Top 10 Ways to Keep JOY in Motherhood

      I had the pleasure of speaking at a local MOPS meeting today. It was a tremendous blessing to me to be there.

     When we moved to NC, we had four babies that were 8 weeks to 4 years old. It was a tough transition for me, leaving all of my friends and family and moving into seminary housing. God used another MOPS group to minister to my heart and get me out of a self-absorbed funk I was living in.

  This year's MOPS theme is "Plunge Into Motherhood...Loving Earnestly" and the theme verse is

Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

1 Peter 4:8-11

After I was asked to speak, I immediately began to remember how those early years can sometimes be so trying. Living in JOY can sometimes be overshadowed by the diapers, the sleeplessness, the potty-training, etc.

Following are the speaking points I used today. As always, I don't write these words as a Mama who has, some how, arrived at the place of perfect motherhood. These words will be donning my OWN fridge as soon as I get them printed.  I pray that it will bless you and help you find Joy in the little things. :o)

10. Don’t wash the elephants not meant for TODAY'S parade. 
Try not to spend too much time worrying and fretting over decisions that don’t need to be made today. Planning has its place, but we can easily miss little moments because we are fretting about things that have nothing to do with where your child is right now.

 9. BELLY LAUGHS are good cardio.
 Try not to take yourself or your children too seriously. Kids are FUNNY creatures. It isn’t hard to find ways to laugh with them until your tummy hurts. If you drop a dinner pan or squirt ketchup across the room, let them see you laugh at yourself. It teaches them GRACE and that perfection is not a requirement.

 8. Choose your battles WISELY. 
 Not every behavior you observe in your child needs stern correction. Children are learning with every moment and every interaction, so make sure that you hold firm on the things that will affect them the most and relax some on the behaviors that may just be personality developing or phases that will pass before you know it.

7. Put your CAPE away! 
Supermom does not exist outside of the movie or TV screen. Weigh carefully your engagements and responsibilities in and out of your home. If you overload your life, everyone in it suffers. It is okay and even respectable to say “No thank you.” to even the most honorable duties in order to keep a healthy, joy-filled home. Finding balance is KEY!

6. Conquer your evil nemesis: YOURSELF. 
Demonstrate GRACE to yourself when you make a mistake. Every Momma has or will have a moment where they are certain they just received the nomination for “Worst Mom of The Year”. Guilt and self-loathing are like pits of quicksand. Our children often demonstrate FAR more grace towards us than we do to ourselves. If you make a mistake that weighs on you, find a way to prevent it happening again and then LET IT GO.

 5. Cash your REALITY check.
 Sometimes our to-do lists for a single day resemble the space shuttle launch checklist. There are only a certain number of hours in a day and a certain amount of minutes before and after naptime. Being realistic about our plans, our expectations on the children, and our monetary limits will prevent frustration and encourage a peaceful heart & home.

4. Use your WHISPER instead of your WAIL. 
When you are tempted to lose your cool and explode, practice reacting in the opposite way. Instead of yelling, whisper your words to your child and watch them react with equal levels of calm. It is 100% effective and 200% less stressful.

3. Every day is a reason to CELEBRATE! 
Not every day requires balloons and streamers, but a simple, intentional statement of thankfulness or excitement each day will not only teach your child gratitude, but will cultivate a joyful heart for everyone in your home- even YOU!

 2. The Buddy system saves lives. 
Don’t think of it as “misery loves company”. Hard days are made easier when you know you aren’t the only Momma going thru little phases with your children, but there is also something very special about celebrating the little milestones of your life with another Momma who completely understands your otherwise unappreciated elation.

1. Make God the center of your home. 
 Undoubtedly, there is no greater way to live in JOY than to keep God as the center of your home. Our husbands won’t always say the right words at the end of a hard day. Our children will sometimes fall short of our expectations. Even our precious friends will sometimes disappoint. God will never leave you or forsake you and He loves you without fail.

Being Forced Up The Ladder

This year has, by far, been the MOST difficult year of my life. It has been so difficult, for so many different reasons, that I feel forever changed by it.There are parts of me that will never return to who I was before August of 2011. Those changes are mostly good, but have not come without pain.

In the last few weeks especially though, I feel as if I am being lifted out of a cloud. My desire to write has returned and I am again finding time to put on paper (or blog!) a lot of the themes and illustrations that the Lord puts on my heart. I will probably eventually put into written words the events of this year and how they have specifically changed my life forever, but for now I want to start to share some of the lessons He has taught my heart through it all. I hope you can find encouragement here for whatever struggle you are facing.

