Hearts at Home

I have a guest post over at Jill Savage's blog today.  Please visit me there!  Jill Savage is the founder and CEO of Hearts at Home, an organization that encourages, educates, and equips moms of all ages and stages of motherhood.

The Balancing Act: Being a Mom—and a Person, Too

“Honey, I hope you’ll be able to be a whole person yourself—not lean on me for your total identity.  I want you to always be able to have a life of your own.”  My husband Woody said this to me years ago as he reflected on a particular patient who seemed unable to function independently years after her husband died.   Woody meant well. He really did.  Nevertheless . . .

“I want you always to be able to have a life of your own.”  The words exploded in my brain, and I’ve never forgotten them.  This conversation occurred during the living-at-the-end-of-a-dead-end-street-with-three-children-five-and-under-and-my-husband-never-home era of my life.  Woody was just getting a new medical practice off the ground, and was working day and night.  I could not even imagine having a “life of my own.”  Just when would that occur?  Perhaps between the hours of 3am and 5 am,  when often—but not always—all three kids were asleep and Woody was often—but not always—home to stay with them?  Not the greatest time to go for a run, take a class, or meet a friend for coffee.

All those long-ago feelings came back to me a few weeks ago when a young Texas mom asked me, “Do you think a woman begins to resent her husband and children if her whole life is devoted to them and she has nothing in her life just for her?”  A really good question!  I’m still thinking about it, in fact.

There’s no easy answer.  And there’s no answer any of us moms can give for someone else.  We’re all wired differently, and our life circumstances and family lifestyles vary greatly.  But here are a few reflections from my mama-heart:

• To be a good mother, you must first be a person yourself.  A whole person.  We repeat this often at Mom to Mom.  Being whole, healthy women of God means we must be nurtured physically, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually in order to nurture others. It’s a little like breast-feeding, come to think of it.
• Motherhood is an extremely sacrificial role.  We give up a lot for our kids—and our husband, as well.  But it requires balance.  Someone said it long ago: If we constantly bend over backwards for our families, we tend to lose our balance.
• Each of us finds ways to maintain our balance, and those ways differ from person to person.  For me, it meant that no matter how hard it was to make it happen, I managed to attend a Bible Study (with childcare at our church), go for a 30-minute run now and then (when I could get an after-school babysitter), and attend a Book Club once a month (Woody had one night off a week and I read the books during nap time or in the occasional evening when I could keep my eyes open).
• Keeping our balance as moms requires hard, clear thinking about priorities.   I wanted to live without huge regrets.  In my case, this meant that I chose not to return to my career (teaching) because the demands of the position would have negatively impacted my family.  This was a very personal decision, and I realize that many moms do not have choices about working outside the home.  But where it was a choice for me, I wanted to make a choice I would not later regret.
• There are many seasons in a mom’s life.  Though I walked away from one career opportunity, I was able to say a joyful “yes” later on to another—more teaching in my church, and eventually to the great adventure of beginning Mom to Mom.  It’s important to remember that though your days may feel like “forever” right now, there will be other days ahead, including potentially much more freedom in your choices.

It’s a wild ride being a mom, isn’t it?  A wild, wonderful ride!  And a precarious balancing act.  Keeping my balance kept me on my knees.  As with everything else,  attitude is everything and prayer is the main event.

How do you keep your balance?  Please share your thoughts—we’d love to hear from you.

Choosing a Theme

Though it is not necessary, you might want to prayerfully consider choosing an over-arching theme for your Mom to Mom each year. This year we chose “Gratitude,” weaving the topic into our devotional times, Chew ‘n Chats, guest speaker topics, “quote of the day,” and closing celebration brunch.

Focal Scripture

“Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done” (Philippians 4:6, NLT).

Guest Speaker Topics

• “Is Gratitude Conditional?”
• “Thanksgivin’ Livin’: A Hands-on Prayer Experience”
• “Hand in Hand: Hospitality and Gratitude”

Suggested Reading

Choosing Gratitude Your Journey to Joy by Nancy Leigh DeMoss

Choosing Gratitude by Nancy Leigh DeMoss

Note: Each Titus 2 Leader was given a copy. We discussed select chapters throughout the year at our Chew ‘n Chats.

Selected Quotes of the Day (from Choosing Gratitude)

• “Choosing gratitude means choosing joy.”
• “Gratitude is a life-style.”
• “Let’s allow the Spirit to make gratitude the new default setting of our hearts.”
• “Thanksgiving puts us in God’s living room. It paves the way to His presence.”

