Tag Archives: faith

faith, mommyhood, My Big Jesus

Raising a Daughter in a World of Mean Dudes

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This week, I came across an article about that guy – Julien Blanc – who teaches men how to be sexual predators. It scared the mess outta me. I’m talking terrified. Not because I think that one of those men is going to be messing with me. No. It scared me because I have a daughter. I’ve written about how tough I think it is to raise a daughter before, and unfortunately, it’s not getting any easier.

I have a laundry list of things I want my daughter to be. It does not include doctor, lawyer, CEO, president, or even famous humanitarian. The list does include, however, things like loves Jesus, is happy in her profession, does kind things for others, and knows that she’s beautiful in the eyes of the Father who created her.

You see, I want her to know her worth in her Creator. Everyone else’s opinions matter not. She is called perfect and beautiful by the One who created her as such. She doesn’t need any certain clothes, tons of makeup, and the approval of a boyfriend or best friend to make it so. Her unique qualities and abilities are gifts. It’s Hubby’s and my job to raise her to know that. In a world of plastic surgery, eating disorders, cyber bullying and domestic violence, I want to raise a woman confident in herself because she knows who she is.

There’s only one starting point – the Gospel.

I can’t do everything. I can’t force her to internalize every single characteristic and ideal I might nudge her way. But I can teach her the Truth. I can tell her about God and his amazing sacrificial love. I can model the Father’s love for us by loving her with unconditional love. I can provide opportunities for other like-minded souls to help reinforce these bits of Truth in her life. I can help her understand that knowing Jesus is the best and only thing she can do to truly know her worth and potential. I can start now – at two and a half years old.

My little girl is beautiful and smart. She’s as witty as a two year old can be, and already a ham for the camera. For real y’all – she basically only wears tutus (see above photo) and won’t leave the house without her fanciest shoes. I just want to make sure she knows she’s awesome and doesn’t need anyone’s approval for that piece of information to be true. She just needs to know Who created her, how He feels about her, and where He wants her to go. It’s like the cheesy song goes: she’s gonna do great things; I already know.

faith, mommyhood, My Big Jesus

Beauty and a Mess

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Sometimes, I feel like the beauty. I’ve got some mascara on, I’m wearing cute shoes, there’s no food smeared anywhere on me, and maybe, just maybe, I could be wearing… perfume!

But more than likely, I’m without makeup, in my exercise clothes (whether or not I’ve managed to get that workout in), hair pinned back messily, someone’s snot on my sleeve, and I’ll tell ya – I ain’t wearing perfume.

I am a mess.

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But there is beauty in my mess. I am created for awesome things. I’m created to shine a light that comes not from me, but from a magnificent God who can overcome my messes and failures. They don’t disappear, but they become a more beautiful part of who I am in Him. My weaknesses fade to the background as I become, more and more each day, the woman He created me to be. He has already blessed me with a purpose, with an identity in Him. He has already given me the tools to be that person. I just have to take Him at His Word.

 

faith, music

Our aim is love.

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This morning, my band and I were fortunate enough to not need all our allotted practice time, so we made it to the worship team’s small group. The people are mostly different every Sunday, but by now I know most of them as friends, or at least admired acquaintances. They are all musicians, and we are largely similar in that respect (and several others as well; we tend to be a “type”).

Our worship pastor came to us this morning with a Scripture that blew my mind. He said he had been led to it this week, and was really shifting his focus to walk in it. It also happens to pair nicely with the sermon series our church is in the middle of right now… Isn’t God cool like that?!

Anyway, the single verse is from Paul’s first letter to Timothy (I Tim. 1:5). When we are asking ourselves, after striving and trying and loving and helping, sometimes seemingly in vain, this is Paul’s answer to us:

The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. (ESV)

The aim – the NIV says “goal” – our aim, our goal, our purpose… is love. That’s the main point. Love.

What could we learn, if we just remember that? Love is the goal. It looks different on everyone, and each person needs a different kind, but it’s all about love.

Moving on through the verse, he specifies love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. Those are good places for your love to come from. When we let ourselves be cleansed by the blood, we love from a pure heart. When we allow our minds to become one with the Father’s, we love with a good conscience. When we are filled with the Holy Spirit, we love from a place of sincere faith.

