{"id":585,"date":"2008-05-10T09:31:29","date_gmt":"2008-05-10T14:31:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/?p=585"},"modified":"2008-05-10T09:31:29","modified_gmt":"2008-05-10T14:31:29","slug":"Mother of the Year by Micca Monda Campbell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/?p=585","title":{"rendered":"Mother of the Year by Micca Monda Campbell"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mother of the Year<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

 Micca Monda Campbell<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 \u201cHer children
\narise and call her blessed; her husbandalso, and he praises her.\u201d<\/span><\/em>  <\/span><\/strong> Proverbs 31:28
\n(NIV) <\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

I long to be a godly wife and mother<\/font><\/span>, but my efforts to become this
\n‘ideal’ woman stated in Proverbs can leave me grieved and depressed. <\/font>
\n
\nI felt especially defeated the year my youngest son started kindergarten. In
\nTennessee, kindergarteners follow a scattered schedule the first two weeks of
\nschool where half of the class attends one day and the rest comes the following
\nday. It helps them adjust. For me it brought confusion. <\/p>\n

On Tuesday, I took my son to school, kissed him good-bye, and headed home
\nto work.<\/font>
\n <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I
\nwas busy at the computer when the telephone interrupted my pace. ‘Hello?’ <\/p>\n

‘Mrs. Campbell, this is Parker’s teacher. I was wondering who would be picking
\nhim up from school today.’<\/p>\n

Stunned that I had forgotten my child, I jumped in the car and raced to the school.
\nHe stood on the sidewalk holding his teacher’s hand with tears in his eyes and
\nREJECTION stamped across his heart. I took him home, apologized profusely, and
\nmade his favorite meal for dinner. I felt like the worst mother ever. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Thursday,
\nwe returned to school. All was going well until I was, once again, interrupted
\nby the phone. I hadf orgotten to pick up my child not once, but twice in the
\nsame week! <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I
\nsped to school on two wheels. This time he was standing with the room mother,
\nwho was obviously a true Proverbs 31 Woman. As she helped him buckle his
\nseatbelt, I tried explaining myself. <\/p>\n

‘You’re not going to believe this, but I did the same thing earlier this week.’ <\/p>\n

‘Yeah, I know.’ She replied bluntly. <\/p>\n

I felt I\u2019d been labeled a ‘bad mother,’ and I felt like a complete failure. <\/p>\n

Later that same year, God encouraged me as a mother when ParentLife
\nmagazine named me one of eight ‘Mothers of the Year!’ Parker’s reaction to this
\nsurprising news was, ‘If they lived with us for a while, they’d probably reconsider.’<\/p>\n

Those were my thoughts exactly. In fact, I asked my husband how I could be given
\nsuch a great and undeserving honor. With wisdom, he shared that maybe it was
\nGod’s way of saying I’m doing better than I think. <\/p>\n

His wisdom helped me put things into perspective. God never said I had to
\nbe perfect. That was my expectation. He never said that I wouldn’t make
\nmistakes or a wrong decision every now and then. Again, that was my hope. I had
\nassumed that the Proverbs 31 lady did everything right and I was suppose to as
\nwell.The problem was, with all her great accomplishments, I never considered
\nher ‘not so good’ side. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Sometimes
\nI let the bad out weigh the good. Perhaps the ‘Mother of the Year’ award was
\nGod’s way of saying, ‘Hang in there. You’re doing better than you think, and I’m
\nnot the only one who notices.’ <\/p>\n


\nDespite my many mistakes, perhaps my children will some day arise and call
\nme blessed. <\/strong><\/p>\n

The next time you need encouragement, let God whisper to your heart: ‘I hear
\nwhen you pray for your children, and I’m there when you teach them about who I
\nam. I watch you love, care, and sacrifice for them. You\u2019re not perfect, but hang
\nin there. You’re doing better than you think.’<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Dear
\nLord, help me to be the mother my children deserve. Encourage my heart when I
\nfeel like a failure. Erase my errors from the hearts and minds of my children.
\nInstead, help them to see Jesus in me, Amen.<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mother of the Year  Micca Monda Campbell  \u201cHer children arise and call her blessed; her husbandalso, and he praises her.\u201d   Proverbs 31:28 (NIV) I long to be a godly wife and mother, but my efforts to become this ‘ideal’ woman stated in Proverbs can leave me grieved and depressed. I felt especially defeated the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pkzLf-9r","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}