Closing Brunch

Closing song: “Give Thanks with a Grateful Heart” by Henry Smith

Suggested Summer Reading

One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp

One Thousand Gifts

—Saundria, in Tennessee

Rest for the Weary

Now that the Mom to Mom year is drawing to a close, it’s time to kick back and take a much deserved rest.  Here’s my formula for perfect summer rest:

Pick a restful spot. I’m an Atlanta girl. My restful spot is the porch.

Choose a comfy chair. Mine is in the shade on my side porch.

Pour a cool drink. Remember, I’m an Atlanta girl. My drink of choice is sweet iced tea with lemon.

Choose a good book. I have three recommendations for summer reading: The first is One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp—a book that leads you into radical gratitude with poetic words and graceful imagery. The second is Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy—an accurate history of what happened in Germany during World War II and of the man God chose to lead a generation of believers through the mire of history (a perfect read for current times). The third recommendation is A New Kind of Normal by Carol Kent. Kent writes authentically about what happens when life doesn’t turn out as you expect.

Now, put your feet up and REST.

From the Atlanta Girl

A Gift for Mother’s Day—and Every Day

It’s my gift to my daughters this Mother’s Day: My new favorite book, One Thousand Gifts, by Ann Voskamp.  And, in case you don’t yet know about it, I’d like it to be my gift to each of you.

A lover of many books, I rarely read a book twice.  There are so many still waiting to be read!  But this one—this one I just finished reading the second time.  And not the last, I suspect.  This one—this one is life-changing.

The title and subtitle name the theme: One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Where You Are.  A friend challenges Ann to list a thousand things she loves.  So begins the list, a list which launches the author—and us—on a wild and wonderful journey.  A journey which throws open the door of hope to receive wondrous winds of grace.

We come to understand the Greek word eucharisteo in a new way.  Eucharisteo.  When Jesus took the bread, in the original language the word is eucharisteo: “He gave thanks.”   The root word is charis: “grace.” As we begin to list the everyday gifts of grace in our lives, it changes everything.  It opens our blind eyes to a new way of seeing.

But this book is far more than a list, far more than one more reminder to “count your blessings.”  It takes us deep.  Deep into the dark, cold world of unthinkable tragedy and unspeakable loss.  It begins at the beginning for the author: ”The day when blood pooled and my sister died and I, all of us, snapped shut to grace . . . the moment when the cosmos shifted, shattering my cupping of hands” (p. 10). No wonder, then, that she begins one chapter: “God and I, we’ve long had trust issues” (p. 141). How can wounded hearts and clenched fists ever learn to open to grace?

And how to live out eucharisteo in a very real mom-life?  A world of laundry overflowing and kids fighting and appointments looming and exhaustion eternal (or so it seems)?  Ann Voskamp writes from a real-life mom perspective.  Very real.  Homeschooling mother of six, Ann and her husband are hog farmers in southwestern Ontario.  The book jacket tells us they are “raising a half dozen kids, crops of corn, and the roof in praise.”

Amidst all this, Ann is a poet.  Her words sing.  From the first pages, they take your breath away.  And leave you gasping for air throughout this wild, wonderful ride.  I made the mistake of picking up the book for the first time early one morning when deadlines loomed.  I was so captivated that I literally had to walk it out to my car and lock it there until my work was done and I could go back to it.

Best of all, Ann is a God-pointer.  Her words are powerful not only because she is so extraordinarily  gifted,  but because they are grounded in the Words of God.  “Without God’s Word as a lens, the world warps” (p. 91).  This book will help remove your spiritual cataracts so you can see both Him and the world around you—yes, the dishes and diapers, the runny noses and nonstop neediness, the meals and messes and real kids and real husband—with new eyes.  Not just Ann Voskamp’s.  His.

Easter: The Great Reversal and Sounds of Laughter

Holy Week always feels chaotic to me. Inwardly chaotic. Emotionally chaotic. I can’t decide how to feel.

On Palm Sunday, children sing and palm fronds are waved and Jesus is hailed as a King.  Such rejoicing!  But then the real chaos begins.  In a few short days, how the crowd turns.  By Thursday night, one of Jesus’ own has betrayed Him.  On Friday—just five days after His triumphal entry into Jerusalem—the crowd is shouting, “Crucify Him!”

Wait!  My heart cries out: What happened to the triumph?  And why is it that I—one who joyfully, even ecstatically, welcomed this King into the City—now find myself amidst this other, uglier, angry crowd?  That’s the horror: my sins put me right there with them.

