Latest / Grace for My Home | Christian Women, Growing in Faith / There's Something Special About Your Child

Transcript

There's Something Special About Your Child · Grace for My Home | Christian Women, Growing in Faith

• 1:04
  Audrey McCracken: Hello friends, welcome back to Grace For My Home.
• 1:16
  Audrey McCracken: I hope that you are doing great.
• 1:19
  Audrey McCracken: Here in the United States we are preparing for the Thanksgiving holidays.
• 1:23
  Audrey McCracken: Today is the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, so I'm off of work today trying to get my house ready for company, my sister and her family's coming over and my mom.
• 1:35
  Audrey McCracken: We love Thanksgiving, every one of us.
• 1:39
  Audrey McCracken: It's the food, but it's more than the food.
• 1:42
  Audrey McCracken: It's also the family, the people that we share it with.
• 1:45
  Audrey McCracken: We are just so looking forward to having this time together and just shutting all the outside things off for a while and concentrating on those things that matter.
• 1:58
  Audrey McCracken: And I thought I have got to record this podcast.
• 2:01
  Audrey McCracken: So I ran out to my van where I could have a few minutes of quiet time to do that, because everybody is home this week so there is no quiet time.
• 2:12
  Audrey McCracken: It's so funny.
• 2:14
  Audrey McCracken: When my kids were little I thought one day I'll be able to have a few minutes of quiet without somebody needing something.
• 2:22
  Audrey McCracken: And now I have teenagers and it's still that way.
• 2:25
  Audrey McCracken: So don't want to discourage you, young moms, but they're always, as long as they're in your house, they're going to need you.
• 2:33
  Audrey McCracken: And this morning it was so funny.
• 2:35
  Audrey McCracken: I had just a few phone calls I needed to make for work and nobody needed me until you guessed it.
• 2:42
  Audrey McCracken: Till I got on the phone and it was funny and I thought I guess that's just the way it is.
• 2:48
  Audrey McCracken: We keep waiting for things to change, but that's just the way it is, moms.
• 2:52
  Audrey McCracken: So I'm out here hiding in my van.
• 2:56
  Audrey McCracken: I'm sure somebody will discover me soon, but I wanted to come to you today and just encourage you and just say mama, what you're doing is so important in the kingdom of God, and I know that you're not encouraged enough.
• 3:11
  Audrey McCracken: I know that enough people don't recognize what you're doing.
• 3:15
  Audrey McCracken: But if nobody recognizes what you're doing, if nobody ever says thank you, the Lord sees and he will honor you.
• 3:23
  Audrey McCracken: What you do in secret, he will reward you publicly for and I've had something stirring on my mind, on my heart, this week I've been working on a book of prayers and I stopped working on it for a long time during the summer as I was trying to get the coffee shop open and I came to a point where I just didn't know what the next step was, and so I put it away because I just didn't have the mental strength to figure out the next step.
• 3:52
  Audrey McCracken: Well, I was home some this week.
• 3:53
  Audrey McCracken: I thought I'm just going to do it.
• 3:55
  Audrey McCracken: So I dove back into that, trying to figure out the next step, and I hope to have that released the first of the year.
• 4:02
  Audrey McCracken: So keep your eyes out for that.
• 4:05
  Audrey McCracken: I'm going to release a book of prayers for moms and their actual prayers that I have prayed over the years for me and for my children.
• 4:13
  Audrey McCracken: So that's exciting news and what I want to talk with you about today is stirring in my heart, because I've gone back through and I've read those prayers and it's just so inspired me to pray and it's so inspired me of my ideals.
• 4:31
  Audrey McCracken: Sometimes we have to be reminded of why we're doing this.
• 4:34
  Audrey McCracken: You know hard work, you know work is work, right.
• 4:37
  Audrey McCracken: You know that's the thing about work, is its work?
• 4:39
  Audrey McCracken: Yeah, the right way to figure that out, right, right, I can work hard, but it really helps me to see why am I working hard, right, what is the point and why am I wearing myself out?
• 4:51
  Audrey McCracken: And when we can see that we're working towards something, that we have a calling, that we're not just, you know, doing what's expected of us, but that we there's a purpose behind the work that we're doing, then it really helps me to do my work with a, with a better attitude and definitely with a better passion, and do it in love.
