Unexpected Joy

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Unexpected Joy

Our first 5 children were born fairly close together and my husband and I agreed that our family was complete.  Four years after the 5th one was born we had some unexpected news, baby 6 was on the way! We were thrilled and thankful for this gift from the Lord. The day Lawton was born, we had many things that were unexpected. Our baby boy was in distress and when he was first born, we were not sure he would survive. By God's mercy, he did survive and our family of 8 adjusted pretty well.

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Identity Christ-is

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Identity Christ-is

It’s no secret that times are tough right now in the oil industry. I know this first-hand. 

With such a huge drop in revenue because of low commodity prices, publicly held companies are doing nearly everything they can to cut costs, make ends meet, and return value to shareholders.

Unfortunately, sometimes being frugal, pacing out projects, and renegotiating contracts is not enough. The next thing that happens is employees start getting laid off.

Over the last few months, I faced a very real possibility that I would be laid off. 

I know that the reason for layoffs is simply to right-size the workforce during periods of reduced or little activity. The reason is not personal; it’s not to be mean. It literally is “just business.” 

But if you’re on the receiving end, it can definitely feel personal. It hurts our self-esteem, our sense of worth. 

Why is that?

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It's Just a Season

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It's Just a Season

“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!”

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What Did You Say?

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What Did You Say?

In the midst of our country’s current political cycle, which is so widely covered by every media outlet that you can’t get away from it, hyperbole and vitriol and one-upmanship and hateful banter seem to be the rules of the game. Candidates from both parties have thrown jabs at each other, belittling and berating each other over everything from personal appearance to family lineage to past business dealings to personal family tragedies. As voters, we declare through social media and conversation that we are appalled, frustrated and uninterested in such rhetoric. However, something keeps the candidates talking in this way. Maybe it is the media attention, and maybe, just maybe, a small portion of it is that we the people actually enjoy the mudslinging more than we’d like to admit.

As I’ve watched and listened, mouth agape at what I’m hearing, I have truly been discouraged. But I also haven’t turned off the TV or stopped reading the headlines. Through all of this, I’m challenged by the timely words of the Thumper the Rabbit from the movie Bambi, who recalled a lesson his parents had taught him: “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothing at all.” I wonder what impact taking this lesson to heart would do for our country and our world.

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The Momuscripts

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The Momuscripts

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.”

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Life at 26

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Life at 26

Ten years ago I was a junior in high school. If you had asked 16-year old Emily where she thought she would be at 26, she probably would have told you something that looks very different from the life I am actually living now.  

My Checklist

In high school I was very much influenced by my surroundings and adopted a checklist of certain expectations for my life. Here were the big ones:

  1. Graduate college in four years.
  2. Get married by 22.
  3. Have my first kid by 25.
  4. Start my own business before 30. 
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An Unshakeable Peace: Radical Forgiveness that Points People to Jesus

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An Unshakeable Peace: Radical Forgiveness that Points People to Jesus

For those of you who do not know about or follow sports, we have a professional basketball team here in New Orleans called the Pelicans.

Last year, the former head coach of the Pelicans, Monty William, lead the Pelicans to the playoffs only to be let go by the team after being overmatched by the Golden State Warriors, who would eventually go on to win NBA Championship. I loved Monty, but some didn’t like his coaching style. He soon found a new job with the Oklahoma City Thunder and became an assistant on their coaching staff.

On Tuesday night, February 9th Ingrid Williams, Monty’s Wife, was driving with three of her children on a 40 MPH street when a reckless driver, who was driving 92 MPH North, lost control and stuck Ingrid Williams including her three children in a Chevrolet Suburban going southbound head on. Mrs. Williams was taken to the hospital where she later died. The driver of the other vehicle died as well on impact. Players on both the Pelicans and Thunder were devastated with the news because apparently Ingrid was a mother figure to many players. Many people sent prayers to the Williams family and offered their condolences while many others, when asked about it on camera, broke down in tears over the news. How could the wife of an assistant coach have such an impact on the players? I think the answer is found in who Monty Williams claims to be.

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Mom Enough

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Mom Enough

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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Rediscovering Lent

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Rediscovering Lent

I have recently become more aware of a way of living as a Christian that is far older than any ideas of mine on the subject. It is called the liturgical calendar. Basically, as I understand it, the church created a way to celebrate the life of Jesus throughout the year by means of different seasons, fasts, celebrations, and holidays. You probably know that as a part of this we have Christmas and Easter, but what I did not know is that throughout the course of one calendar year, the liturgy covers the entire life of Christ. The surprise for me was that there is a great intentionality behind it all. It wasn’t just the accumulated festivals and religiosity of the ages. Not only is there intentionality, but that intentionality is designed to where if you follow the calendar, you have over the course of one year recognized Jesus’s entire earthly ministry. I could talk more about this, and you can find a blog on it HERE, but what I really want to set the stage for is Lent.

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Fight

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Fight

To play out the “might happens” and “what ifs” time and again. To be consumed and strangled by thoughts of things that may never happen. To trade present joy for fearful, future, thoughts thus missing out on today. 

These are the thoughts and feelings that I have when I worry, when I give into and become consumed by anxious thoughts. 

“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the ruler, against the powers, against the world forces of the darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.” Ephesians 6:12

Fighting against the spiritual forces of wickedness or evil. No wonder it’s so hard to fight against worry. Worry isn’t something that can be grasped and thrown away. It can’t be physically removed. It is a battle of the mind, where all sin starts, where Satan can hit the hardest, where he can create an entire world of false “truth” that affects our physical actions and our lives. This in turn ripples out and affects not only our lives but the lives and relationships of those around us. Tragically, the ones we love most end up getting the brunt of our false truth, our alternate reality.

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