It’s true, the line we sang in church recently (from “How Deep the Father’s Love for Us”  by Stuart Townend and Keith Getty):  “Ashamed, I hear my mocking voice call out among the scoffers.  “  Martin Luther was right:  “We carry His nails in our pockets.”

So it made great sense to me last Sunday when the young preacher said of Palm Sunday, and Psalm 118, which we were studying: “Today we celebrate the God of Reversals.”  And then this week I came across a series of long-ago Christianity Today articles on Holy Week under the title “The Great Reversal.”

The God of Great Reversals.  Watch Him at work through Holy Week.  Temporal, fleeting triumph turns to terror, and torture, and death.  For a day there is silence—holy, awesome silence.  And then the Great Reversal: RESURRECTION.  ULTIMATE TRIUMPH OVER SIN AND DEATH.   ETERNAL LIFE.

The God of Great Reversals.  A God in Whom the empty become full, the weak become strong, and sinners like me are forgiven and freed.   And death—yes, even death—is destroyed, “swallowed up in victory,” as Paul puts it.

Enter the laughter.  Now there’s a reversal.  No one was laughing much during Holy Week.  But now there’s laughter “from the other side of death,” as author Philip Yancey puts it.  I came across the exact quote this week.  The words had long echoed in my ears.  But there it was in an old file.  Yancey’s conclusion to a chapter in his book I Was Just Wondering . . . entitled “The Fragrant Season”: “Listen, Christians.  Can you hear the laughter from the other side of death?   Breathe deeply of a fragrance like no other.  Let it fill your lungs this spring, this Easter.”

I’ll be listening for the laughter this Easter.  Can you hear it with me?

Isn’t That SO Funny?

“Isn’t that so funny?” is one of Gabriella’s favorite new expressions.  Gigi, as we call her, loves to laugh.  And sing.  And dance.  On our recent visit to Ireland to see her and her mommy (our daughter Erika) and daddy (our son-in-law Richie), I was reminded how very important it is to laugh.  To actually have fun with your kids.

Every time we go to Ireland—and really, every time I travel—I am reminded of the universality of mom-feelings.  On this past visit, we spent a lot of time at playgrounds—another thing Gigi loves.  I loved playing with her there, and I also loved watching the other moms and kids at the playground.

One day we had the great good fortune of a long time on the swing.  There was no line of people waiting, as there often is, for the toddler swings.  As I pushed Gigi, a young mom pushed her son, a little boy who seemed about Gigi’s age (2 ½).  His mom looked as if she had been pushing him on that swing for a very long time.  In fact, she’d become almost robotic.  Back and forth, back and forth.

Then she looked over at me, sighed, and said: “Ohhh, it feels like forever.  The days feel like forever. “  As I nodded in instant recognition of those feelings, she went on to tell me how early her little boy gets up, how he doesn’t nap much if at all, how hard it is to get him in bed at his usual time now that the days are light so much longer, and . . .  You all know the rest of the story well.

A few moments later I noticed a very energetic grandmother playing with several of her grandchildren.  They were having a ball.  The kids had set up a “store” under one of the climbing structures and she was “buying” all kinds of things from them (including ice cream—which definitely got Gigi’s attention!)  Soon the kids tired of that game and ran on to another, and this very engaged grandmother looked over at me with both a big smile and a sigh and said, as she ran after them,” I am absolutely exhausted!”

Sounds familiar, yes?  Days that feel like forever.  Chronic exhaustion. It comes with the mom-job, with keeping up with these little energizer bunnies.  Which is why I love watching my daughter and her daughter have so much fun together.

Yes, Erika’s days often feel like forever.  And yes, she is most always exhausted (especially now that she is pregnant with Gigi’s little brother or sister).  But even amidst it all, they do have fun.  I wish I had a video of Gigi dancing with her mama in front of the mirror, traipsing around in her mama’s shoes (what little girl doesn’t love that?), or waking up in the morning carrying on conversations with herself interspersed with “Isn’t that just so funny!”  (Not caught on video!)  But we did have fun with her new scooter, new sunglasses, and glasses for Corduroy—and how about tutus for headdresses?  I suspect it’s the having fun part that gets many moms through the not-so-fun parts of the mom-job.

I’m not sure I was that much fun as a mother.  But I hope you are!

Workshop Day

I am so looking forward to workshop day!  We have a Mom to Mom group in New England and we decided that with our incredibly long winters, we needed a break and a “pick me up” day rolled into one. On this one day (or it could be two) we can “vacation” from the core lessons and offer a multitude of workshops that will sharpen our intellectual as well as our creative minds.  Moms will sign up for workshops that range in interests, from flower arranging to “Exploring Your Faith”—from creative memories to dealing with depression—and any and everything in between.