• 5:17
  Audrey McCracken: And I've had something mulling around in my mind this week about my children and about your children.
• 5:24
  Audrey McCracken: And you know, when we have these little ones, especially when you know they're, they're little babies and they're just so helpless and they look up to us with those big eyes and they're looking to us for everything.
• 5:37
  Audrey McCracken: There's something in us that knows this child is special, this child is precious, and I believe that God allows every Christian mom to see that, to see that her child is special, to see her child through his eyes, because that is an eternal soul.
• 6:00
  Audrey McCracken: It's more than just a baby.
• 6:02
  Audrey McCracken: That baby is going to grow up, but that baby is an eternal soul for God's kingdom and he is very precious to God.
• 6:13
  Audrey McCracken: And not only that, but that child has a destiny.
• 6:16
  Audrey McCracken: God created that child before the foundation of the world and chose you to be his or her mom because he knew you have what that child needs.
• 6:26
  Audrey McCracken: And I firmly believe that even if you don't feel like you have what that child needs, god knows that you do and where you're lacking he will make up the difference.
• 6:38
  Audrey McCracken: And I think back about the story of Moses and when Moses was born.
• 6:44
  Audrey McCracken: He was born at a very, very difficult time because he was born when the Pharaoh in Egypt had put out an attic that every male Hebrew child would be thrown into the Nile.
• 6:57
  Audrey McCracken: And Moses was born right at that time.
• 7:01
  Audrey McCracken: And so the world says he will die, the world says he will be given as a sacrifice to the Egyptian gods.
• 7:11
  Audrey McCracken: But Jehovah had a different plan.
• 7:14
  Audrey McCracken: He had a praying mom.
• 7:18
  Audrey McCracken: And it says and I want to read it for you because I don't want to get it wrong, but it says in Exodus, chapter two, starting in verse one, and I'm going to read to you this from the message Bible it says the woman became pregnant and had a son.
• 7:33
  Audrey McCracken: She saw there was something special about him and hid him.
• 7:37
  Audrey McCracken: She hid him for three months.
• 7:39
  Audrey McCracken: When she couldn't hide him any longer, she got a little basket boat made out of paper, waterproofed it with tar and pitch and placed the child in it.
• 7:51
  Audrey McCracken: But especially that verse to it says she saw there was something special about him and hid him.
• 7:59
  Audrey McCracken: And I know that that was the Lord giving her eyes to see that child through his eyes, that this child has a special purpose.
• 8:09
  Audrey McCracken: And, mamas, I just want to encourage you that if you've ever felt that, if you've ever looked down at that child or ever, like now I'm looking up to two of my children and thought I know God has a special purpose for this child, I just want to tell you that you're right, he does and you are part of that plan that he has for that child.
• 8:32
  Audrey McCracken: And I remember when my children were were young, I almost felt guilty, feeling that way.
• 8:36
  Audrey McCracken: I thought well, who am I to think that my child is any more special than any other child?
• 8:42
  Audrey McCracken: And I want to tell you they're not.
• 8:44
  Audrey McCracken: All children are special in the eyes of God because they are eternal souls.
• 8:51
  Audrey McCracken: He has a plan for them and you are part of that plan and this is a huge responsibility.
• 8:58
  Audrey McCracken: You know.
• 9:03
  Audrey McCracken: God has put you in that child's life to, first of all, to protect him or her, to train them, to teach them the things of God, to point them to God and to help them to see what he's done for them and who he, who he, is to them.
• 9:23
  Audrey McCracken: And he Wants you to take on that role as a calling, to take it serious, to live into it and to trust him.
• 9:35
  Audrey McCracken: For the areas where you are weak and where you don't have what it takes, he has what it takes.
• 9:42
  Audrey McCracken: And then in this story about Moses, it goes on to talk about how she set him in the river.
• 9:50
  Audrey McCracken: She put him in the little basket, she pushed him off and he went and found the Pharaoh's Daughter, or I should say the Pharaoh's daughter found him and then she raised him as her own.
• 10:05
  Audrey McCracken: She raised him in the courts of Pharaoh, but while he was nursing His own, mama nursed him Because Miriam, his sister, followed him.
