“Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth.” -Psalms 127:3-4

“Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” -Proverbs 22:6

These are just few of the places in scripture that speak of the wonderful calling to raise up Godly children. Parents have the great responsibility and privilege to train their children up in the ways of the Lord and then to shoot them out into the world to impact it for Christ. Children are like arrows and by God’s grace they can be shaped and fashioned in a way that when they are shot out they can do great damage to Satan’s kingdom.

This is huge, weighty and perhaps one of the most important responsibilities that God can give us and it shouldn’t be taken lightly. So consider this:

When you choose a career path you prepare. Months are spent, even years in preparation for your occupation. Before you go on a trip you prepare. It would be foolish to leave before planning which travel route to take. Before a person builds a house they prepare. A builder would quickly learn that beginning a building without a blueprint would lead to disaster.

Is not raising children a more significant task than these? Why then does the majority of our culture believe there is no need to prepare or plan for children?

For the majority, if preparation for children happens it’s during the nine months leading up to birth. Then there is intense cramming, reading every parenting book in sight, scrounging around trying to hastily develop an opinion or direction on the matter. You run out of time and show up a day late and a dollar short, only penetrating the shallow basics of parenting. Being a Mother (or Father) is such a crucial job. Why do we wait until the last minute to cram for the test?

I have one goal in this post, ladies, to challenge you. To challenge you to step up, defy the culture, shake this world with the arrows of passionate Christ followers tomorrow by properly equipping yourself today. Don’t wait till the last minute. Start preparing now!

Now if a person started their preparation later in life can they still be effective and used of God? Absolutely! Can anyone ever be completely prepared for children? Certainly not! Only by God’s good grace can anything worthwhile be achieved. But I think we can find biblical principals for preparing in advance and doing so can make things significantly easier later.

But how can we go about doing this this? Here are 7 practical ways that a young woman can prepare now for one of the greatest occupations in this world.

Watch and Learn from Godly mothers (your own is a good place to start).

Take note of parenting techniques you have seen that do not work (sometimes you can learn more from a negative example than a good example).

Place yourself in situations where you can interact with children.

Try your hand at caring for children (babysitting, Nannying or just volunteering to help a young mother are just a few ideas).

Read good, sound books on biblical parenting.

If your church offers parenting classes consider attending one.

Search the scripture for a biblical view on training children (look for commands to parents. Proverbs is a good place to start. Look for good and bad parenting examples and learn from them.)

In the coming weeks I plan to expound on each of these 7 practical ways to prepare for motherhood. There are so many things to be learned when it comes to parenting and I’m sure I didn’t mention them all. I’d love for you to add to the list by leaving a comment below. For those of you who are already mothers, what are some things you know now that you wish you had learned before you had children?

I hope this post was an encouragement to you and that it challenged you to go against the grain and prepare for the little blessings you will, Lord willing, one day receive. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Photo credit: www.photographybyjoelle.com