{"id":20,"date":"2011-08-10T22:17:28","date_gmt":"2011-08-11T02:17:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/etheriedge.wordpress.com\/?p=20"},"modified":"2026-03-21T12:23:58","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T16:23:58","slug":"20","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forglorysake.com\/index.php\/2011\/08\/10\/20\/","title":{"rendered":"Mountains and Valleys"},"content":{"rendered":"
David loves that I get fired up. He appreciates my enthusiasm and joy. But I can also be so disappointed and crushed when discouraging things happen… especially things with our kids. We have been struggling lately with <\/span>growing pains<\/em> in two of our teens. I’m sure it is a challenge for them to have us back home after almost 2 months! None of this has been ideal. \u00a0<\/span><\/h5>\n
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My husband is so even-tempered. He never goes overboard emotionally. He reminds me that we are all sinful and maturity is a process. But I am truly concerned by what I’m seeing: changed habits, attitudes, friends. Feral cats. I feel a dark cloud spiritually – in the house and I am on the war-path in prayer.<\/p>\n

I remember Elisabeth Elliot talking about asking God to take her mountains and valleys and level them out, only this came mostly with maturity in the Lord. I need that maturity. I love the highs of rejoicing, but these lows are the pits! How can I keep my joy AND pray the darkness away?<\/p>\n

Possibly, my heart is too tied up in our children. And yet, this is the job God gave me. I am to train and teach these souls. I long for them to love Christ and desire to do His will. I pray for them to want to, because I know I can’t do it for them. This alone keeps me on my knees.<\/p>\n

My heart breaks over bad decisions and wrong choices – choices that will bring regret. There is NO fool-proof child rearing manual. Every heart is different. As my mom says, “some just kick against the goads,” I cling to the fact that David and I dedicated our Marriage and then each child to Jesus. We have asked for them to \u00a0be blessed according to the promises in His word:<\/p>\n

“Because You have blessed them, God, they are really blessed – blessed for good!”<\/strong><\/em> 1 Chronicles 17:27\u00a0<\/p>\n

“They will not labor in vain, nor will they bear children doomed to misfortune; for they will be a people blessed by the LORD, they and their descendants with them.”<\/strong><\/em> Isaiah 65:23
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These are His promises, so I am trusting Him with the timing. Give us wisdom. -Anna<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

ForGlorySake.com <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

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David loves that I get fired up. He appreciates my enthusiasm and joy. But I can also be so disappointed and crushed when discouraging things happen… especially things with our kids. We have been struggling lately with growing pains in … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","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":[2,3,1420,8],"tags":[1496,1497,541,624,643,661],"class_list":["post-20","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-addiction-recovery","category-children","category-devotional","category-practical-life","tag-1-chronicles-1727","tag-isaiah-6523","tag-motherhood","tag-prayer","tag-prodigal-children","tag-raising-kids"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/saUt4s-20","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forglorysake.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forglorysake.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forglorysake.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forglorysake.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forglorysake.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/forglorysake.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8043,"href":"https:\/\/forglorysake.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20\/revisions\/8043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forglorysake.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forglorysake.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forglorysake.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}