and over and over again.

But you know what? You don’t even really start to understand how much it’s worth till the day she comes to you and says “You’re a grandmother.” See, Hannah, it’s something about knowing that you’re going to get to keep making investments in a little heart…investments that will not fully render their dividends till we’re with Jesus one day. Which missed naps? What pain in childbirth? Nursing soreness? Very short-lived. Scarcity of alone time with your dad? Okay, maybe a little scarce, but I barely remember. (We have wonderful catch-up time now.)

It’s that thing you said about crying together and still being able to laugh till you can’t catch your breath. It’s all the tears you invest in your kids that make them all the more valuable to you. There are plenty of biological moms out there who don’t really get much joy. See, when you don’t put in the time and tears and occasional missed naps (but, anyway, naps are more fun when they start with a fairy tale), you don’t get the return of two hearts bonded for life in a relationship that only moms and kids know. And you don’t generally get heaven together, either.

Somehow, I think there’s a sense in which I can’t even know how “worth it” motherhood is yet. But I think I will know when I’m sitting around the throne…with you and Caleb (and the little people who grow up for Him) and I hear all those voices (with a sweet familiar tone) blending together. “He loves me. He loves me. He loves me, this I know.”

Love,
Mom