Ideals. And finding your "groove" over the Holidays.

 Just a reminder to not get overwhelmed with to many things over the Holidays. Love you all!

Ideals.

I am sitting at a Birthday party for one of my children’s friends, just listening to the moms talk. One mom is going back and forth from Italian to English as she converses with her five year old, she is Chinese; so in all her children probably speak three languages. Another mom is telling the story of how she made the gluten free, no refined sugar cupcakes for the party; “I had to be very patient while making these cupcakes! I accidently broke my last two eggs so I had to sit and wait for my chickens to lay more eggs! The frosting has no food coloring in it as well, I used the juice from a beet in my garden to give it that red color.” I am speechless. I love healthy eating but that takes baking to a whole different level for me. I am even a little envious at the care this mom took to be all healthy and natural for the Birthday party. “Maybe I should get chickens and use beet juice to dye my treats from now on,” I think. Then I look over at the cupcakes, all sad looking- dense and not so much red, but a brownish burgundy color, and then I think, “Nah!”

We can busy ourselves with so much unimportant stuff. You moms probably know what I mean. You read the latest Martha Stewart magazine and feel the need to reorganize every shelf in your house with alphabetical labels, or hand sew special pillowcases with intricate embroidered initials for each of your children. You hear the other mothers talking about soccer practice, lacrosse team and basket weaving classes, calligraphy lessons followed up by Mandarin language lessons. You make sure every bite of food your family takes is certified organic, dye free, GMO free, cage free and packaged in all recycled containers. Parenting ideals have become so ridiculously extreme. There are so many blogs, pins, shows, and magazines with more great ideas than we know what to do with. Just when I have found the perfect candy to cook for Christmas a better recipe will be up on the internet faster than I can say, “Pinterest!”

There are a lot of other really good ways to serve for Christ too. We can volunteer in the nursery and soup kitchens. Put together care kits for the homeless. Make another meal for the mom that just had her fifth baby. I would love to open my home to foster children some day. John and I already have a children’s home in India and I feel guilty for not visiting the children there more often! The fact is there’s so many ‘good’ things we could be doing for others but we have to pause and ask God what to focus on for now. We can’t do it all, especially all at once. “One thing at a time mom’s, one thing at a time.”

Ask God to show you what is yours and what is just a good idea. He knows your heart and your good intentions. I am full of good intentions, but I also get burned out because I max myself out on to many commitments. My new best friend lately has been a two-letter word, “No!”

Not all of those ideals are wrapped in wisdom; some are distractions and dangling carrots interjected by other sources rather than the Holy Spirit. If you are feeling like your home isn’t matching the picture in your head, then ask the Holy Spirit to highlight what is the important stuff and what is just the “fluff” an unnecessary fillers in your day.  He wants you to find that zone and rhythm for your family. Sometimes our main obstacle in building our homes is in our minds. In the unrealistic goals and expectations that we have set for our family and ourselves.  

If you don't get Christmas cards out until Easter, It's ok! If all you are able to do this month is laundry and crock-pot meals for your family- Great! You are doing great mom's! hang in there. if I could Pin a picture of you sitting down in your bathrobe doing nothing, I would-cause that is a great idea!

Journaling about my journy to find play in the middle of work.

Stressed out Mom Try’s to be Fun!

If you never did you should. These things are fun and fun is good!
~Dr. Seuss

Funny story and good lesson I had to share.

Today I found myself in my “Drill Sergeant Mom” mode….Again!  Even though it is summer, and we are not as busy, I still find that I often make our play activities seem like work. You know how it can be packing and unpacking a car after an activity? All the details of cleaning up and getting everyone ready, on top of the accumulated mess at home and dinner I have to prepare. If I focus on all that, I can quickly find myself in a not so relaxed or fun mode.

We went to the beach today and I think from the moment I got the car packed with all our surf boards and gear, found parking, unloaded and suited everyone up, to the time we got home to clean up the mess from the day (as well as the mess we left at home) I was in intense drill sergeant mode. I was so focused on all the work that I forgot we were playing. I barked orders for the better part of our day. My kids all tried to avoid eye contact with me in fear I may give them another job or chore for them to do.

I just wanted to be fun mom today. I just wanted to smile and laugh and chase my kids in the water. I have been to the beach before, I was aware of the tasks that involve taking four kids surfing. I could of kept it light and fun, but I let stress get the better part of me. And when I “go there”, everyone suffers.