We are blessed to have a church where talented individuals share their gifts with our ministry.  I am always looking for new suggestions to add, so please feel free to share any workshop ideas that may come to your mind!

—Connie, in Massachusetts

A Timely Book for Moms

I just read a book I intend to send along to my daughter.  And I’d like you to know about it, too: Living with Less So Your Family Has More, by Jill and Mark Savage.

It seems perfectly tuned to our times.  Global economic upheaval, recession, job loss, and threat of job loss.  Downsizing has become almost trendy!   Yet this book is far more than trendy.  It’s good for families to read at any time.  All families.

The title got me first.  Less can actually be more when raising a family in our culture.  As I travel and speak to Mom to Mom groups, I am frequently impressed with how hard it can be in our materialistic culture to raise kids with solid, sane, Godly values.  In some ways it’s almost easier to do (in a strange sort of way) when we have externally imposed economic boundaries.  If the sky’s the limit, it’s a lot harder (though still necessary) to set healthy spending limits with our kids.

We also tend to get confused, in our culture, about what matters most.  Before we know it, the quest for the almighty dollar can squeeze the life right out of our homes.  All-important relationships—with our spouses, our kids, our God, and others—all too easily get lost in the shuffle.

In this book, Jill Savage, CEO of Hearts at Home, and her husband, Mark, share some very practical steps you can take to stretch your few dollars farther.  The last section of the book is full of down-to-earth strategies to help real-life families navigate tough financial times.

But the first two thirds of the book are even more important, in my opinion.  In Part One, the Savages help you identify what your long-term vision is for your family.  Then in Part Two, they discuss the attitudes that can help make that vision a reality.  I especially like their emphasis on contentment and simplicity and the counter-cultural mindset needed to foster these attitudes.

The book has the ring of authenticity.  The Savages live what they write.  Good to know!

But what I like best of all about the book is that it’s far more positive than negative in looking at family finances.  This is not a book about how to “grin and bear it” when your family feels the financial pinch.  Rather it is a ringing affirmation that “less” can truly be “more” when you have your values straight and get your attitudes aligned accordingly.

BTW, in her blog, Jill frequently shares new and fresh tips on living large with less.  You might want to check it out!

Another Great Question: Words To Live By

“When you’re in the trenches, what scriptures have carried you through?”

What a wonderful question!  But it would take a lifetime to answer—both my lifetime and yours!  For one thing, God’s Word provides “everything we need for life and godliness” (I Peter 1:3), whether we’re deep in the trenches or singing in the sun.  The Bible is packed, from beginning to end, with words to live by.  And the Holy Spirit individualizes it to each of us.  He knows precisely what words we need at any given time, and He brings them to mind when we need them.  And, as Moses reminds us, “They are not just idle words for you—they are your life.” (Deuteronomy 32:47)

With that caveat, here’s a (somewhat random) list of some of the Scriptures I live in:

• Psalms:  All of them, at one time or another.  But some I call my “walking Psalms,” Psalms I memorized as a child but have re-memorized as an adult, Psalms I sometimes go over on walks or in the middle of the night: Psalms 1, 23, 100, 121, 46, 139, 103, 91, 34.  Food for the soul!
• A Pattern for Godly Parenting: Deuteronomy 6:1-9; Ephesians 6:1-4
• Parenting Prayers for Wisdom:  James 1:2-5; II Chronicles 20:12; Judges 13:8
• Encouragement: Philippians—all of it, but especially 1:6 and chapters 3-4
• Worth and Value as a Woman:  Isaiah 43:1-7; Zephaniah 3:17
• Hope for the Future (and when I’m missing my mom): John 14:1-6; Revelation 21:1-5; I Corinthians 15 (all of it—but especially vv. 51-58); I Thessalonians 4:13-18

Believe me, this is only a start—the smallest beginning.  As I said, it’s a lifetime question.  Stay tuned...  And in the meantime, maybe some of you would share some of the scriptures you live in.  I’d love to hear from you!

Two final thoughts (final for now):

1. A Daily Tip: Most days, I read Daily Light, along with my other readings for the day.   Here’s why: The compiled verses on a given topic often remind me of passages I’ve not visited in a while.  When a verse jumps out at me, I look it up in context.  It often leads me to wonderful places in God’s Word where I’ve not been recently.
2. When you’re really hitting the bottom: Remember God’s lifeline promise that the Holy Spirit prays for us in “groans that words cannot express” when we cannot pray for ourselves (See Romans 8:26-27). Thank you Jesus!