• 10:17
  Audrey McCracken: And when the Pharaoh's daughter found Moses and she named a Moses because Moses means drawing out and she drew him out of the water, miriam was right there to say I know somebody who can help you with this baby.
• 10:31
  Audrey McCracken: And so she went and got her mom and said he, she can help you Feed and take care of this Hebrew child.
• 10:38
  Audrey McCracken: And so she, even though she had given this child up, she got to raise this child and she got to teach him About the one true God.
• 10:47
  Audrey McCracken: And then Many, many, many years later it talks about Moses and his mom In the New Testament, in Hebrews 11, 11, 23, and I want to read that to you.
• 11:01
  Audrey McCracken: It says I'm going to read out of the new living translation it was by faith that Moses's parents hit him for three months when he was born, they saw that God had given them an unusual child and they were not afraid to disobey the king's command.
• 11:18
  Audrey McCracken: So because they saw, because they could see Through the eyes of God, that this is a Special child, they were not afraid to disobey.
• 11:31
  Audrey McCracken: They were not afraid to disobey the king, the Pharaoh.
• 11:36
  Audrey McCracken: They defied the king.
• 11:39
  Audrey McCracken: Imagine A little slave woman with no power nor authority, no right even to her own life or the life of her children, defying the king, the greatest king In the world at the time, just because she believed, just because she had eyes to see that I have been given a precious responsibility, and that responsibility means to protect this child Until God can show him what to do next.
• 12:11
  Audrey McCracken: And I just want to propose to you that we have the same enemy today that Moses had and his parents had, and the goal of that enemy is to stop the plan of God and to destroy God's people.
• 12:29
  Audrey McCracken: Now, at the time of Moses, when the time of Moses was born, that enemy was working through Pharaoh.
• 12:35
  Audrey McCracken: Today, that enemy is working through the culture Of the world around us, and he whispers in our ears things like this.
• 12:46
  Audrey McCracken: He says do you really think that you can raise up your children today, in this world, the way that the world is today, the way the culture is today?
• 12:55
  Audrey McCracken: Do you really think you can raise them up to love God?
• 12:58
  Audrey McCracken: Do you really think that your kids could be holy in a world that is as unholy as ours is today.
• 13:06
  Audrey McCracken: Do you really think that you can make a difference?
• 13:10
  Audrey McCracken: Do you think you can make the things of God more attractive to your children that the things of this world?
• 13:22
  Audrey McCracken: He says things like I'm the God of this world.
• 13:24
  Audrey McCracken: You know your children belong to me.
• 13:27
  Audrey McCracken: Give them, just give them over to me, just give up.
• 13:32
  Audrey McCracken: There's no reason to even try.
• 13:33
  Audrey McCracken: It's you or too small to fight against what I have set in place.
• 13:38
  Audrey McCracken: Now maybe you don't fight those thoughts, but I fight them all the time because there is a strong current.
• 13:47
  Audrey McCracken: It's a very strong current, and it wants to swiftly take our children with it Somewhere.
• 13:56
  Audrey McCracken: We don't want them to go, and the best thing we can do for our children is right now, today.
• 14:03
  Audrey McCracken: Decide.
• 14:04
  Audrey McCracken: I am not giving up my children to the Prince of this world.
• 14:07
  Audrey McCracken: I am not a ball obeying the voices of this world that says why even try?
• 14:12
  Audrey McCracken: It's impossible.
• 14:12
  Audrey McCracken: I am going to defy the Prince of this world and believe in a God that I cannot see To do miracles in my child's life and to keep them and to take care of them, even when I have to send them out Without my protection into the world to God knows where.
• 14:33
  Audrey McCracken: And Trust me, god knows where.
• 14:37
  Audrey McCracken: She had to release her child.
• 14:39
  Audrey McCracken: First she had to keep him and protect him and and then she had to release him.
• 14:43
  Audrey McCracken: And you know, she released him and God brought him back.
• 14:47
  Audrey McCracken: Isn't that awesome.
• 14:49
  Audrey McCracken: She trusted God.
• 14:51
  Audrey McCracken: Lord, I can't keep him forever, but I'm going to push him off and I'm going to believe you to God, this little basket that I've made, and put him in the right hands at the right time.
