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Jay Dena Hart

Jay Dena's Thoughts on Gentle Mothering

What does gentle mothering mean to you?

To me, gentle mothering means that I will help my children navigate through life in a respectful and informative way. Each stage our children go through is a stage that God had designed for that child to learn the lessons that God had intended for that child to learn from and prepare that child for His purpose. In my efforts, I try to be Christ like in my reactions and set the example for my child. In my anger at a childish behavior, I am setting the example for my child to learn how to react in similar situations. I am not always successful and have a long way to go to my ideal, but mothering is a life long learning process that I am willing to under go.

Gentle mothering is an art that needs to be learned and passed on through the generations. As a mother who is striving to guide my children though their own individual walks of life, I want to learn the most respectful way to help my children to achieve there own goals and not my ideas on what should happen when they get there. I do feel that I need to have a large input on the process of getting there. I am the one that God had asked to do the mothering and teach the skills that is needed to be productive adults. This means that I am the one to model and teach, to the best of my ability, to love Christ and serve Him, to be considerate to others in all situations so we can be humble servants to each other, that we are to learn from each other because all of us are creations of God (even the children), respect is something that is given and not earned to all people no matter how young or old, that by being obedient to those who are accountable for us we show honor, respect and most of all love, through the obedience that we are willing to give freely blessings are bestowed upon us, self obedience is the most important discipline that we can learn for our self, the fruits of the Spirit are our way to measure our own growth as a Godly person and most importantly all these skills working together will foster a strong walk with the Lord and help to achieve the desire of our hearts, having God be our Lord who is the navigator of our life's in a gentle and respectful way.

Why do you feel that gentle mothering is so important?

Gentle mothering is important to me because I was not a child to a gentle family. I do not want my children to have to suffer through the pain that I felt I did and some how felt my mother did. I had attended parenting and teaching classes that taught me how to be gentle and respectful. I obtained a job as a pre-school teacher to put these new skills to work and planted them into a habit. I knew that we were monitored in our dealings with children and knew that their was a no sympathy policy for inappropriate behavior from the staff. The threat of no job was all it took for me. I went way out of my way to learn the things I desired from a parent but never received.

Most important, were these precious little bundles of joy that God had asked me to be a mother to. God did not have to give us children, they are his children and we are stewards of them. How can I report back to my Lord what I did was harmful to His creation? Every action I take and every word I say better glorify Him. He has a special place in His heart for children. He has warned us not to hinder a child to come to Him. Not being a good steward would be disobedience to Him. Our aggressive actions hardens our hearts to His guidance. We see that with Pharaoh and Moses. Every time God sent His messenger to the Pharaoh with His command. He also told us that there would be consequences for disobedience. Each time God allowed Pharaoh's heart to become hard. Every time you or I are disobedient to the law our hearts become hard. If we get away with speeding down a certain street without getting caught, our hearts harden. We do it again and again and pretty soon our hearts harden to the point that we can speed down that street every time. One day it will catch up to us and we may even die in an accident on that very street. Obedience to God is the most important reason to gently mother our children.

Why do you feel that God wants you to parent this way?

Out of obedience to God I try very hard to gently mother my children. I fear the idea that my children would have such a hard heart that they would not be able to hear God's voice. I have received so much from my savior, that I want more for my children. I know that I have much to learn from God. I know that my lifetime is not long enough to learn the things that God has to teach me. I want to teach the lessons that God taught me to my children so that they can learn more from God then I did.

The other reason why I fell God called us to parent this way is Biblical. The sins of the father shall be passed down through the generations. Until every third generation the cycle can be broken. Both my husband and I come from very dysfunctional families. Both of us see that we do not want what we had for our children. We also see that we can, with God's help, break the cycle. We are doing this for our children.

Jay Dena's Testimony

God was reaching out to me as a very young child. I remember going to church as a young four year old. My mother had both my sister and me, with different men and was never married. We had a third sister, same story, but later. I remember her witnessing to a friend of hers when I was about three. She cut a paper, that was folded, in to several pieces. She asked the woman to pick a piece and unfold it. This woman pick a piece that unfolded to be a strange shape. My mother to told her that her choice would lead her no where. She picked up another piece and unfolded a cross. She said that this cross was the key to the rest of her life. I remember looking up at the table and my new baby sister was in a carrier on the table. I feel that this was the day my mother came home. Which sister I do not know. My sister and I are a year and a day apart. It could very well have been my youngest sister who died of crib death, but she died several months to a year before I was adopted. That was when I was 5. We moved and it seemed that it was seeing life begin again for my mother. She sent us to church on one of those church buses that picked up children. I remember wearing my only special dress to church. My sister and I had matching dresses. They were a peach long dress with a cloth flower on the bodice. (It was the 70's) I remember holding my sisters hand to walk down the stairs because she did not know how very well. She must have been early 3. We learned that Jesus loved us, He would never let us go through something that we could not handle with His help and that He would never leave us. These three things comforted me during my troubled years. I remember asking my mother why she would not come with us. She made us pray and taught us about the Bible stories that children learn. She said that she could not because she had done something that was so wrong that she couldn't ever go into the church again. She was crying and I never pressed her again.

