Encouragement for Mothers — Annie Poonen

So, let's begin with a word of prayer. Our Heavenly Father, we thank You and praise You for this time that we can have together, and we come into Your presence. We are thankful to You, Lord, for all that You've done for us, and putting us in families and taking care of all our needs.

You've been so good to us, Lord. We just want to think of all Your goodness and be thankful to You, and not look at our problems, Lord, but we want to look to You, who You have done so much for us. Help us to always have a thankful spirit in our lives, Lord.

And we pray that You'll bless this time together, we ask in Jesus' name. Amen. So, our girls are there. They can come here if you want. You come sit at the back. You can bring your kids along if you like.

I mean, nursing babies. Tell Lily also, if she wants, she can sit at the back. It's not formal. Yeah, yeah, let everybody come here. So, welcome. You can bring your babies here, and even if they cry, it's not going to disturb me because I've had babies.

I had to work with them. So, I was just thinking of an illustration which I heard many years back when my children were small, and I was struggling with them. And now it looks like it's been so many years that it's like a dream.

Building a Cathedral Through Motherhood

But I heard somebody say that he was walking by a construction site, and he saw different people working at the construction. And some people were digging, some people were carrying logs, some people were, you know, in India they have bricks, they build with bricks, so people are bringing bricks, and a lot of things are going on.

So, curious, come join us. A curious passerby asked, what are you doing, like wanted to find out what type of building, because it looked like a big structure was coming up. Are you building a high-rise building or a house?

What are you doing? So, the first person said, I'm just carrying some bricks. Then another person said, oh, I'm the carpenter here. And another person said, like different people did give different answers, and that's not what the man wanted to hear.

So, finally he asked somebody, and he said, you know, we are building a cathedral. And that was his answer. And I thought many times, when we look at our lives, we think, oh, I'm just changing the diapers here.

Oh, I'm just cleaning the house. I'm just washing the dishes. I've been up all night, and like different answers we give. And then when God looks at what we are doing, it's not that answer. Like that person said, we are building a cathedral.

And I thought, Lord, that's a wonderful thing you have given me to do. So, not only am I bringing up my children for you, which I'm trying to do with your help, but you're building a cathedral in my life.

You're building a temple in my life. I'm going to be like your son, Jesus Christ, one day. And that's the work which you are doing. Let me not be taken up with these small things of carrying bricks, and I'm working all night, or I haven't had enough sleep.

Help me not to be focused on that, but let me think of how you look at my life. You're building a cathedral in my life, and one day it will be finished. And now when we look at, like, you know, when you do embroidery, you look at the other side, and you see all the knots and the bad stitches and all.

But one day God is going to reverse it, and then He's going to show us and show the whole world this beautiful embroidery which He's done, and it's going to be beautiful, and there's something good which is going to come out.

Even though we are struggling with our kids, they'll turn out okay. God's not looking at the small little disobedience they did here or the little lie they said there. I mean, definitely none of our kids is perfect.

God's not going to show all the things, those little, little things. But one day when they turn out okay, and it's going to be for His glory, not for, oh, you've been a wonderful mom, or you've been a wonderful parent, you've done it perfectly, or you can write a book about how you trained your children.

It's not for that. But for the glory of God, He's going to, through all ages, He's going to reveal His mighty power that in spite of our weaknesses, shortcomings, and failures we had and complaints we had, in spite of all that, it's going to be a beautiful work He's going to display.

So always that thought comes to my mind. I mean, many times it used to come when I was struggling with my kids, and, Sister, please, Jessie, sit here. You can sit there. Don't go away. No disturbance for us.

No, if it's too loud, we'll tell you. So that's the thing which used to come to my mind often, Lord, help me not to lose sight of this cathedral which You're building in my life, which You're going to display.

Help me not to be taken up with these small, small things. Another illustration which often comes to my mind is one of our Tamil brothers in India was speaking at one time. He said, if you take a coin, like we have rupees, if you take a coin, like a quarter or something, and you put it so close to your eye, and you shut one eye, you can even shut out the sun.

