Category: Mama

Mama/

Mama 10 Ways To Renew Your Joy

Hey Mamas!

As a mama to 4 kids ages 7 and under I can so often find myself getting caught up in the mundane of each day, as well as the task and checklist I have. Add in the house,  homeschooling, activities, careers, and everything else and you quickly find yourself just trying to get through each day. We often need a refresh to remind ourselves (and our kids) we need to take time to add joy back in our days and make amazing memories to look back on. I know I am not alone in feeling like I need a mama refresh so here are 10 simple and fun ways to renew the joy in your motherhood!

Download the FREEBIE here as a quick reminder for renewing your joy!

  1. Start your journey back to joy with a dance party! My kids love it when we blast some music and dance around the living room! You can also turn on a slow song and twirl your little ones around and everyone will be full of smiles and giggles in no time! 

2. Ice cream makes everything better! Who doesn’t like a surprise treat every now and then! On days when we all need a little joy refresh in our house I load everyone up in our Wurzel Wagon (aka our giant van) and we hit up our favorite ice cream drive-thru. It makes it extra special when I do not tell the kids where we are going and as soon as they see the ice cream place cue the joy and screams! Don’t want to leave the house, then grab some ice cream and toppings at your next grocery shop. Surprise the kids with an ice cream party let them add their own toppings and enjoy some mama chocolate time along with your littles!

3. Movie nights are popular in our house. A movie allows some downtime and even some rest for Mama. Grab some popcorn or any other favorite snacks, pile up on the floor, on the couch, or our favorite, the bed! My kids really love getting on Amazon and watching old movies from my and Daddy’s childhood!

4. Lunchtime is often a little chaotic with school work, hungry kids, and a sleepy baby. So a great way to switch things up and add some smiles on everyone’s face is to have a simple picnic either indoors or outdoors. Make some quick PB & J, fruit, yogurt, and a juice box, and my kids feel like they have won the lottery. They would rather eat a snack like lunch than a homecooked entre any day and the simplicity makes it easier on Mama too. Throw a vinyl table cloth (Wal-Mart usually has holiday/seasonal ones that the kids love and they are about $3) on the floor and you have an easy clean-up picnic!

5. Bake Goodies! Our family is obsessed with Food Network! My kids love watching the Kids Baking Championship show. They have their own pretend  Baking Championship with cakes made of Legos, blocks, and other toys all the time. So we had a Brownie Baking Championship with different flavor brownies they all got to try and judge to pick their favorite. They loved it! Baking any type of goodies is always a way to add some joy to our days.

6. Craft Night is another winner in our house. Grab some construction paper, glue, tape, glitter paint, you know all the messy stuff! Let them go outside or use the vinyl tablecloth again to keep your mess contained. Give everyone a theme for their crafts or just let them use their imagination.

7. Break out the camera or use your phone and help your kids create their own TV Show or Podcast! My kids love to make their own news show updating on their day or the weather. They have also recorded their own show where their sister is the host and she interviews her brothers like a talk show and it is hilarious to watch!

8. Family game night! Break out the board games or simply play some tic-tac-toe! Make your own Pictionary games or charades. We have yet to try this but next on their list is a family Double Dare night!

9. Camp out in the living room! You can either hang out for a while in your campout or sleep all night! Throw some blankets and pillows down or sleeping bags if you have them. Make some blanket forts and tell campfire stories. Of course, you cant have a campout with smores! We recently made smores in a bag which was easy and less mess for Mama! Just melt some marshmallows or use marshmallow cream mix them in those little individual bags of honey teddy grahams, add mini Hershey bars or chocolate chips grab and spoon, and enjoy!

10. Have a family talent show! Think America’s Got Talent, The Voice, American Idol… everyone can take turns showing off their talent whether it’s magic tricks, dance moves, or singing their favorite songs! Make sure you participate too Mama the kids love it when I sing my favorite old-school songs (at least I pretend as they do) lol!

Have fun Mamas and renew your joy while making precious memories with your littles!

Have other ideas that your family enjoys let me know in the comments!

