Hi friend! I am so glad you have stopped by the site. We have such a wonderful community of moms here and we would LOVE for you to join us as we share life and learn together!
All in Hope
I'm an introvert.
I've known it since the first time I heard the word, and truly understood what it meant. Reserved, quiet in groups of strangers, worn out by large groups of people, hater of small talk, harder to get to know, thought snobby by some, and completely overstimulated by noise.
Lucky for me I have really quiet boys...
Ahem...
If I knew that slowing down to say hello to a fellow mom could land me in such a pool of mommy guilt, I would have kept on going. She started off the conversation with a rather innocent question, but before I knew what happening, one of my comments opened up a door to an accusation I never saw coming . . . and that triggered an onslaught of mommy guilt. I nodded along with a smile on my face, but but on the inside, I was on the brink of tears and feeling like a failure as a mom.
I pressed on with the details of the evening, feeling icky and wishing I could go home. All I wanted to do was talk to my husband, and yet looking back, I’m so glad that was not an option. Instead, I ended up emptying my heart before the Lord each time the emotions rose up inside of me.
Stick to your priorities. Jettison everything else. I love this one because it makes everything so much easier. Once I know what is important to us - to our family - then everything else gets a polite, "No thank you." You are not obligated to attend every craft bazaar, cookie exchange, or Christmas play. You are only committed to what is best for your family.
Reject all commercialism. It has no place in your home. Block advertisements, mute the television, and throw out the garbage coming at you. Pay zero attention to the world's attempt at redefining Christmas. They've got it all wrong. Stick to the Real Story of Christ.
I'd like to think I'm an expert pray-er. I can clearly see how my prayers changed things. For example, I have three little kids—not birthed from me—running around my house who are examples of that. Yet the way that my prayers changed the future is different than you think.
God is not a genie in a bottle. My prayers weren't effective because I figured out the right words to make God do what I want to do. I used to think that. As a young Christian I'd try all sorts of things:
I wouldn't admit it out loud, but I believed deep down if I said the right things, at the right time, in the right way, that God could be swayed.
I know most of us here are Christian moms but we want the same things as every other mom right? Every mom wants to keep her kids safe, help them grow up healthy and strong, protect them from monsters and let them believe they’re super heroes, agreed?
All mothers can pretty much agree on these points but as moms following God, we have different standards and we see a bigger picture. We see beyond keeping our children safe to making them holy vessels fit for the Master’s use. We see far past our children’s temporal lives and gaze into their eternal futures.
If you’ve ever seen the first Hobbit movie, you might remember this line:
Tucked away in my journal is a little list that I find myself returning to often lately. At some point I went through the New Testament of my Bible and jotted down all the times that someone says “and I pray that…” You see, my prayer life isn’t always very rich or powerful or consistent. More often than I care to admit, much of my prayer life is me throwing up quick requests for God to bless my plans as I go about life. So I wanted to comb through the Bible and see what sorts of things Jesus’ earliest followers prayed about.
Two of my favorites are in the book of Ephesians. Ephesians is a powerful letter from the apostle Paul to the newish Christians who lived in Ephesus during the first century. He had poured his heart and soul into the early formation of the church at Ephesus and obviously had some important things he wanted to share with them.
