Welcome
Blog Comments
Article – How is your Clay for the New Year?
Final Thoughts

Welcome

Happy New Year to all Christian Working Moms. I truly can’t believe it is the New Year all ready. I pray you were able to have some fun time with your family over the holidays. We have had a lot of new women join the email newsletter list and I want to welcome you. There are now more than 1250 fellow Christian Working Moms on the email newsletter list. If you have not filled out the Christian Working Mom Survey, yet please go to www.christianworkingmom.com and click on Survey to fill it out. We have had over 700 women fill out the survey and it is growing daily. Thank you to everyone for your participation.

Blog Comments

Come visit the Christian Working Mom Blog at www.kimberlychastain.com/my-journal. I would like for people to post where they live. We have women from all over the world on the subscriber list. If you live in the US, list what part of the US you live in. Sometimes on the CWM Surveys I have had women mention they feel I don’t address the needs of Single Christian Working Moms. (Please note I cannot respond to the surveys, because they are kept anonymous to ensure confidentiality). Anyway, I ask your forgiveness if it seems I have neglected Single Christian Working Moms. That has never been my intention. So, I am going to post a comment for Single Christian Working Moms to encourage one another. Also, you may want to encourage one another through individual emails. So, please make a post. There is also a posting about New Years Resolutions, so feel free to share yours. Also, if there is ever anything you would like to discuss on the blog please let me know. Send an email to Kimberly@kimberlychastain.com and put Blog comments in the Subject heading.

Article – How is your Clay for the New Year?

Wow what a strange title for an article. So, what clay am I talking about? I would like for you to spend some time focusing on the verse, “Yet, O Lord, you are our
Father. We are the clay, you are the potter, we are all the work of your hand.” Isaiah 64:8. Have you ever watched a potter work with clay? What is the clay’s “job” in the potter’s hands? The clay sits there and is willingly molded by the potter’s hands. The clay does not say, “Excuse me but I really think you are going about this all wrong.” The clay does not say, “Could you take a little off my hips and thighs, there?” The clay allows itself to be molded. The clay trusts the potter to do what is right.

What happens when the potter takes their hands off the clay and the wheel is spinning? The clay usually crumbles into a huge mess. The potter then reforms the clay and starts again. Have you noticed that the potter often adds water or takes off pieces of the clay while they are working? The potter has an idea of the finished the product the clay does not.

I’m sure you can see where I’m headed with this. Oh, dear Mom do you allow God to be the potter and you be the clay. Can you rest in him and totally abandon yourself to his care and direction? Can you allow him to mold you and take off some of the rough spots knowing that in the end it will be for His glory?
Or do you sometimes say, “God you have one week or one month to get this worked out in my life or I’m taking charge and doing it myself!” We may not actually say something to that effect, but that is how we live our lives. We want to be in charge and in control. We can see from the potter and clay example when the potter takes his hands off, what a mess we become. God will let us make our own messes. How much better it is to let him be in control. Resting in God’s care, direction, and comfort is not always easy, but it is best. God’s timing is always right on time, never too early or too late. Can we really trust that God is the potter and we are the clay?

May I encourage you for 2006 to be the clay and allow God to be the potter. Learn to trust him with every issue in your life and let him mold you in his likeness.

Final Thoughts

For a fun New Year’s resolution, try to be sillier with your children this year.
You all will enjoy the difference.

Trying to be clay,

Kimberly Chastain

Kimberly Chastain, MS, LMFT is the Christian Working Mom Coach and a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. She is the author of 2 ebooks that can be found at www.christianworkingmom.com. For a free, initial coaching session send an email to Kimberly@kimberlychastain.com.