You won't even see the sun. So some of the problems that we face on earth, or even material things like earning more money, or how to save money. For us, maybe we don't have a job, but we may think, oh, I must save money.

These material things, we get it so close to our eye that we can shut out the sun and we get blinded. So those two things often used to come to my mind. Lord, let me not be focused on these small things, ups and downs and the losses that I faced when I was trying to be so careful.

In India, we have to be so careful about small, small things. We have to save even water. We have to save because you don't have enough water for your needs. And so if you're focused on that, then you lose the sight of the big things.

So I want to always be reminded of these two things, that we are building a cathedral, a temple of the Lord, and Christ-likeness is going to come in our lives, not just what a change has taken place in the sister, or she was so angry before, now she's not so angry.

Not those small things, but one day Christ is going to be revealed in us, and that will be to His glory. So I thought of two…. If someone were to ask me what were the two most important things, or like the uppermost which come to your mind when you think of a family, some truth.

When we have needs or we're trying to bring up children, we look at some… we try to look at some book, find some book which will help us, like how so-and-so brought up her children, or how some missionary brought up his children in that remote place, and how it succeeded for him.

You know, different things, and we look at the Internet, and we think, okay, this book might be the thing. But we should always remember, however much a person has written about philosophies or psychology of bringing up children, or even done a doctorate about bringing up children, that's not going to be the thing which is going to help me.

Somebody else may have brought up her child, like I brought up my children in India. If I think like this is how I did it, and you try to copy it, that was India, and that was my generation. Here you have to bring up your children in this generation, in this country, and you cannot… like we Indians who grew up here, we cannot pattern our… bring up children according to some other… like some Norwegian did it, or some Caucasian, or some other race.

We cannot… because our children are different. The way we speak to them is different from the way somebody else would speak to them. The way we come across to them is not how some other person…. So we should always look at the Lord's pattern as the ultimate pattern, not like some psychology book, or some Amish lady, or some Mennonite lady did like this, and that's how she worked.

This is how she spanked her children with three, four little sticks. And we think like, oh, this is the way we should do, or a wooden spoon. Like we should not look at and imitate anybody's pattern, but we should say, Lord, for my culture and the way I am, and the way my children are, like one child may be very quiet, one child may be very hyperactive, and you can't use the same yardstick for all.

The one quiet person, you just have to speak quietly to that person, and he or she will respond. But if a person is very hyperactive and not listening, you have to speak in a different tone, or you have to maybe repeat the same thing.

You may think, oh, for my daughter, I didn't have to repeat. I said it once, and she obeyed. But for my son, I have to keep on repeating. Yes, that's true. God made all our children different, so we cannot use the same pattern for all.

That's one thing. There's no rule, like no rule book. This is how you should do. No rule book even for different situations, like in the morning. Like some parent may think, oh, my child can get up in the morning and have a systematic way of doing things and then nap in the afternoon and go to bed at night.

Bringing up my children, I just could not follow those rules for practical reasons because the church was meeting in our home, and people would come for consultations. Like even if it was a free consultation, they'd turn up without even fixing an appointment.

Like I couldn't plan, but I tried my best to plan so that my children would have wholesome food and they would eat in time. Because if they are not fed, they can be, because they are hungry, they can be naughty.

So I wanted to fit in everything, but I needed the Lord's wisdom. I could not pattern the structure of my home according to any pattern. And another thing, my husband was traveling a lot, so I could not expect him to come and help me in things.

And I would sometimes think how nice it was for some sister in our church, because her husband was always at home, and he would pitch in to even make the bed for her after they got up and help to dress the children, get the children ready, or help in the cooking.

And I thought, oh, good for her, but I didn't want my husband to be tied down and helping me doing all these practical things. For one thing, he'd have to stop his ministry, he'd have to stop traveling.

And our life and our family structure was totally different. So God helped me to just accept my situation as it was. I should not think, oh, my husband is not here to help me. Even when my children were sick, I thought, I wish my husband was here so at least I could have a few hours sleep in the daytime.

And then I said, Lord, you gave me a good education about medical things, so I don't have to worry that this is a serious thing. I can handle it. And when the child sleeps, I can just have a short nap, and then I'll get up and pick up.