Folks, this should change your outlook, change your life! Or, if you were already there, good for you! This filled me with a desire to let the Father change my heart, mend my mind, and fill my soul. I want to love! I want that to be my aim and my goal. I need it. We all need it. I’m going to let love be my aim and my goal. And then I’m excited to see what happens. Aren’t you?

faith, food, mommyhood, My Big Jesus

Mountains or Molehills?

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I don’t know if you know this about me, but I seriously love my family. Hubby and I have the best families on the planet. I’m sure yours is great, but… mine’s better.

Today, my sisters-in-law and I met our mother-in-law to plan out the holidays, everyone’s travel plans, and some dates we will all be together. Not only did we have a fun time at lunch, but decided to go shopping together! We then had so much fun shopping that when we needed to head home, we did so with the idea we’d get the brothers and our kids to have dinner together! So we packed up our families and met for dinner. Six adults, a toddler and three babies. It was a lot. We ate a lot. We spilled a lot. We laughed a lot. It was just a lot.

I had a choice at dinner tonight. I could have been stressed about the fact that in the first ten minutes, water, wine and green beans were all spilled. I could have been annoyed that J would only eat if he was sitting in my lap (aka if I was unable to eat). I could have been frustrated that right when I was able to eat a few bites, EK needed to go potty. But in fact, I chose fun. It was fun to pass the kids around the table, help ourselves to everyone else’s food, and make a big mess (for which we tipped generously, promise). I chose to be excited that my daughter told me she needed to go potty instead of peeing in her diaper! That was a miracle in itself!

When you have a choice between being frustrated, and giving in to the situation and making the best of it, making the right choice can be tough. I’m a high-strung person by nature (sorry, everyone) so I can make big deals out of basically anything. But it’s my constant goal – and sometimes struggle – to “Let It Go” (forgive the reference). I need lots of reminders, and I ask for a lot of help. My family bears with me in the midst of my sometimes-OCD. But I like myself more, and I’m sure everyone else does, too, if I can give in to the crazy and fun, instead of making a mountain out of a molehill.

faith, mommyhood

I have a quick temper.

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I’ve been trying to be a better mommy to my two year old. We work on sharing, letters and numbers, using the potty, and being nice to others (including me). But sometimes, she’s a drama queen. Sometimes, she can be manipulating. I know- that sounds crazy to have a manipulating two year old, but it’s the truth. She knows how to get what she wants from me and from daddy. And that frustrates me. She’s so smart and great at communicating and behaves so well! So when she’s upset or hurt or frustrated and can’t tell me, she just starts doing weird stuff. I don’t know why, so I tell her to stop. She cries. I get frustrated. She cries more, then I cry. Sometimes it’s a nasty situation in a short number of minutes.

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I was talking through this with Hubby’s mom, and she totally commiserated. She also gave me some advice. My frustration has a root somewhere deeper. It could be jealousy (“I want my Daddy!” when she’s with me and not him) or perfectionism (she isn’t perfect, however totally awesome she might be most of the time). It could be that I’m too quick-tempered (I know already that I am). It could be a plethora of extenuating circumstances that have stressed me out and out me on edge before EK has even entered the picture.

There is an element of a generational curse that I am trying not to inherit. I have a quick temper, like my parents before me. I know for a fact that I cannot overcome it myself – I need God’s help to get past it and relax and move on. Hubby’s mom gave me four R’s to help remember a good process to squelch that temper as it comes on…

Recognize it as sin.

Repent and ask for forgiveness.

Receive the forgiveness. Not just ask for it. Fully receive it.

Take responsibility for it, and be able to call it down.

Then, the next time the quick temper bubbles up in me, I can go through the steps more quickly. I can recognize it before it actually happens, repent, receive forgiveness, and take the responsibility for it. Then it’s easier to move on, without the temper (and the words/actions that would follow). Praise Jesus for the opportunity to lay our sins at his feet, and have them washed away!

Do you have a vice that just keeps pecking away at you, no matter how much you try to control it? What do you do to get past it?

faith, mommyhood, My Big Jesus

Why does it always work out that way?

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As I type this, I’m sitting on my couch, listening to my son fuss. He should be asleep. It’s 7:50pm, and he’s been in the bed for half an hour. The first 20 minutes were silent – and now, as I’m trying to leave the house, he’s awake and fussing to get up and play. He had a big day full of family photos and playing hard. He needs to rest after the craziness of the day. This is the first night in weeks that he hasn’t gone to bed without any trouble. It’s also one of the first nights that I’m trying to go out to a birthday party that started at 7:00. Hubby is working, and my mom is keeping the kids. She and my daughter are happily watching a quick tv show before bed, and my mom simply requested that J be asleep before I left.