Some how I also knew about evil. First hand. I was sitting in an old theater watching horrific satanic worship. The audience was mingling. Some where sitting to watch but others were not. No one was tending to my sister and I. We were sitting close to the front on the right hand side facing the stage. I remember some woman quietly coming to us and asking us to fallow her. She led us to a door with the bar across the middle, like the ones we had in school. We walked outside, amazed that it was day light and that we were in an alley. It was a covered alley and we were walking up hill. It reminds me of an under ground parking lot. I remember asking why we were leaving? She said that this was not a place that children should be. I asked her what about so and so.( I do not remember who we arrived with or who this lady was.) She said that we could never mind about them and that we would be safer with her. It was all confusing. This much I do know. Years later, after I was adopted, I was walking home from the bus stop and had been looking in the steep ditch everyday. The week prior I found a $20. I saw this big thick black book. Some how I knew that second that it was the devil's book and that if I touched it I would be lured to server him the rest of my life. I knew that I could be for Satan or God that very day and that I would be very passionate about it. I walked across the street to the other side.

My mother had a nervous breakdown after my youngest sister died. She was told that she was not fit to be a mother. I think that she signed paperwork that she understood to be a foster parenting program. I wonder if the paper work had some kind of hidden agenda that placed children for adoption. It was in OR and they have recently opened all of there adoption files because of the way the state dealt with children's adoption cases. I never remember every being spanked or yelled at. I remember many loving, playful situations. I also remember that we were abused by "uncles". I remember her protecting us as much as she could.

I was placed in the home of a believing woman and her unbelieving husband. They were an older couple who had two teenager girls and were watching their first grandchild during the day for their oldest son and wife. The babies mother was horrified about our story and did not feel that the foster parents had enough room for us to stay. She took us to her home that night and I always remember staying at her house. She was a legal secretary and her husband was a police officer. She had an in to our case. She found out that we were going to be adopted in different homes. She could not bear the idea that we would be separated all we had was each other. So she talked her husband into adopting us. They became our parents. Here we were with this young couple who had a 6 month old baby and was learning to be parents themselves. The foster parents became our grand parents and they stayed in with our real mother for a while. They told us that our mother's only request was that we were placed in a home that would take us to church. Our new parents did not go to church but agreed to let us go. They lived in the country and the church was just up the road from the house. I remember walking to church. I remember the winter play for our parents. I was sent to a Catholic school for the second part of my first grade year. Most children went to private schools for the better education. I was told that I was not learning anything in my other school. I wasn't. Shortly there after we moved to WA.

My parents never went to church. They allowed us to go with friends. Many times when I was asked to stay over with them the choice would be Fri. and I got to go home with them from school or Sat. and get to go to church. Many times I chose Sat. I went to several denominations of Christian churches, Catholic, and Mormon. Each and every time I felt that I found some way to get to church we moved or the family moved or some other reason. I was not hearing God's word. As I grew up the offers were getting further and further apart. Finally, in the summer of between 8th and 9th grade I was able to hear the whole story.

My friend Tina, was inviting me to go to church every time her family went. My mother and father had been divorced since I was in the 5th grade. We were living with my father because my mother wanted him to see the responsibility of raising children. She was fed up with his lack of involvement. She was stressed and yelled at us punished us with the wooden spoon on our bottoms and went in to rage when she was very angry. I think that Tina witnessed on of these episodes, only milder, directed at my sister. I think that is why her parents were so willing to get through to me. We became friends in the 8th grade although, we were classmates in the second grade. The school redefined the school boundaries and I was to attend the new school. We met back up in Jr. High. We had a class together in the 8th grade. We really became friends again through activities. That summer we were the closest. That was the summer we did everything together. We went to a Randy Stonehill concert at her church. Christian rock is what they called his music. We had a great time. He told jokes and funny stories and sang great music that we all danced to. Then came his testimony and the truth about Jesus. That He died for me because I was a sinner and needed to be washed clean by the blood of a sacrifice so I could enter into heaven for eternity. That He rose on the third day to ascend into heaven. That he was living and a Savior to all that believed in Him. I knew that I was a sinner, my parents told me how awful I was. I wanted His love and knew that He was real. I accepted Jesus as my savior that night. Then Randy said that the Bible told about God needed us to do more then believe and pray the sinners prayer. He said that God needed us to come before men and make our commitment to Him public. That way God could see our obedience and that man could see our commitment. I went forward with tears streaming down my face. I never knew what gave me the strength to walk to the alter. After prayer and worship HE asked us to return to our seats. I turned to see my friend Tina there crying also. We went to our seats and heard about the promises of God and could feel His love. We also were asked to attend church and learn more about God. Randy said that he provides a night of free music and only asks in return that we promise to attend church to learn. Both Tina and I were raising our hands making our promise to return to church.