So the Lord sort of came along with me and helped me. So coming back to my point, excuse me, because I take BP medicine sometimes, so if you were to ask me what are the two uppermost things which helps you as a wife and as a mother, I can think of two principles in the Bible.

Oneness With the Father and the New Covenant

And those are after I came to know about the New Covenant. I thank God for opening my eyes to the New Covenant because before that I was just born again, and I just thought like you ask forgiveness for your daily sins, you're born again and everything's okay.

But two things which came to my mind was after I saw the life of Jesus when he was living on earth. One was how he was one with the Father, oneness with the Father, and the other was submission to the Father.

Both those things I came to grasp it and appreciate it and be so gripped by that that that has helped me in my... Those two things have helped me in my daily life, in my family life, in bringing up my children, in my relationship with my husband.

I'll go on to tell you what those are. There are scriptures for that, and I'll just tell you some. Oneness with the Father, if you turn to Luke, I mean John chapter 17, there are many verses, but one of the verses which I can quote which Jesus himself said was in John 17 verse 21.

Jesus said, that's the high priestly prayer of Jesus. He said, Lord, he's speaking to the Father, Father that they all may be one. That means we all, and we can say our husband and wife, we can be one as thou, Father, art in me and I in thee, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that thou didst send me.

I mean, there's so many things in that one verse, but that they may be one as you, Father, and I are one. Jesus said, it's implied there. If you read in John chapter 1, about the first few verses he says about Jesus, John chapter 1 verse 2, he, that is Jesus, was in the beginning with God.

Verse 1, the word was God, that is Jesus was God, is God. All things came into the being by him, and apart from him nothing came into being that has come into being. So I cannot understand it with my human mind, but there's some kind of unity, which we will understand more when we meet the Lord and we are with him.

But there's a unity with the Father and the Son, which is so deep and so precious. And Jesus, in a few words, he says, Father, just show them that little bit of that unity which you and I have. That unity which I have, and they will have that unity.

And it was so deep for me, and I think it's so... Our human mind cannot grasp God and his nature, but he wants us to understand that there's something about that unity which the Father and Jesus had. Otherwise he wouldn't have written it.

If it is so difficult, impossible, he wouldn't have written even those few verses. Even Genesis 1, the world was created by God, and before the foundation of the world, Jesus was there, and he created the world.

So there's something about the unity of the Father and the Son, which is so precious and so deep for us to understand, but God wants us to have a revelation of it, a teaspoon of it, and that he wants us, as husband and wife, to have that unity.

I brought it down to our level. Without my husband and I, we can't have that unity which you and the Father had. It's so... My mind cannot understand it, but it is there, and it's real. And then we think of all the disunity that there is in family.

You know, small, small things we differ about. We see it like this. My background, I see it like in this way. And my husband's background, he sees it in a different way. Of course we are different. He sees it in a different way.

He was brought up in a different way, and especially those who are married from other cultures, there's more. You see it in an Eastern culture, and your wife sees it in a Western culture, and then you think, God wants us to be one.

How deep that is. And so I said, Lord, make that true in my life. Help me be so united with my husband that I don't see the differences anymore, that he's different from me. He's a very maybe outgoing or introvert person, and I'm the opposite.

Help me not to see those differences, but help me to see the possibility of making us one. And that was a need in my life. I said, Lord, it's your will that my husband and I should be one. And every day and all the circumstances, all the things which come up in my daily life, I want to make that happen.

I want to do my part to make that oneness happen in my life. And that was like a goal in my life. When the children were small, it was difficult because we were distracted with the children. And one needed help, and I needed my husband's help in correcting.

But deep down, the underlying thing was, Lord, help us to be one, help us to be one. And that helped us, you know, because I saw many times things come up where you are tempted to quarrel or disagree with your husband and say, Lord, you didn't do this, and you did this, and because of you, this is done.

And, you know, the tendency to blame and everything can come up. But deep down, we think, Lord, it's your will that we should be one. And nothing is going to... You know, the marriage vow, it said, God has united these two, husband and wife, together, and if anybody separates them, God will even destroy.