Or it should’ve been a simple request.

I’m dressed, purse and keys in hand, hoping this won’t take all night. I’m dying to see my friends while I’m wearing mascara and not wearing yoga pants. Plus, I don’t want to miss the cake – because there has to be cake, right? But here I am, held back by the quiet (getting quieter…) sounds of my still wakeful son. I’ve check on him several times – checking his diaper, patting his back, giving him smooches. And still he fights sleep.

I wonder how often God waits on us… fussing… whining… refusing to just rest. I wonder if He is sitting, on some heavenly leather sofa, waiting for us to come around to the thing we need the most. He’s probably not waiting so that He can go to a party, but waiting because He knows we will be happy when we finally get what we need – Him. When we rest in Him we are refreshed. We are rejuvenated. We are healthier and more whole. But we put up a fight, just like my son is doing now. We think we know what we want, but we forget to listen to the One who knows best.

faith, mommyhood

She’s speaking my language.

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In my women’s small group this morning, we were talking about getting stuck in a performance-driven lifestyle. To be clear, that’s a feeling of needing to be productive, having something to show for your time. It’s a very American ideal, I think. We like to show how much we can squeeze into a day, how many things we can check off a to-do list.

One of the gals was talking about how she gets really frustrated when there’s a lot to do, and she’s not able to get working on it, and get her family on board with working on it. And I totally got it. She was saying she felt like the Lord was teaching her something about “rest” and valuing efficiency and productivity – how her worth was not tied to her performance.

Wow.

First of all, the Lord teaching her about rest? Read my thoughts on that here because I think the Lord’s giving me some new perspective on that as well. But secondly, as a musician (read: perfectionist) I have always been a performance-based person. I’ve been up in front of audiences, wondering what they think, trying to please them. It’s been my education and my job to do so. To hear her speak about not finding her worth in her kids’ behavior, the cleanliness of her home or the extravagance of her cooking… but to find her worth in the unconditional love we receive from our Father? Okay. I’ve been convicted.

How often do I find myself getting frustrated about little things that my kids do? Or how often do I feel guilty because I forgot about the clothes I put in the washer until they needed to be washed again? Worse still, how often do I feel like I have wasted my time during the day because all I feel like I did was change diapers, clean up messes and cut grapes into quarters?

What if we could change our thinking from checking off lists and seeing our progress to one of knowing from the inside out that we are loved, accepted, and treasured by our Creator?

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faith, mommyhood, random thoughts

Getting Out of a Slump

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Recently, I’ve been going in and out of a slump. A gray area. An in between. MAN I hate it. I have a lot on my plate, just being wife, mom, keeping house/laundry/food under control, and keeping up with my part-time church job. Usually, having a lot on my plate makes me productive… I do what I need to do and more. But in the past few weeks, we’ve spent two weekends away from home, added thinking about moving/renovating/etc and I’ve added a few more hours a week to my church job. I love those things; they excite me and they are positive things in my life. But on the other hand, I’m getting a little too overwhelmed. I’ve passed “busy” and am headed towards “drowning”. My response? Take a day where I’m really sad, feeling blue, and don’t do anything. Was that the right response? Probably not.

I did some talking to my sister-in-law (relational clarification: one of my best friends) Holly and our friend Nikki, and we just decided it was normal. Whatever stress or problem or other thing you’re dealing with, it’s normal to have a day or two where you just kinda shut down, press the reset button, and have a kind of culmination of the emotional and physical toll that stress can take on you. Boy, that was good news. My brain had been spinning all afternoon like “Am I depressed?” and “Should I be on anxiety medicine?” but truly I think I just needed a day to shove off my responsibilities (thanks, Hubby!) and do some resting.

I want to be a good mom for my kids… every single day. I want to be a good wife… every single day. I want to be good at everything I do, to spread truth and be a blessing. And I know the only way I’ll accomplish this is to stop trying to do it myself. I am too busy trying to do and do and do to remember to let God work through me, to let him order my steps and speak through me with love and kindness.

