Standards—we all have a set of standards by which we live. Your heart is where you formed your standards for how to live right, whether you intentionally formed them or had no say in the matter. Your standards may include ideas about parental authority, gender roles in marriage, obedience and discipline of children, a focus on headship and submission, Bible knowledge, and formal church attendance. Or it may include a mix of other ideas for how to live for Christ that you picked up along the way of life. And you might even think you follow your ideas out of love, but still sadly fall short of the fruit of what loving family relationships look like. My Family Loves Walking Together ~ April 2010 You’ve been learning from my previous post that living out of your head in this way cuts you off from the workings of your conscience where the Holy Spirit wants to influence you about your standards for righteousness. He wants to show you the poor judgment you’ve had about your ...continue reading
The conscience —we all have one — and we generally understand that it’s the place of knowing right from wrong. In the first function of your relational heartbeat—influence—you learned that God wants to start the influence cycle of your life—to influence you about your godless views. He wants to show you your error in judgment concerning what is wrong about your behaviors with other people and what is right about them. You need the Holy Spirit’s influence to show you how you’ve added to brokenness in your relationships, and to bring you into right relational behaviors. Your conscience is the place He is speaking to you. If you haven’t learned the lessons of conscience through the Holy Spirit’s influence there, you can’t learn to be Spirit-led, because the lessons of conscience are the first lessons to becoming Spirit-led. Your Heart is the Seat of Conscience The Lord’s influence begins with the Holy Spirit’s pressure on your conscience to show you poor judgment about all the relational activities you thought you’ve been right about, ...continue reading
Influence—We all want to have it with our children, especially heart-level influence, but how do we know if we really do? This is the first of a series of messages about the 10 functions of your relational heartbeat. The first function of your heartbeat is influence. Your heart is the place of influence, not only where you are influenced, but also where your children receive influence from you—from your heart to their hearts. Loving books, because mommy does! Influence is the ability to receive guidance and direction, and in turn give guidance and direction to another—your children, your spouse, maybe even a friend—at the heart-level. Are your children receiving heart-level guidance and direction from your parental influence that will form their character according to Christ? How Do You Influence Your Children? Let’s talk about how you influence your children. Do they readily hear you and happily cooperate with your direction and guidance? The measure they regularly do or regularly don’t is the measure of your influence. Most moms would say they have this kind of ...continue reading
Empowering the Heartbeat of Your Life is a ministry of the heart, where our goal is to help you become competent working in the heartbeat of your family, so you can have and hold your children’s hearts and write the best possible family story. The heartbeats of these two precious ones still capture my breath! You and I both know the heart is much more than just a physical organ. We think of it as the center of our being, which is a bit ambiguous, and some would say even mysterious. The heart can be a foreign and unknown place for someone whose heart was neglected their whole life—left to its own wisdom, uneducated and untrained. However, the heart can also be a known, familiar and very comfortable place for someone who received lots of positive and intimate influence by a loving parent and/or the Holy Spirit. I want to show you that the heart is a vital relational entity—God even says so—and as such it can be de-mystified enough for our practical purposes toward inner growth—both relationally and spiritually. God’s ...continue reading
I love early morning routines! I’ve set out to revamp mine for 2016, starting with a push goal to get me going strong toward meeting several areas of physical need all at once. A push goal is one of my favorite methods for setting short-term goals. I want to help you get inspired with one of your own push goals, using my own as an example to show you the process I used. But before telling you how I decided my particular push goal, you need to know a bit of background that led to my concerns. During the last couple of months of 2014, my mornings began with texts and/or phone calls at 6:00 am with requests to help meet urgent needs in my family. This continued throughout 2015. I’d try periodically as soon as I arose in the morning to get my life on track, never knowing whose life I would be running that day. When I realized I had entered a difficult and stressful season that wasn’t going to end any time soon, I ...continue reading
Morning Walk ~ 2010 Haven’t you found that what you do each morning dramatically affects the rest of your day and sometimes your whole week? If you’re lazy, haphazard, or just slow in your actions in the morning, you’re likely to experience a slow, unfocused, and unproductive day. If you’re weak in your thinking, your emotions, your vision, and your daily efforts toward your family purposes, you will have weak results. What you do in your mornings can cumulatively affect how you respond to the distractions, challenges, setbacks, and responsibilities of your life. It also affects how your children respond to you. When you feel overwhelmed or out of control, your soul atmosphere communicates that. When you feel on top of things, making headway in your daily purposes, your children experience that sense of security that all is right with their world, and they step up and respond more positively to personal growth too. When they experience confidence in you, it signals permission for them to grow in self-confidence as well. What Makes You Feel Good about Yourself? I know some moms who ...continue reading
Give a Hug Love Much, Love Well “So this is my prayer: that your love will flourish and that you will not only love much but well.” ~ Philippians 1:9 ...continue reading
Click Here to Download Free Outline “Relational Fitness and Personal Growth” Relational Fitness — There probably isn’t a mother who believes she’s completely “ready” to help her children become who they want them to be. We parents rise to the current challenges as we go along, but perhaps the question to ask is this: Do you feel emotionally and relationally fit—in a state of readiness—to tackle the challenges surrounding the heartbeat of your family? If you’re feeling something lacking; if you could use more capacity, then the answer might point to the need for more personal growth and development. Sammy ~ October 2015 Let’s look at this idea. Your daily decisions for your physical health will either increase your capacity for life or severely limit you. It’s the same for relational health. The decision you’re making today to delay your personal inner growth will limit your capacity tomorrow to lead your children through increasingly more mature processes of growth, development, and learning. The reality is that your child’s development is completely dependent upon you to become the best possible version of yourself along ...continue reading
Hello Dear Reader, I’m Marilyn Howshall, author of Empowered—Healing the Heartbeat of Your Family. This message is for all parents who are serious about the discipling of their children and the health of their family relationships. You may have already raised your children and don’t feel a need for this message. I encourage you as grandparents or grandparents-to-be to consider keeping the door open for God’s continued healing in your family relationships through you. As a grandmother myself, I never feel too old to grow and change in the Lord, so I can strengthen my legacy to my children and grands. I know that as a concerned parent you have hopes and dreams to lead your children toward God so they will whole-heartedly follow after Him and His ways. I’m sure you know that you’ll need to be able to influence them—have their hearts turned toward you while showing them how to pursue their own relationship with the Lord. Unfortunately, many parents come to learn that it isn’t as automatic as they thought. In other words, plugging ...continue reading
We’ve had so many wonderful testimonies! The moms you’ve been hearing from in the previous six posts, aren’t the only ones who give us such reports! Here are a few more of the comments we received after just one 2-hour coaching audio, the first audio of the mini coaching program, “Your Conscience”. “I never knew my conscience could be so sharp. I get poked if I even begin to clench my teeth. This is a good thing, because I see that I start to clench my teeth when I am about to speak in irritation or anger. I love that the Holy Spirit wants me to “Stop It!” even before I get started, and will lovingly warn me that it is coming. I don’t want to miss the REAL God anymore. I can hardly contain my joy today. I have found Him!!! I have been singing and dancing all morning.” “My conscience has been sharpened—as soon as a single sharp word or clenched teeth begins to happen I’m reminded to just STOP! Thank you so ...continue reading