Let nobody separate this united couple. So it's God's will that we should be united, and we should do all that is in our part to keep that unity. And don't look for... And if you look, if you don't, if you are not aware of that, and guard that unity, so precious, then easily things can come up, or people can come up.

I used to think, like many times in our ministry, girls wanted to come and share with my husband, you know, marital problems, or young girls. And, you know, sometimes I would, in the early years especially, I used to think, why are they coming and talking to my husband?

I should also be there. Then I thought, I know my husband, his heart is for me. Nothing is going to separate us. And we are always together. Let any number of girls come, any number of people come and share.

Even if we don't have time together to talk as much as he spends with others, still I know that unity is mine. That's like the birthright which God has given me. And nothing, I'm not going to lose it.

And God preserved us. Even sometimes we hardly had time to talk together, but I knew we were united. Because I didn't allow, I didn't want to allow those distracting thoughts, those suspicious thoughts, or you didn't do this, or you didn't care, or I'm doing this alone, can't you see I'm doing it alone?

I didn't want those distracting thoughts, and I didn't want help from anybody, but I said, Lord, you're enough for me, and you'll take care that we are united. And that unity with our husband is the thing we should guard.

Don't let any amount of relatives especially, especially people who are living here, you don't realize how fortunate you are that you're away from relatives. But in India, our relatives, you know, they physically come or they write to us, and we are so much involved with our relatives that that can tend to break up our marriage relationship.

Even if your relatives are far away or nearby, it's up to you to keep that unity. Don't let that unity get fragmented at all. It's a very high goal, but it's possible. It's possible because every time a little thing comes up, it's like a little gap that is coming there, or a little thorn that has got in there.

You have to take it out. Say, Lord, I'm sorry I was not focused on this, keeping that unity of this between my husband. I'm sorry I got distracted. I'm sorry I started blaming. That's the meaning of judging ourselves.

Immediately, sometimes we let it go. We think like we harbor on it, harbor on this bad attitude, and that's like an abscess growing there. The sooner we get rid of it and treat it, so that's what I want to urge you as younger sisters and me, which I've worked on, to keep preserved that unity.

And the world is changing so fast that many things are happening to break up that unity, and we have to preserve. Because when a good family and a united family is there, that's good for the church. You have five or ten united strong families in the church.

That church is a strong church. The gates of hell will not prevail against that church because it's united, the families are united, the husband and wife are united, and we have to do our best to preserve that unity.

So I can say a lot about that unity, and it takes years. It's not like, oh, today I'm going to keep united, and tomorrow something may happen, or you lose your focus, and you're taken up with some movie you've decided to watch, and then you find that all your energy has leaked out.

So we have to guard that unity, do our best to keep that unity because it's our birthright, and the devil should not take it. That's one thing which I want to emphasize and which I kept. And, you know, it's many years we've been married, my husband and I, 46 years.

He's a very quiet person. I'm an outgoing type of person. And we've had relatives, we've had problems from churches, other churches. We've had problems from people taking us to court, my own family giving us so much trouble.

But I said, Lord, whatever happens, that unity should not be. God has helped us and helped me to deal with these small things. No, this is the devil coming in like a wedge. He'll come in with a small point, but it's a wedge.

It's going to get wider and wider, and it'll open, and something will happen to my family. And, you know, you keep that relationship, you'll find that the children sense that. Dad and Mom are united, so united.

We can't separate them. You know, in some cases, the children come and know that they can get something done if they ask Mommy first or if they ask Daddy first. And then if they understand that Dad and Mom are united, sometimes we may slip up and think, okay, Daddy has given permission, it's okay.

But if that has happened, we should never disagree in front of our children. Say, why did you say this, and why did you do this? Because then they see, oh, Dad and Mom got a disagreement, and the devil has come in, and the children start misbehaving.

So even if we disagree, that's a rule which we follow. My husband and I don't agree 100 on everything. I disagree with him, but I never disagree with him publicly in front of my children. I never tell him, even if it concerns...

I mean, I have nothing to do with church matters. That's completely he and the brothers, elders in the church. But family matters, we disagree. So I never tell him that I didn't want you to take this decision, and I want to do this.