It’s a shift in my thinking that I need. To call on God when I start to stress out, or feel low, or lose my temper. To pray without ceasing, as Paul said. To keep God first in my mind, and He can help me through. He created me, and He has ordered my steps to this point. I know He has also given me the tools that I need to do these things He has called me to – I need only to let Him help me.

faith, My Big Jesus

When it feels bad.

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This post also appeared on My Big Jesus!

Why is my child crying? Because she wanted to get in the pool. And then she didn't anymore.
Why is my child crying? Because she wanted to get in the pool. And then she didn’t anymore.

Sometimes, I have a day that just goes wrong. The kids wake up WAY too early. I don’t have a minute to drink my coffee before it’s cold. J throws more of his breakfast on the floor than in his mouth. EK fights me putting on shoes for preschool (she wants the too-big dress-up ones). J goes down for his nap late, so I’m late picking EK up from preschool. No one wants the lunch I fixed for them. Hubby forgot to tell me he had plans all evening. Y’all know how it is. You feel like you’re trying, trying hard, at that. But then the more you try to fix things, the worse they get. Finally, you explode. Or you have a breakdown. Or both.

How about a few cliches you don’t want to hear: Don’t sweat the small stuff. You’ll look back on this and laugh. It always seems worse when you’re in the thick of it. Well, those don’t make anyone feel better. Why is it we always wait to ask for help till things are really bad? Why don’t I pray at the first sign of the day going awry, and ask for a change of heart?

Sometimes my pride, my desire for control in a situation prevents me from asking even the One who can help me most. I want to feel like I’m a great mom, so I try to do all the things myself. All. Of. The. Things. And then, when my healthy, baby-friendly muffins burn in the oven, my kids won’t go down for their naps, I miss my work out and we eat fast food for dinner, I feel like a failure. Not just any failure, an enormous failure, as a mom, as a wife, as the shadow of a normally happy, healthy, productive woman.

I forget to think about what went right. For instance, my kids are fed, clean and clothed, they’ve gotten to play and snuggle, and they’ve been loved on. Hubby came home safely, and kissed me when he walked in the door. I didn’t burn the house down and I even took a shower (am I right?!) so the day wasn’t a total waste.

Sometimes I also forget to give credit where it’s due, to thank Jesus for my family, our full (of chicken nuggets) bellies and smiling (from ridiculous exhaustion) faces, our home (a complete mess because we are so blessed with toys and time to play with them) and our love for each other. So I’ve made a resolution. Each day, I will give as many thanks as possible. I will intentionally thank the Lord for every single thing I can think of as I think of it. I will pray these things without ceasing. Gratitude can change a hard heart (guilty), change a sharp tongue (guilty again), and change an entire outlook from dim to bright. I will learn to rest in the gratitude for each blessing in my life. I will let my heart be changed.

faith

Find a Quiet Moment

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Recently, I’ve seen, heard, and read a lot about priorities, living intentionally, and focusing on what’s most important. Also recently, I wrote a post about how I felt like my word for this season of my life is “rest” (read about that here). These posts, articles, and conversations have really gotten my mind buzzing and my heart pondering.

It’s so easy to get priorities out of whack. It’s even easier when you’re busy; if, like me, you have kids (or pets, so I’m told) to worry about, a house to keep clean, laundry to do, you know the drill. It’s hard to wake up and say, “First things first: I’m going to have some quiet time. I’m sure the kids won’t mind if they don’t get clean diapers or breakfast till I’m finished.” Or if you have to be leave for work at 7:30 like I did (when you aren’t a morning person) it’s tough to get up earlier than you absolutely have to. Sure, if you happen to score a Double Nap (see my thoughts on that here) or if you can send them to school, the first obstacle is out of the way, right? Wrong. Your to-do list is probably a mile long, no matter what your situation.

So what do you do? I don’t know. I’m figuring that out as I go. I’m reaching down deep and searching my soul – and schedule – to add some more quiet time in. On the days that I manage to squeeze it in (especially in the morning) I’m in a better mood, I respond to people with a little more patience and understanding, and my thoughts are nearer to the Word.

So in the spirit of being more intentional about my time (which I will elaborate more on later for sure), I’m adding to my thoughts on “rest” being my word. I’m including “resting” each day in a quiet time… in prayer, in the Scriptures, in His presence. I want to have a few minutes at least to rest and listen for Him. It’s my desire to provide the Holy Spirit with the opportunity to make something amazing happen. If I’m not listening, who knows what I’ll miss hearing Him say.