Faith/

Mouthful of Kindness

“She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teachings of kindness is on her tongue.” Proverbs 31:26 ESV

As I was studying my Bible recently this verse really stood out to me.

First, anytime a verse from Proverbs 31 comes into play I am so tempted to feel defeated before even reading it. Let’s be honest the woman in Proverbs 31 seems perfect and I instantly think there is no way I am able to meet her standard. (Which I address in my book, You Are- Trusting God To Define Who You Are). But this verse is especially hard for me to live up to.

As Christians, we are already given this unfair idea of perfectionism, immeasurable kindness, and continual, unconditional love by both believers and non-believers. So when this verse is reinforcing the importance of what is coming out of our mouths and that kindness should be a major component of that I am instantly hit with guilt and the feeling of being a failure.

If you know me then you already know I have no problem talking! I have never really had a problem with saying what’s on my mind or how I feel about something. Having no issue with speaking freely and being assertive is a double edge sword at times. While I credit those qualities to helping me accomplish positive things in my life I can also say they have hurt me and discredited me at times as well.

When I think of what has come out of my mouth even in the last few months I can definitely say I did not always have wisdom, kindness, or love flowing out. Ask my husband and my kids and I am pretty sure they would agree with me. It seems those who are closest to us unfortunately are those who get the worst of us at times. The last year I have been working on being more intentional with my words and not just my words but the tone of my voice.

So I am taking this verse as my reminder to redirect my thoughts and therefore what comes out of my mouth. While speaking freely about what is on my mind and being assertive are a part of who I am, how I use those qualities are completely in my control.  Not only is this important for me to remember for myself it is important for the example I am setting for my own children. They mimic everything we do, what we say, and how we say it.

To help myself as well as my children we have been talking about using our words only to encourage and show love. We wrote down what biblical love is from the verses in 1 Corinthians 13 each characteristic of love on a post-it note. They each helped decorate them and we hung them up on the kitchen wall as a daily reminder for all of us as a family. It has not only helped them it has helped me! We do most of our school work in the kitchen, most of my daily housework happens in the kitchen, we spend so much of our day preparing, eating, and cleaning up in the kitchen it was the perfect location for us.

There is no need to assume that the famous Proverbs 31 woman was perfect either, I can assure you she was not. The quality that was most important about her was her faith and her intention. So I am focusing on my faith and my intention especially when it comes to my mouth! If you are like me maybe this can serve as a small reminder to you as well. So here is to controlling our tongues and focusing on speaking wisdom, kindness, and love to our husbands and our children.

 “13 If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

13 And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.” 1 Corinthians 13 New International Version (NIV)

Faith/

More Than We Can Handle

How many times have you heard the saying, “God won’t give you more than you can handle” during a difficult time in your life? If you are like me, the answer is too many! While this seemingly encouraging statement may make some feel better it is truly a misrepresentation of who God truly is. During times of hardships, brokenness, heartbreak, pain, and uncertainty we often reach out for an answer or comforting words. These words for me became a source of more hurt and more confusion.

 In 2009 after months of trying my husband and I found out we were expecting our first child. Having planned for this amazing gift for so long we were beyond elated. When I was at the very beginning of my second trimester, I began to have complications. It was New Year’s Eve 2009 that began a journey that would forever change my life.  Days later, I found out I had lost the baby to a missed miscarriage. Devastated and heartbroken are the closest I can come to putting my feelings into words. The death of a child due to pregnancy loss is a pain unimaginable and journey that never ends. As our family, friends, co-workers offered their words of encouragement and sympathy hearing this simple saying multiple times not only broke me, even more, it also made me question God and his character.

To me, those words were leading to the assumption that God had caused this devastating moment in my life because I was not ready to be a mother or maybe not meant to be a mother at all. Others insinuated there could have been physical or mental challenges for the baby so God knew I couldn’t handle that and took my baby instead. The biggest misconception following this seemingly simple and encouraging saying is that God causes everything in our lives he gives us these hardships and tragedies.

The truth is God does not cause all the hardships, struggles, and tragedies in our lives. He does not give us devastation as a lesson, a test, or a consequence. God does not have a concrete set of blueprints for every step of our lives, and he does not purposefully give us hardships. God has a plan for our lives that he has established much like a strategy, but he has also given us freedom, flexibility, and choices.