• 15:01
  Audrey McCracken: And then she got to raise that child because she trusted God and she got to teach him the things that he needed to know For the purpose that God had for his life.
• 15:14
  Audrey McCracken: Isn't that awesome?
• 15:15
  Audrey McCracken: And that is what we get to do Now.
• 15:19
  Audrey McCracken: We have to trust God and we have to let them go.
• 15:25
  Audrey McCracken: There's areas we have to let them go because they don't belong to us.
• 15:27
  Audrey McCracken: They are entrusted to us for a season, they're a calling and it's a huge responsibility, but they do not belong to us.
• 15:35
  Audrey McCracken: They belong to God.
• 15:38
  Audrey McCracken: And I believe that for those three months that she had that child at home, as she's weaving that basket, as she's touring that basket, I see her praying.
• 15:49
  Audrey McCracken: She's praying over that child.
• 15:51
  Audrey McCracken: Lord, god, show me how to do this.
• 15:54
  Audrey McCracken: Lord, god, I'm praying for you.
• 15:56
  Audrey McCracken: Lord, give me the right timing.
• 15:58
  Audrey McCracken: Father, show me the way to do this.
• 16:02
  Audrey McCracken: She's weaving a basket of prayer so that when she sends him out, the basket will hold Until he gets where he's supposed to be.
• 16:12
  Audrey McCracken: And we have the awesome privilege and right to do that for our children.
• 16:20
  Audrey McCracken: My oldest son, david.
• 16:21
  Audrey McCracken: He is a junior in high school this year and he started to think about what am I going to do with my life and all his life?
• 16:32
  Audrey McCracken: I have said, lord, he belongs to you, lord, he belongs to you and Lord, use him in whatever area you you see you see fit.
• 16:42
  Audrey McCracken: And this past summer he went to Israel.
• 16:47
  Audrey McCracken: It was in July of 2023.
• 16:48
  Audrey McCracken: He and a group of young people from our church Went to Went and toured Israel and they went to Jerusalem.
• 16:58
  Audrey McCracken: But then they went up into Haifa Different places and they just had a great trip.
• 17:03
  Audrey McCracken: I was nervous about it because I knew there was some unrest there and, but I prayed about it, me and his dad, and we felt peace and we knew it was a wonderful opportunity.
• 17:15
  Audrey McCracken: And they went, they had a great time, they had no problems and they just had a very blessed trip.
• 17:21
  Audrey McCracken: Well, three months later, war breaks out in Israel and I'm so thankful that he had a great trip.
• 17:29
  Audrey McCracken: He got home safe.
• 17:31
  Audrey McCracken: But you wonder, lord, what if?
• 17:34
  Audrey McCracken: What if he had been there at the wrong time?
• 17:36
  Audrey McCracken: And as he's thinking about and talking with us about what's next, he's, he's a very good student and I just say that to encourage you homeschool moms.
• 17:47
  Audrey McCracken: I worried so many years that I was ruining my children by teaching them at home, because who am I to teach them all their subjects?
• 17:55
  Audrey McCracken: Well, well, he's going on to high school and he's doing fabulous.
• 17:59
  Audrey McCracken: And he just took his PSATs and did great.
• 18:04
  Audrey McCracken: So now he's getting all these colleges that are interested in him and and so he's thinking about this you know, where do I want to go to college?
• 18:12
  Audrey McCracken: And he has great grades.
• 18:17
  Audrey McCracken: Well, a few weeks ago, my husband was talking with him about Some ministry schools, because he has expressed a desire to go into missionary work and, for the first time that I remember, I Really wanted to discourage him in that and I'm ashamed to say that.
• 18:37
  Audrey McCracken: And and I was saying things like well, honey, you know, you really should go for the academics first and then Maybe you should go into, you know, a ministry school, but get your academics first.
• 18:49
  Audrey McCracken: And it's.
• 18:50
  Audrey McCracken: I made it sound like I was, you know, concerned about Him or I was trying to use wisdom.
• 18:56
  Audrey McCracken: But the truth is I was just thinking, lord, with everything going on, going on in the world Right now, I just want him safe and the Lord's, you know, after a couple of days I'm just like why this is like a um, what do you call it?
• 19:11
  Audrey McCracken: Like an irritation?
