The Power of Words
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Woman, mom, sister, friend. The thoughts you have about yourself (positive or negative) will eventually come out the longer they are in your head. And someone is listening.
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Where Should Moms Go When Our Hands Are Full?
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Moms are busy people. And we’re tired. We are often the primary caregivers for our little ones. We work all day, whether in the home or out of the home; then we often prepare dinner, clean up, get everyone into bed, and then get things ready for the next day. Our hands are truly full—with blessings and worries, with joys and sorry, with hope and fear. Where should we go with these full hands? Author Gloria Furman offers an answer in her book Treasuring Christ When Your Hands Are Full. According to Furman, we must go to Christ with our full hands, for resting in Christ is what is means to treasure Him. We must abide with him, constantly acknowledging His abundance in light of our lack. Furman’s book is an honest and easy read saturated with Scripture and sprinkled with personal anecdotes, making the reader feel at home in her own skin. I’ve offered three key takeaways from my perspective below.
Read MoreLeaving the Results Up to God
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If you were going to begin a ministry, what would you do first? I can tell you what I would do. I would map it all out with spreadsheets, flowcharts, group meetings, and a lot of coffee. I would surround myself with the best in the business. The one thing I would NOT do would be to launch my ministry before I felt it was 100% ready to go. No surprises. No unknowns. I would want to see a clear path from beginning to end. Let’s put “starting a ministry” down on the list of things where I have a lot more to learn from the life of Jesus. As it turns out, Jesus did the exact opposite of flowcharts and 5-point plans.
Read MoreIt's Just a Season
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“It’s just a season,” they say. A mass of mini seasons really. Seasons of tinies and toddlers and tweens and teens. But motherhood is not as much a season as it is a journey. A journey to grow your children, your heart, your spirit, your faith. A journey toward a calling that you know is there but sometimes gets lost or forgotten in the throes of motherhood. Lost in the days of playing, schooling, cleaning, and cooking. In the days of feeling like you’re doing it all wrong, and the ones where you’re doing okay. The days of washing hands and hair and bodies and sniffing clean heads and nursing babies. The days that sometimes seem endless but somehow fly by. When we’re drowning in peanut butter fingers and runny noses. When our “go nowhere clothes” become our uniform and our mantra becomes “mama don’t get out much!”
Read MoreThe Momuscripts
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Recently Sarah Brichetto approached me about doing a miniseries of “mom posts” leading up to Mother’s day this year. I was immediately on board, loved the idea. I started thinking more about it. Maybe this should be an ongoing series specifically for mothers and maybe it should have a punny title and maybe we should get some other mom writers who are in different life stages, mom stages, to share their struggles and experiences and what the Lord is teaching them through motherhood. So Sarah and I have been planning, under pastor Dustin Turner’s leadership, and are excited today to launch “The Momuscripts.”
Read MoreMom Enough
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I’m just weeks away from meeting my newest little one, so thoughts of motherhood have been heavy on my mind lately. And not just thoughts of trying to remember the basics of caring for a newborn, but bigger, weightier thoughts about the journey and assignment of being a mother. I’m still relatively new at this thing (my firstborn just turned two), so I’m feeling the challenge of caring for two little ones deeply.
As a first-time mom, I spent many moments in the past two years wondering if I’m doing things right. I struggle with questions like: Was it okay to let her sleep through the night without waking her to feed? Can one year olds have donuts (once a week)? She didn’t have a bath today—and I’m too tired to give her one tonight. Washing her face and brushing her teeth is enough, right? Is she watching too much TV? Am I letting her stay up too late? Is she hitting all her developmental milestones?
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