Fear of Heights

Some time ago, a friend encouraged me by saying, "God doesn't give you more than you can handle." I have heard this many times before and, although I believe it to be true, I don't think it is true in the way people often take it.

This statement says many good things about God. It speaks to His faithfulness, His gentleness, His LOVE for us.  

However, as humans of flesh and bone, we want- we CRAVE comfort. 

We do.

   

I do. 

A lot of times, we confuse comfort with blessing, as if those two things are synonymous. They aren't. Because we (I) confuse those words, we end up interpreting the statement above to mean something entirely different than it is intended. We begin to believe the lie that tells us that, "God won't give me any situation that causes me to feel discomfort or inconvenience."

Our precious church (that we will say goodbye to on Sunday) is going through the book of Ruth, both in worship and in our adult bible fellowship time. One of the themes that has been revealed to me in Ruth is the allowing of stress or suffering on Naomi and her family.

 Why would God allow these stresses, even for a brief time? 

 As answers were given, our group discussed Ruth 1:20-21 and Isaiah 54:7-8. People testified of times when God grew them through suffering. I started thinking about a ladder.

 Yep, a ladder. 

 First, I must confess that I have a mild fear of heights and have become paralyzed by fear on a ladder on more than one occasion.

I began thinking about how anyone can step up on the bottom rung of a ladder and feel secure. On the bottom step, you are only about 6 inches off of the ground, right? What is there to fear?

 It is as we progress UP the ladder that fear and anxiety begin to grow. Why is that?

 At the bottom of the ladder, we still have to be standing ON the ladder. We are already depending on the ladder to support us, even if only a little. Why do we have so much MORE fear the higher we get?

The answer is simply this:  at the bottom of the ladder, we are not trusting the ladder at all.

We trust ourselves. 

We trust our ability to protect ourselves from the fall. After all, at 6 little inches off the ground, who wouldn't land on their own feet?

 Right out of high school, I had a boyfriend that I thought was the most perfect man in the world. I was 100% wrong and God knew that. (He also knew there was a beautiful, curly-headed man waiting for me that would one day make me his forever bride, but that is another blog post for another day.) With this not-so-perfect guy, I had a long distance relationship. It seemed to work well right up until the time that I broke code. See, this not-so-perfect guy completely trusted me living 7 hours away from him as long as I was sitting in my living room and never leaving- never interacting with anyone else, never being tempted to stray. One day, I decided that I was created for more than keeping up on daytime television and I registered for college again. That simple act began the downward spiral that would prove to be the demise of that relationship. The truth of the matter was that he didn't trust me at all. He trusted the circumstance. When his trust was tested, it failed and so did our relationship.

For us, it is when we climb the ladder that we begin to realize our limitations. Our trust is tested. 

 At some point, we begin to realize that, to continue up, we have to take our trust from our own ability and place it on this ladder. At some point, we understand that we might not be able to save ourselves from a fall should this ladder fail us. Surrendering to that knowledge is where we face a decision. We can climb down. We can freeze and become paralyzed. We can continue up the ladder and finish our task.


In the same way, it is when we find ourselves spiritually forced up a few rungs of the ladder of life that we suddenly realize how little power we have and how much we need to rely on the character of God to save us. So what do we do?

1. We can climb down. We can refuse to trust God and continue to live a life trusting in ourselves. We will never grow. We will never accomplish the tasks that God has planned for us. With this choice, we will spend our lives always seeking that outcome, that feeling of fullness in fellowship with God that climbing the ladder would have given us. We will only ever bring glory to ourselves and God will remain second.

 2. We can continue climbing and finish our task. The Bible tells us over and over that we are made full only in Christ. In this knowledge, we can trust God and persevere. The 91st Psalm does not tell us that a life hidden in Christ spares us from pain or from discomfort. It states the contrary. It proclaims boldly that these things ARE coming and WHEN they come, we WILL feel His presence. This Psalm is one of many that promise us that, when we abide in Him, we WILL be supplied with HIS strength to continue on. We will enjoy the fullness of fellowship with God, our Creator and Mighty Fortress. This is often not easy to accomplish, but it ALWAYS develops a stronger faith in God and a deeper love for Him.

3. We can freeze and become paralyzed. I think this is what most of us do at some point. As hard as it is to overcome this particular spot on the ladder (spiritually or physically), it is also a GREAT place to find ourselves because it brings us to what we call a crisis of faith. Here, when we can’t decide to trust God, but understand our weakness, we must surrender to either the trust or the fear. When paralyzed from movement and not making a choice, we become stagnant. We do not grow, but we do not find relief from our stresses. We are forced, often by the circumstance itself, to either trust God or not.