I learned that we were to move at the end of the month. This time further away then just across town. Both Tina's and my heart sank. We could not even be there for each other. My father took us to yet another school. I went to 9 schools in 12 years. Between 1st and 2nd grade I attended 4 schools. And again that happened in the 9th and 10th grades. The new house came with a new friend. She lived across the street and guess what, her name was Tina also. Her family was Mormon. She attended the high school and she was a senior when I was a sophomore. We rode the bus together and I could not attend church with her because of our family weekend activities. At this time my father had invited his girl friend to live with us. She had two small boys. There were seven of us now and I was the oldest. I did go to a couple of teenage church parties with her. But we moved again. This time it would be a long while before I attended church again. My mother had make a couple of half hearted attempts to go to church with us but she became a flight attendant and could not be there to take us most weekends.

I went to work in a day care. I learned how to talk to children through the monthly training meetings. I was attending college and learning to be a teacher. I was tiring to relearn things that my parents had taught me. I knew that they were wrong and I felt a need to learn the right way to do things. One of my co-workers was a Christian. We all knew it. She was not the most attractive person and did not dress well, so no one really befriended her. I was promoted several times and was being groomed to take over a class of my own as the pre-school teacher. Finally, a space was available and I was to take the three year old class. I was told that I deserved it through all of my hard work and that I seem to be a natural when it came to teaching. I was instructed that there were two things I needed to work on and my progress was being monitored. One, that three year olds needed more touch. Hugs, pats and grooming. I was terrified. I had never been touched lovingly or appropriately as a child except by my real mother. I swallowed hard and asked what else. Well, I was a little hard to work with. I am a perfectionist and needed things in order and wanted the best for the children. I asked my subrogates to have the same high standard as I did. I was one of the few who had the education to back my actions and others were intimidated by them. I tried to get my co-workers to understand the importance of their role and how we were impacting the lives of the next generation. The generation that would be taking care of us in our old age. Well since I did not have children, "I just did not understand and all would change when I did". No one understood my passion. Well no one that I knew of at that time. I was told that it was hard to recruit someone to be my assistant. The only one that would do it was no other then the Christian woman. ( I did not know that I was a Christian, I did not even have a Bible). Her name was Johanna. We hit it off right off the bat. We had wonderful plans for the classroom. She was inspired that I was wanting her input and not just giving her direction as the other teachers did. She helped my during off hours, unpaid, to put the classroom in order. It was a Sun. even. By this time it had been so long since I had been in church I fell to worldly things. I dated and had bad relationships. I never partied hard, but I would drink on occasion. My room mate and I would go to the dance club in hopes to find a boy friend. I was not honoring God with my life style. I was in a pit of despair by my life and could not understand why I kept making awful mistakes. I wanted to come into work on a Sun. so I could be with my friends until late on Fri. We had hot plans.

As Johanna and I worked together we talked about dating. She was only two years older then I. What a surprise. I also found out about how much fun she had in co-ed situations. She had asked me to church before and I turned her down because I felt that you could believe in God and get to heaven but all the churches are saying is that the only way to heaven was through their church. I was shocked when she agreed with me and said maybe another time. I really did not think that it would happen. I was intrigued with the idea that men could be nice to women and not just until they had sex with them. That they could actually want to be nice just to be nice. She invited me to come to the college career age bible study that was about to take place. We were on our way out the door, when she asked. My hesitation was a big warning for her. She then added in a mocking tone, that women do meet men in church. I was shocked and laughingly said yes.

We were in a huge circle sitting if folding chairs. Everyone was exited to meet me and seemed to be excited to see each other. We started by singing praise songs. We were handed a stack of song sheets stapled together. People were still coming in when we started to sing. Everyone was dressed so differently. Dresses to jeans and a t-shirt. No one stuck out. Everyone was excepted. You could feel the love. As we sang, I had a feeling of finally finding home. I can't sing and no one seemed to notice. We clapped and worshiped God. I fell into place. We had a Bible study and talked about what we had learned through the passage. Everyone tried to contribute. I did not because I was tiring to grasp the concepts and amazed how everyone had right answers even though they were so different. After prayer the announcements were made. This was the last Sun. to sign up to the up coming retreat and the $50 was due today. As the meeting ended, several people started to move about to talk to each other and we were invited to the treats on the soda and snack table. I made a bee line to the man who had the retreat information. I was close so I was one of the first ones there. I told him to sign me up and who do I make the check out to. As I was writing my check Johanna stepped up and her mouth about touched the floor. On the way home I told her about the being home feeling and that this was what I needed.

At the retreat I was given a Bible of my very own. I learned so much and had so much fun. I found that I was indeed a Christian and I had decided to make Jesus Lord of my life. I was new woman and had a great hunger for the Lord's word. I attended church and this Bible study called Kionania. Later some of us got together in addition to this for yet another Bible study. And yes I did meet my husband there, but that is another story.