Unfortunately, part of humans having freedom and the ability to make choices is what led to the broken world we live in. The moment Adam and Eve decided to disobey God in the Garden of Eden and eat of the forbidden fruit they opened the door for sin to enter this world, changing it forever. The consequences of that moment in history are the hardships, the devastations, the struggles, and the tragedies that we all face in our lives. I know God did not give me the loss of a child to face but I know he did help me handle what I was given in this broken world. Though God does not cause all the hardships we face he can, however, use though moments to bring us closer to him and to show us his unconditional love.

In order for this saying to accurately reflect who God is and how we handle hardships the saying should be reworded. The correct version of this simple saying is, “God does not give us what we can handle, God helps us handle what we are given”. This represents the true character of God as well as the need we have for him in our lives.

We were never meant to journey through this life-bearing our struggles alone.  At the time of my first pregnancy, I had strayed from my relationship with God to say the very least. I knew God was real and he was important, but he was not even on my priority list at that time of my life. The moment I realized something was wrong with our baby I began to pray. I began to seek God for his wisdom, his love, his miracles, his safety. I had been struggling through life for years on my own up until this point. That is when it became so clear to me that I could not make it through the devastation to come without God. Even though I felt so far from God and I did not seek any relationship with him he had never left me. He was there waiting for me to call out to him.

The moment I realized he never left me was the moment I realized despite the pain and the hurt I was feeling he did not cause this to happen to me or my baby. I knew God had not taken my baby away from me, I knew he was not testing me, he was not punishing me, he was not giving me consequences of not prioritizing him in my life.  God is a good God who loves us and wants nothing but the best for us. His Word demonstrates his love and desire for us to be happy, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV).  He is not out to seek revenge or punishment. He is not always giving us or allowing us struggles and heartbreak to test our faith.

God helped me handle what I was given and he continues to do so each day. As I began to grow closer to God the more I was able to see how he used what I was given to develop my purpose.  I was able to see how the loss of our first child was giving me a purpose I never thought possible. I learned through our pain we can often find our purpose. I know the sweet little baby I carried but never got to hold saved me in more ways than one. God was able to use the loss of our baby and impact my life, my husband’s life, and his future siblings’ lives in ways I never could have imagined. I was able to reconnect with God and renew a relationship with him like never before. I was able to prioritize my life in a way that made finding my purpose so much clearer to me.

God was there guiding me through this newfound territory of unimaginable grief and sorrow. He was connecting me to people and the community that would be essential to my healing and growing process. He used this time of grief leading me to connect with a community of women who have also lost a child(ren) to pregnancy and infant loss. He led me to share my story and my writing to help others find healing in their own journeys. He gave the pain of losing our Baby KW a  purpose and an everlasting memorial through my writing.

He used this pain to humble me. He used the longing for a child of my own to give me the desire to spend as much time possible with the children I was blessed with after our loss. He reminds me to focus on loving our children even when the days are long and hard. He showed me to never take my children, their health, and our time together for granted. This pain allowed God to show me ways to love my children, develop a relationship with my children, and show them the true meaning of faith in ways that otherwise would not have been possible.

God was there using my husband as a tangible support system. Giving him the words to say to bring me comfort and hope. Creating a bond, a relationship, and a foundation for a marriage I am forever grateful for. God showed me how much faith my husband had in him and revealed how important his faith was to me as well. The hope instilled in the words my husband said to me was God’s way of assuring me in a time of the unknown, unbearable hurt, and fear of not being able to have a family of my own one day.

I know without a doubt I never could have made it through this part of my journey on my own. Though my husband, my family, and my pregnancy and infant loss community were an amazing support for me had I not had my newly refreshed relationship with God I know my life would have ended up on a much different and very difficult route. When you lose a child to pregnancy loss you feel alone, misunderstood, responsible, and the thought of moving forward is inconceivable. You would rather stay home, skip your daily routines, forget about your responsibilities, and you could easily sink into a deep, dark, depression. Had I not had God’s Word, His Hope, and His love reassuring me each day I am not sure I would have made it out of that dark time in my life. 