If we acknowledge all of the characteristics of God, we will eventually realize the need to press on and we will do so having completely confronted our own weakness. We press on even MORE confident in our need for Jesus and with faith that has become even MORE sure of God’s love for us.

If, however, our choice at this point is to climb down, we will do so in full knowledge of our own weakness and also with full understanding of our need for a Savior. Although this choice often leads to disappointment, increased pain, increased stress, or a myriad of other natural consequences, the stage will have been set to meet this moment again. When we find ourselves in this crisis of faith again, we will remember the pain of not trusting God and, hopefully, will seek to utilize His strength in the next climb.

As a parent, we never want our kids to suffer or struggle. We want them to have ease of life. However, because of the sin they too carry in their hearts, they will sometimes make choices that cause them pain. Often, the MOST loving thing we can do for our children is to allow them to experience natural consequences, so that they don't repeat that choice.

 I believe this is what the Lord, our Father, does for us too. He loves us so much that He sometimes allows us to be forced up the ladder. He knows what awaits us at the top. We may not find ease or convenience waiting for us, for comfort in this life isn’t our most pressing goal. We WILL, however, find the blessing of Jesus at the cross waiting for us every single time.

      Every time we decide to trust God fully through our trial, we will find that 

God has been glorified through our perseverance and faith 

and that the circumstances, however painful, will not overcome us. 

So, the next time you are feeling pressed to move up the ladder, take a deep breath and don’t look down. Don’t stand there wondering why you are on the ladder or why someone else isn’t being asked to climb. Don’t trust in your ability to control the situation or your ability to protect yourself from pain.

Look up.

Look into the face of God. Look into the deep scars left on the hands of your Savior and trust that the victory has been won. He will not give you more than you can handle, because in HIM there is no earthly struggle that can remove you from His love and the fellowship that awaits us in Heaven.

In that truth, we climb.

Happy Father's Day Daddy.

It is often said, by people who don't especially like shopping for others, that "Father's & Mother's should be honored on more than just one day a year. We should honor them EVERY day!" I hope that I honor my husband more than just a few special moments a year. In the same regard, those of us who are missing that key relationship in our lives, don't often spend one day of our lives that we don't long for the return of that person.

Whether you lost your Dad through death of physical body or from death of a relationship, you and I know that a day doesn't pass that your heart doesn't think of them. The pain from that loss echos through your life each and every day, but often in stange ways.

I miss my Daddy. Even on the lovliest of days, an ever-so-slight rememberance can seize my heart in pain for the loss of that relationship- for myself, for Nathan, and for my children. It doesn't go away. It doesn't fade with time. It hurts the same today as it did the very first day, if not more. Knowing that his life goes on without us is gut-wrenching and is a tool Satan uses to keep the burns fresh and fleshy in my heart. The wounds left require almost daily scaling away, in order that I am ready, should that day one day come when he seeks to know us again.

I am grateful for the Lord who keeps me as His daughter. He washes me with love mixed graciously with living water and renews that part of my flesh that is left charred and bitter. I cannot run fast enough to escape his concern for me. He won't allow even my sin to keep us apart for long, because He presses me to see it and rid my heart of it. He moves in my life and provides more than the food I eat. He gives me rich morsels from His Word that direct my path and show me the goodness of His sovereignty- in the joy of sunshine and in the cold, damp rain. He loves me.

I know that many live with this familiar pain and many are seeking that Fatherly love every day. I pray that you will fall into the arms of the Lord and let him wash you with His grace. His strength cannot be threatened and His love exceeds our expectations on each and every day.

She Speaks. She Writes. She would LOVE to attend this conference!

Many people say to me, "You should write a book!" My answer is usually, "In all of my freetime?" Ha!

Also this year, I have had the blessing of leading a ladies'discipleship class and have discovered that I am completely comfortable leading a large group of women in thi setting. Who knew?!?!?! This comes as a HUGE relief to this wife of a church planter that is headed to Chicago in one year. (That was one of my secret anxieties that is now scratched off of the list- PRAISE THE LORD.)

For three years I have wanted to attend this conference. I love writing and would love to learn how to better tune my craft, so that I am more affective in glorifying God and inspiring other women.

Maybe this year...

Time To Grieve

The children were told Saturday morning and we cried with them and held them.

In SC, we met with the funeral home and made cremation arrangements.

The church has been secured for the memorial service in a week and a half.

The obituary has been written and delivered.

Now to deal with my heart that has to accept she is gone.