Well after my ranting and raving, I let the kids go in another room to watch a movie so I could tackle my house cleaning. I scrubbed and mopped and dusted and vacuumed, and during the hum of my vacuuming I remembered how cool my kids really are. I remembered how much I like them and how I could have been a lot nicer today. I asked God to help me focus on the play to be found in every day more than the work. Stuff, and not always fun stuff, has to get done. But if I am always in the taskmaster mode my kids won’t have fun with me or find me an enjoyable person to be around. When my kids are grown I don’t want them to remember me as, “ a really responsible moody mom who got crap done!” I want them to remember me as a happy, fun, playful mom who still got crap done!

I have walked long enough and close enough to the kindness of God to not go into "guilt mode" over the days happenings, and I know Christ in me has made a way for me to be fun and playful, even in the middle of stress. So as I kept cleaning, I decided to find some fun spontaneous ways to be playful with my kids. I want to fill up a bunch of water balloons and then hide and peg them with them when they least expect it. I want to be the one that says, "you know, lets have ice cream for dinner, just once!" I began to form a list of FUN in my mind that should keep me busy for the remainder of summer. I decided that I would even do something spontaneous and fun tonight! John recently got me a fancy espresso maker for my Birthday, and I have promised to make the kids steamers with it, so I thought, “tonight I would surprise them with steamer even though it is bedtime.” This is the part of the story that gets funny in a not so funny sort of way:

After the milk was heated and steamed, I divided it into the kid’s four special cups with their initials on them, and then I went to go find flavoring syrup I remembered I got during Christmas. It was a seasonal pumpkin- spice syrup and I thought it would make an, oh-so good flavor of a steamer. I was really feeling like a fun and spontaneous mom at this point.

Well, I guess the pumpkin flavoring syrup was a product that needed refrigerating after opening and I hadn’t realized that when I decided to store it in my pantry, because when I shook and then opened that sucker, it exploded! It literally exploded all over my freshly moped and scrubbed kitchen and all over me. There was thick, orange pumpkin- spice flavoring syrup on the ceiling, walls, floors and even on the inside of my open cupboards covering every single clean plate and cup. There was “pumpkin syrup from hell” all in my hair and all over my jammies! Here I was trying to be fun and spontaneous and it literally blew up in my face!

I wanted to loose it and start using every four-letter word I knew in that kitchen, but I didn’t (well maybe I thought about the words in my head). I knew that this was life, and life can be messy and unplanned. This is what I had just asked God for and I knew he gave me, the ability to get crap done and still be playful. It was my test, an immediate test from what I just asked for, but it was such a gift to be able to get my rag and spray cleaner and tackle that mess without loosing my cool and goal to play.

After about an hour of cleaning up pumpkin goop before it solidified, I reheated and foamed the milk and called the kids to the table. I told them how awesome they were and I wanted to surprise them with the steamers I had promised them months ago. I sat with them and talked about the exciting things they wanted to do this summer as they enjoyed their Honey flavored steamers.

When he marked out the foundations of the earth, I (Wisdom) was with him as someone he could trust.

For me, every day was pure delight.

as I played in his presence all the time,

playing everywhere on his earth,

and delighting to be with humankind.

(Proverbs 8:29-32, Complete Jewish Bible)

I think that no matter what we are doing, no matter how stressful it seems, if we remember to purpose to play and remain in a playful state of mind, we will eventually not be able to make the distinction between work and play. I want to be that kind of mom!

Be playful with your kids mom's. And don't worry about the mess!

~Lily

Boys: Created to remind every mother to let go and trust God!

by Lily Crowder

Boys: Created to remind every mother to let go and trust God!

 

 I know a dear friend with six boys! No girls! They are a tribe of vivacious, hungry, wild, tender, precious boys from the ages of thirteen down to one. Can you picture their home? The smells? The sights? The toilet? They are all disciplined polite, loving but non- the –less, boys.

As a mother of two boys, who are kinetic daredevils to the core, I am constantly holding my breath or closing my eyes at their latest stunt.  I heard one woman joke by saying, “ raising boys is like riding a roller-coaster upside down, backwards in the dark.” If you are a mother of a boy you can probably relate to that analogy, in one way or another. Even the mellow, tame male-child is full of wonderful unpredictability.

The amount of high surfaces my boys have jumped off of, sharp objects they have ran with, dirty things they have touched and then ate, I would have to say that it is a miracle that they are alive at the end of each day! I used to joke when my boys were toddlers by saying, “every day my main goal is to keep my boys alive.” It was a funny statement by true!

