How to Be Mom Strong for Mother’s Day and Every Other Day (with help from author Heidi St. John)

Friends! Cheers to all you Moms, Grandmoms, Aunts, and Neighbor-like-practically-Moms this Mother’s Day week. I pray you’ll all feel super celebrated on Sunday.

While we may not always feel celebrated, much less strong and eager to tackle each day, author Heidi St. John has a book and a Bible study to help us do exactly that:  Becoming Mom Strong:  How to Fight with All That’s in You for Your Family and Your Faith.

Here’s the book:

You may be saying, “Yeah, right.  I may be a strong Mom if one were grading on the curve, but I’m certainly not a strong Mom every single day!” To which I’ll strongly suggest you grab this book ASAP, because if Heidi can do this while raising her seven children (all the while homeschooling them!), we’d do quite well by listening to her. I only wish she lived in my neighborhood.

You also don’t want to miss Heidi’s blog, www.thebusymom.com

Right or wrong, I generally judge a book not only by its cover, but also by its take-home value. I’m delighted to report Heidi’s book and Bible study are loaded with excellent take-home material and are well worth your time. Each chapter ends with a succinct summary/challenge.

Right after the summary, Heidi includes prayer points with Scripture to back them up. Each and every one of these is excellent. Multiply that by fifteen chapters, and you’ve got a valuable resource I predict you’ll return to time and time again.

Right from the get-go Heidi reminds us we as parents (or grandparents) are, “preparing warriors.” She adds, “You are preparing warriors who at some point will be asked to choose between following God’s law and following the culture. And in order to prepare warriors, YOU have to become a warrior yourself.”

Heidi is brutally honest, telling on herself. She makes us readers feel better for our own faux pas.  In fact, I felt 100% better after learning she, too, forgot to be the tooth fairy for one of her children.  (Sorry again, Woody.) You will laugh out loud in each chapter.

Additionally, Heidi equips us with powerful Scripture. When Heidi gently tells us we can’t make warriors or hope for our kids to have a deep relationship with the Lord unless we ourselves have that, she reminds us to keep our faces planted in the Word daily as well as keep a continual conversation/prayer going with Him.  This verse was new to me from the New Living Translation:

Surely that verse will encourage us in our prayer lives!

All throughout the book neat little quotes are set apart for further encouragement.  This is one of my favorites:

“Bad days do not make bad moms.” 

I so wish I’d had this book when we were raising our boys, but glory be we now have a granddaughter to love on and show her how to love the Lord and her friends.

Heidi closes her book with 3 John 1:4. May it be a goal for each and every one of us:

“I could have no greater joy than to hear that my children are following the truth.” 3 John 1:4 (NLT)

Finally, I’d like to share a snippet about Heidi’s accompanying Bible study, Becoming Mom Strong: A Six-Week Journey to Discover Your God-Given Calling.  Each week’s lesson has “A Voice from the Bible” section where you get to learn from someone in the Bible, i.e. Ruth, Elizabeth, Rahab, Hagar, Mary and Priscilla. I also love the titles of each week:

Becoming Brave and Wise,
Becoming a Mom with a Mission,
Becoming Free,Becoming Emotionally Strong,
Becoming Beautiful and
Becoming Unshakable.

Each week’s lesson also concludes with a prayer.  This one is my favorite:

Obviously, I recommend Heidi’s book as well as the Bible study.  I hope and pray many young Moms will take this study and take it to heart with their little ones. The potential effect could be wildly powerful!

‘Til next time!