• 19:12
  Audrey McCracken: Why is this bothering me so bad?
• 19:14
  Audrey McCracken: Every time my husband would mention this school of ministry or or this other place of ministry, I would just cringe.
• 19:22
  Audrey McCracken: I'm like no, no, no, no, no.
• 19:23
  Audrey McCracken: Let's, let's calm down, let's slow down.
• 19:26
  Audrey McCracken: You know we don't need to go there yet and I've never been like that.
• 19:30
  Audrey McCracken: I've always wanted, I'd been honored that my kids would choose to go into ministry.
• 19:38
  Audrey McCracken: But as I spent some time reflecting and praying, I realized I'm trying to protect him.
• 19:43
  Audrey McCracken: You know, I want to save him From going somewhere dangerous, where I can't be there, I can't get to him quickly, or, you know, I don't know everything that's going on there.
• 19:55
  Audrey McCracken: And I realized, lord, I'm trying to do your job, he's yours.
• 20:03
  Audrey McCracken: Father, just lead him the right place and do, lord, please keep him safe.
• 20:08
  Audrey McCracken: But there's no safer place to be and there's no safer place for our children to be then in the perfect will of God.
• 20:15
  Audrey McCracken: And so I just shared this with you today to say Put him in the hands of the Lord, build a boat for them, build an ark for them, pray for them, make a safe place in prayer for them, but don't hold on, let him go.
• 20:35
  Audrey McCracken: You know, trust that the God who gave them to you is going to keep them.
• 20:40
  Audrey McCracken: And I'm having to walk through this right now and it's good.
• 20:46
  Audrey McCracken: You know it stretches my faith.
• 20:48
  Audrey McCracken: That helps me to really.
• 20:49
  Audrey McCracken: You know, it's easy to come each week and to tell you, guys, you should do this and you should do that, but am I doing?
• 20:57
  Audrey McCracken: It is the question.
• 20:58
  Audrey McCracken: And that's the same when we teach our children.
• 21:00
  Audrey McCracken: It's easy to tell my children things you should forgive your brother, you know you should love these who don't love you, you should be gentle and patient and kind.
• 21:10
  Audrey McCracken: But am I being those things?
• 21:12
  Audrey McCracken: Because our message is only as powerful as our character and nobody else may know.
• 21:19
  Audrey McCracken: But he knows.
• 21:21
  Audrey McCracken: And, guys, I love you and I want you to be so blessed and I want you to enjoy the confidence and the faith that comes with giving your children to the Lord and trusting them in his hands as you're doing the work that he's given you to do.
• 21:39
  Audrey McCracken: I Just love that.
• 21:41
  Audrey McCracken: Moses's mom was not afraid of Pharaoh because she knew I have a special child and I'll do whatever it takes to put him where he needs to be and and to send him there with prayer, because it's not my plan.
• 22:00
  Audrey McCracken: He can.
• 22:02
  Audrey McCracken: You know, pharaoh can mess up my plan, the Prince of this world can mess up my plan, but he can't mess up God's plan.
• 22:08
  Audrey McCracken: And we have that confidence, we have that promise that all things are gonna work together for good, that your children are in his hands as you put them in his hands.
• 22:21
  Audrey McCracken: He created them for a plan in purpose.
• 22:23
  Audrey McCracken: It's not yours, it's God's, and we're just working together with God To see it come to pass.
• 22:29
  Audrey McCracken: And so I encourage you in that this week and I Hope that you have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday and that you enjoy your family.
• 22:43
  Audrey McCracken: Father, I pray right now for my listeners.
• 22:45
  Audrey McCracken: I pray, lord, that you would stir faith in their hearts and in my heart.
• 22:51
  Audrey McCracken: I Pray, father, that we would trust that you have our children and that you know better than us.
• 23:00
  Audrey McCracken: And I pray, lord, god, that you would give us the strength, the courage To defy the Prince of this world and say not this one.
• 23:09
  Audrey McCracken: And, lord, we just thank you.
• 23:11
  Audrey McCracken: We thank you, lord, for this high calling of motherhood.
• 23:14
  Audrey McCracken: That, lord, it's greater than us, but, lord, we can do it by your grace, in you, in Jesus name, amen.