So I wait for a chance when we are by ourselves, or when the children are asleep or something, and by then I would have sort of settled down. We should never bring up a conversation, a disagreement especially, when we are all heated up.

Because then there's more... A lot of dust has been stirred, and you cannot do much work. So wait till we are settled down, everything is calm, and in a mature way, not in a childish way, in a mature way you bring up the topic, and you say like, you know, what happened in the morning about this thing.

I really felt a little bad that you decided to do, but I felt we should have done like this, and this is so and so and so and so, and the reasons why I felt it should be. And then he said, no, no, I felt that this is the way we are going to do it.

So we leave it at that. But sometimes he'll say, yeah, that's true, maybe we could do it a little differently. And you won your point. But if you were to argue, why did you do, why did you do, I did this, you did that, nothing happens.

But you say it in a mature way, and both of you have time to think about it. You may change, the wife may change, the husband may change, or you may come to a different way of doing things, a third alternative which may be the best.

So that's all connected with keeping the unity in the home. And you can think of a thousand and one things which come up in the home where you tend to be disunited, but deep down you should think, Lord, help me to keep the unity, help me.

Then when the children grow up in that home, you find that it's easier to bring up the children. You don't have to handle their disobedience because it's easier for them to obey. When they see everything is harmonious in this home.

So I better settle down and I do what I should be doing. I found that many times. But when there was unrest, the children can sense, Mommy is a little disturbed. And then they want attention and they play up and they make it more difficult for us.

So that's one big, big thing which I wanted to remind you and remind myself, keep the unity of the spirit. And in every level, newly married, when you are beginning to know each other, you have to keep the unity, start with the unity.

When you have children, at my stage, I find my children are grown up, my children are married. When I go to visit their home, I should not go there to disrupt the unity of their family. Like, oh, I'm here to see that this is done, this is done.

I don't even need to correct their children because they are the parents. If I see something wrong and if they give me the liberty, I say, no, no, don't do that. Or I check with my children and their wives.

Is it okay if I do this? If they're not happy with it and they don't want me to correct, then I should not correct. I refer it to them. The parents of those children are the final authority. So even at my level, I have to work hard to keep that unity, unity in my children's lives, in my church family lives.

So that's a big thing. I don't want to go on and on because time is up. Second principle which I felt is very, very important and which will guide us in all the little, little things is submission. Now, people don't like to hear the word submission because you think submission means I should just give in and I should give up my own will and just do what somebody else wants.

Submission Modeled by Christ

It's not like that. I look at submission as what Jesus did. And if Jesus could do that and he asked us to do, then he'll give us the grace to do it. And he loved the Father so much, so he did it out of love for the Father.

And there are a few verses in that, many, many verses, but we won't have time to read all. But if we just sometime when we have time, we read Philippians. So look at Philippians 2. The first few verses, it says about Jesus, how he existed, was God, is God, and existed in the form of God.

He did not regard, in verse 6, he did not regard equality with God as a thing to be grasped. Like he didn't hold on to that, oh, I'm equal with God. Here I was telling about oneness with the husband. I'm equal with my husband.

I'm one with my husband. But Jesus did not hold on to that equality with God as a thing that he's going to keep. He said, I'm willing to give up that, and I'm going to go down and not just come one level below God or even become an angel.

Okay, I'll be like head of the angels. No, he came down as a man, and not only as a man, he came as a bond servant. That means the lowest of mankind. If you think, in India we have people who, or you think of some slave who doesn't have, in those days where they had slaves, who don't have any rights.

They cannot question if they are starved. They cannot say, oh, I'm hungry. They have no rights, no laws, nothing. And Jesus, he was not that the Father made him like that. He chose to become like that.

He chose to become the lowest and lower than all of us. So I think, Lord, if you chose to become like that for my sake, so that I could be saved from my sin, I want to choose to come down from my high level.

I'm not going to say, oh, I'm not going to be a 16th century Indian wife who always listens to her husband and no question about it. I want to choose to come down, for you to come down from God and below me with such a big drop.

And for me, it's just a little few inches I come down and submit to my husband. Not that our husbands are tyrants. God has given us good husbands who care for us and understand us and we can talk with them.

