Here is a a small section from Search Me, O God by Gilbert Growcott:

Love - The Incentive To Please God
STICK with it! Whatever it is that you want to do, stick with it! Don't just drift, and flutter, and complain. Disicpline yourself to keep your mind and effort on the job at hand. That's the only way that anything has ever been accomplished. For this, you must have incentive: powerful driving incentive. The slave's incentive is the task master's lash. It keeps him very attentive to what he is doing. Natural incentives range from terror of that which is bad to strong desire for that which is pleasant and desirable. OUR incentive must rise higher than this. Our driving incentive, like a fire in our bones, must be intense love of and zeal for God, developed by long study and meditation upon His glorious Word and works.

I have been enjoying this book as it is made up of small meditations like the above. It is easy to pick up while the children are playing or the rare occasion when they are sleeping, and read one or a couple of the entries.

I find as a mother it is so easy to complain about the amount of work that we have to do for and with our children. A perfect example is that I gave Mr Magoo a cookie sheet of rice to play in with his trucks, he had been wanting to play in the sandbox but it is still frozen, and I felt bad for my little boy. After about a half hour of play you can imagine that some of the rice had found its way onto the kitchen floor. Immediatly the flesh wants to gripe and goon while sweeping it up, but what would that accomplish? An upset child, a bitter mother, burnt dinner?

I'm going to try and complain less about my children and count my blessings that God has seen fit to let me borrow them (for they are truly His children) to bring up in the nuture and admonishion of Him. I'll let you know how it goes!