It has been the Lord's perfect blessing that, since Friday, I have been able to hold the image my Grandmother whole and in Heaven at the front of my mind- like a wall that blinds my view of anything else. This morning, my heart, in all it's aching and sadness, has pushed through that wall and revealed the reality that my Grandmother isn't HERE anymore and I miss her so, so much. The tears won't stop and, for now, I am not going to try to stop them.

Sweet comfort comes in the way of my 7 year old son's arms around my neck and head on my chest. He doesn't know what to say, but he is keeping watchful vigil over me this morning. It is his lack of words that makes his comfort even sweeter- no talking me out of it, no trying to understand it or reason it away, just providing comfort through it.

I'm in good hands.

Thank you for your kind words and prayers.

~Angela

My Grandmother

~Grace Louise Parker April 16, 1925- June 25, 2010~

Beloved wife of Martin, Devoted Mother of four children, Loving Grandmother of six, and Proud Great Grandmother to seven.

My Grandmother was graceful and beautiful. Some of my favorite memories with her are of me sitting on the floor of “Benalee's Coiffure” - the beauty parlor where she had her hair done every Saturday morning for over 25 years and watching her laugh and share stories with the other "usuals". She always seemed so sophisticated to me, even in the later years of her life when her body was failing. I always remember thinking that my Grandmother was so tall, but in hindsight I think it was just her strong character and dignity that gave her a few extra inches in everyone's mind.

Of all the things she modeled for me, and similar to Nathan's Gran who went to Heaven a few years ago, it was her love for her husband that I think has made the largest impact on my life. My Grandfather passed away years before I was born, but I knew him through her. I knew every detail about him through her stories and through her palpable love for that man. He died young and she lived the rest of her life in love with him and him only. She honored him through those stories and through her devotion to his memory all these years. Sometimes when I see his picture, I can almost imagine his voice saying something that she had told me he would say. Her eyes lit up when she would tell us a “Granddaddy” story and she would seem to physically get lighter.

Last night, Nathan called to pray with my Mom and while they prayed, my Grandmother met Jesus. I am blessed to have had her in my life. I am blessed that she knew my children and knew them well. I will always treasure that myoldest daughter carries her name and I pray she grows up to have even HALF of the strength that my G had. Our hearts hurt deeply over this loss, but I know that we will see her again. As we mourn her loss here, we are comforted by the knowledge that she is present with our Lord and Savior. Through the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross and through her belief that He died for her sins, she will no longer know pain, or tears, or death. She will only know the everlasting JOY that comes through the worship and praise of our Father in Heaven.

I love you G. I miss you very much, but I will see you whole and healed again one day.

*The photo above was taken on June 5th, when she shared a magical day with our family at the SC Aquarium. She was in her wheelchair, but we all had such a wonderful time celebrating Cooper's 7th birthday. It was a day that, as I watched her face and the faces of my children with her, I felt the Lord's favor on us. Those memories for my children are treasures that will serve as a reminder of just how much the Lord loves us and cares for us.

Silence Is Golden

I heard this song on the radio this morning and it spoke volumes to my heart.



Here are the words:
God loves a lullaby
In a mothers tears in the dead of night
Better than a Hallelujah sometimes.
God loves the drunkards cry,
The soldiers plea not to let him die
Better than a Hallelujah sometimes.

We pour out our miseries
God just hears a melody
Beautiful the mess we are
The honest cries of breaking hearts
Are better than a Hallelujah.

The woman holding on for life,
The dying man giving up the fight
Are better than a Hallelujah sometimes
The tears of shame for what's been done,
The silence when the words won't come
Find More lyrics at www.sweetslyrics.com
Are better than a Hallelujah sometimes.

We pour out our miseries
God just hears a melody
Beautiful the mess we are
The honest cries of breaking hearts
Are better than a Hallelujah
Better than a church bell ringing,
Better than a choir singing out,singing out.

We pour out our miseries
God just hears a melody
Beautiful the mess we are
The honest cries of breaking hearts
Are better than a Hallelujah

Better than a church bell ringing
better than a choir singin' loud
singin' loud

This is such a wonderful message. I think there are many messages in this actually, but the one I took this morning is humility. In our humility, God's might is shown to the world MUCH more loudly than when we stand on our chairs and bellow.

I am a visual person, so this is the picture God gave me this morning: I am much more encouraged and honored when I observe my child changing, maturing, making good choices over a period of time and without any attention seeking than I am when they say things like, "I am never going to ________ again." See, a momentary muster of courage to blurt out a wish is not nearly as evident of heart change as is the long-term girth that it takes to actually LIVE that change in your life. That is the evidence of growth and change. For all the loud AMENING we have the ability to do, I believe that the Lord is glorified MOST, when our very lives are in humble agreement with His word.