God is always there for all of us. He is our source of love, strength, and hope. Even in the darkest and hardest of times, we can find peace through God and his unconditional love. “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:7 (ESV) When you feel like you have been given a difficult struggle or when life seems like it is too much to bear do not believe the lie that God has caused it or that you are not strong enough to handle it. The truth is God can help you through everything you face in life. You are strong enough through God to handle it all. “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” Philippians 4:13 (ESV)

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved

Faith/

Busy Mom’s Guide to Quiet Time with God

As moms no matter what our situation is we all have at least one thing in common, we are always so busy! We often wonder where the day went when we look at our to-do list that has not been completed at the end of the day.

This week I have been trying my best to be more intentional in finding quiet time with God. A time I can really sit and communicate and open up with God not just a time to read a quick devotion or a few scriptures. It seems like so many moms wake up early before their kids for their quiet time with God or Bible study time. I have tried and failed many times at trying this route.

For starters most, days at least 1 of my kids are up by 6 AM so getting up before then is never happening. I have never been a morning person! Now as a mom of four then throw in some insomnia, a baby and 4 year old who I am pretty sure hate to sleep at night and you will always find me soaking up every minute of sleep between the hours of 4 AM to 6 Am.  

So if you are like me and rather stay up all night than wake up 30 minutes early I have some ideas of other times throughout your day that you can spend your quality time with God!

  1. Nap/Quiet time. We have a nap time and/or quiet time every day at our house. Sometimes everyone sleeps and sometimes no one sleeps they just lay and rest quietly. They may be in their beds or they may be watching a movie while the baby sleeps. But I NEED this time for so many reasons as a stay at home mom who homeschools. This quiet time is the perfect opportunity for mommy to have some alone time with God!
  2. Kids Free Play. Because we homeschool, we like to take breaks in between a few subjects throughout the day. In the morning we usually do a few subjects just after breakfast then take a break. The kids have “free play” in their rooms at this time. This allows me to clean up from breakfast and sneak a few extra minutes of alone time in my Bible.
  3. Lunch Time. If you are a working mama lunch time is the perfect opportunity to have some quiet time with God. You can have alone time in your car, at your desk, in your designated lunch area in your office, at your favorite restaurant or coffee shop.
  4. After Dinner. Maybe you have some time in the evening in between dinner and bed time ask your spouse to take over homework, bath time, or whatever your usual routine is and use that time as your alone time with God. It does not have to be every day maybe even once a week.
  5. TV Time. My husband’s way to relax is to just watch TV. But my Type A Mom Brain does not work like that. If the TV is on, I need to be doing something else like scrolling for new DIY projects for my husband to do on Pinterest, or scrolling Instagram, searching for a new wardrobe on Pinterest, just anything else. So why not pop in some headphones and cuddle up on the couch with your Bible turn on some praise and worship music and open up to God.
  6. Kid’s Bedtime. After the kids go to bed and stop coming in for hugs, water, bathroom breaks, repeat… use this as your alone time with God. Let the dishes and laundry pile up another day. Sit down with your Bible, journal, and the chocolate you’ve been saving all day and pour your heart out to God.
  7. In the Waiting. Whether you are waiting for a doctor’s appointment, work appointment, sports practice, school pick up line take advantage of that quiet car or waiting room and pull your Bible out.
  8. Middle of the night. Maybe you are like me and survive on less than 4 hours of sleep more than you would like to admit. Instead of lying in bed scrolling Pinterest or trying to solve every life problem you have at the time grab your Bible and spend that quiet time with God.
  9. Set aside. Take the time and set aside one night a week or maybe a month and ask your spouse or a babysitter to take over for an hour so you can go be in your room or leave the house for some quite time with God.
  10. OTHER TIPS: Have your supplies ready! Gather your Bible, Journal, pens, highlighters or whatever is your Bible Study style and place them in a basket, bag, or bin so they are ready for any opening in your schedule. Use headphones and some praise and worship music to drown out any interrupting noise. Have a Bible study, devotional or other reading materials ready and place them with your Bible.