By the time my eldest son could crawl he could move faster than a Pink Floyd laser show, this way and that faster than lightning, I bet with all my running after him I was probably thinner then. In addition to his great speed on all fours was the fact that everything went into his mouth, he was always chewing on something random, I would cringe at the foreign mystery objects I would retrieve from his mouth. One day we discovered that his normal breathing pattern sounded like a squeak, rather than a smooth breath, he sounded like a squeaker toy! When we took him in to have him examined and x-rayed they found a small rock logged in his bronchial tube and centimeters away from blocking his windpipe! He had put the rock in his mouth and had somehow exasperated it into his bronchial tube, causing the mysterious squeaking sound. He had emergency surgery and we have now have the small rock in his baby book titled,  “the six thousand dollar rock.”

Our boys have become a reminder that even out of the womb, in their toddler years, through their adolescences and into their manhood, their safety and well being is out of our control.  In fact, every aspect of their lives is ultimately out of our control. I have observed my own mother and other mothers with their sons as they grow up, you can see the constant tension and release, as she has to let him go.  There is nothing worse than a mom who tries to micro-manage her son, she is meant to let him go and he is meant to be free.

“Lift up your eyes on high and see! Who has created these? He Who brings out their host by number and calls them all by name; through the greatness of His might and because He is strong in power, not one is missing or lacks anything.” ( Isaiah 40:26 AMP)

A mother is constantly in a state of remembering who is in control.

The need for us to acknowledge God’s Soveirngty and Grace over our children and the Holy Spirits ability to lead you as you parent becomes the most essential ingredient in every season of our children’s lives and in our calling as parents.  It is with an expectation that their creator only has the best in mind for His creation that we find rest as parents.  I don’t hand my kids over to God (who were never mine to begin with) and think, “well, I hope it works out!”  I am confident that the same Love that worked for me will work for them. His love overcame all of my parent’s mistakes and shortcomings raising me, as well as all my mistakes and shortcomings raising my children.  I can pray for wisdom and guidance in every step of my parenting, and it is good to do so, but all confidence is ultimately resting on His hand in our lives. We may be compelled as parents to love, protect, instruct, encourage and nurture our children.  But there is a hand’s down agreement that the end result in every area of their lives is reliant on the Grace and sovereignty of God. 

For I know the thoughts and plans that I have for you, says the Lord, thoughts and plans for welfare and peace and not for evil, to give you hope in your final outcome.  (Jeremiah 29:11 AMP.)

Book I am working on.

A few years ago I read The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence, a devotional made from a compilation of letters and conversations from a seventeenth-century French monk. He had learned to practice the presence of God at all times, in every daily task and duty.  His simple letters encourage readers to practice God’s presence and see His glory in every facet of your life. “He found that the shortest way to go straight to God was by a continual exercise of love and doing all things for His sake. “ (first conversation)

He purposed to engage in the Lords presence during every hour of the day. He began to find an effortless, uninterrupted state of awareness and constant union with his creator at every moment, unrestricted by whatever task was at hand. He also acknowledged that it is solely by Gods grace that we can engage in this uninterrupted union with our creator, giving no credit to works or deeds.

He wrote:

The time of work does not with me differ from the time of prayer. In the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as great a tranquility as if I were upon my knees at the Blessed Supper. ( fourth conversation)

This was the concept he devoted himself to throughout his life, that wherever you are and whatever task is at hand, God’s presence was to be known and practiced intentionally through his grace.

I enjoyed the notion of this idea but I was skeptical. Monastic living seemed a much more conducive lifestyle to engage in this type of uninterrupted awareness.

How did these experiences translate to my world? To my sleep deprived, nursing, potty training, house cleaning, laundry folding, can’t even remember when I had my last uninterrupted moment of quietness, phase of life.

I wanted the awareness of his presence and grace to transcend the noise and clutter in my life.  The peace and grace brother Lawrence spoke of to be consistent in my every day duties of motherhood.  I knew the Lord desired for me to find full pleasure in every moment, as unglamorous as it may have seemed.  I began to take the practice of His presence into my world, finding pleasure in the awareness of His grace and the joy of his company, even while changing a dirty diaper.  I remember thinking “ one day I would like to write a devotional like “The Practice of the Presence of God”, for mothers.”

This book is meant to be just that, an encouragement for mothers to engage in a constant awareness (practice) of His presence in the every-day, mundane tasks of mothering.  A call to all mothers to feast on his grace, grace that wants to invade every aspect of your home, your family and you!