If it was a husband who was drinking and abusing us and doing all the wrong things, even then, what God says, by your humble and your quiet behavior, you can win your husband. We can trust God to do that.

But for us, who God has given us good husbands, to submit should be the happiest and easiest thing. So I look at it like that. Lord, you did it. You're my example, Lord Jesus. In the New Covenant, Jesus came as a man and lived as a man and he's our example.

If he's our example, he's our example in submission. And I'm going to submit, not like, oh, I have to submit. It's a hard thing for me to submit. Why do I have to? Why can't I? Why can't he do something?

Why can't he give up? No, God's Word says we have to submit. And because God's Word says that, and because Jesus did that, I'm not going to question. I'm going to do that. Then submission, it doesn't become like a painful or a hard thing.

The worldly wives may think, oh, you poor Christians, you have to submit to your husbands. How can you do that? Why should you do that? Can't you speak up? No, it's not at all like that. It's the happiest thing we can do.

And there's no other thing that can give us greater joy than living the life that Jesus wants us to live. And look at submission like that. Then people come and argue. I say, I do not argue or convince you by my words.

You live it and you'll see the joy that there is in living such a life. And so that came more and more. I said, Lord, if you want me to submit, and you want me to submit, don't let it be like a painful as if I'm dying on the cross.

Make it like how you felt. It was a joy for you too. And Jesus said, my father and I are one, and he said, I always do the things which the Father wants me to do. I do nothing of my own. John chapter 6, 7 and all, you read those verses, you think how Jesus loved his father so much that he delighted to do the Father's will.

And Lord, let it be like that. If your will is that I should submit, give me the joy. I don't want to put on a long face and miserable way of submitting. You are going to give me joy. That's my birthright.

Give me the joy of submission. And it became true in my life. I can tell you it's more and more true. The only sorrow I have, miserable times I had, was when I did not submit. When I refused to obey God and go against Him and do my own will, then I used to feel like guilty.

And I used to feel like, why did I do that? It was not worth it going against God and the guilt of sin and having to come back to the Lord. Otherwise, every single time I chose to... Sometimes you may think, my husband doesn't understand me, why should I submit?

See, God has given us a mouth and God has given us freedom to speak. We can speak in a loving way to our husband and say, look, I don't feel like doing this thing which I should do. And maybe he can help us.

Or maybe we may not be required to do that, whatever that small thing which he wants us to do. Say, okay, it's not important. So everything, we keep those two principles. Oneness with our husband and submission.

Submission not like in the bad way, how the world looks at it, but submission how the Lord wants us to submit, how Jesus submitted and make that a pattern. Then it's like the summary of our whole, how a wife should be.

There are no rules that you should do this, you should do this, you should dress like that. I had an experience when I was 14 years old, I almost died of food poisoning. And that's when I gave my life to the Lord and I decided to follow the Lord.

After that, anything, any temptation comes, I said, Lord, bring that incident back to my life, how I would have died. If I'm tempted to be a little worldly or want some worldly thing, or all the vanities which girls can have when I was a student and all that.

I said, Lord, bring back those days if I had died. I almost died, I was in coma. If I had died and I would have been in the grave, then what's the use of dressing up that skeleton with all these grand clothes or with this thing or with that thing or this particular, that will mean nothing to that skeleton.

But because of your grace, I'm not a skeleton, I'm still alive. I'm going to live only for you. So ask the Lord to bring something to your mind. Something would have been impossible. Maybe you may not have got a visa to come here.

And your husband would have been here and you would have been in India. Or anything, ask the Lord, bring something to my mind. I could have died and my children wouldn't have had a mother. Or anything like that, so Lord, bring that to my mind often so that I'll be thankful to you.

I won't have any complaint, Lord, this is not right, that's not right. Lord, this impossible situation you did for me, I'm going to evermore be thankful to you. I'm going to look at the rest of my life, I'm going to live for you because you did that.

And the Lord will bring. For me it was that incident where I almost died. For you it may be something else. But God, so good, you bring that to my mind, to your mind. So those are the two things which I want to spend so much time on.