Monthly Archives: July 2014

The Battle

The Battle Within
You and I know the battle well. We live it day after day.

Watch your toddler. He will wander past the street, the stove, the electrical outlet, etc., completely ignoring the potential hazards, and then one day he gets too close and you say, “No.”

And that’s all it takes for you to spend the next hours, days, or weeks moving him, distracting him, scolding him, and and putting him in “time-out” . . . all in an attempt to prevent him from doing something you know will hurt him.

Paul wrote in Romans:

21 I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong.

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Mid-Life Mama

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Wednesday morning, our eldest (aka The Princess) came downstairs and greeted me, warmly, for the first time, as “high school mom.” Her brother, (aka The Professor) moved up from middle school and will be a member of next year’s freshman class. He and his sister will spend one year in school together before she graduates high school in June.

It occurred to me that there are (at least) three phases of motherhood. There are the “moms of littles” years, the “mothers of grown children” years, and, my current situation, living as a Mid-Life Mama. My husband and I are raising teens, and I find the experience of being here remarkable.

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Motherhood Minus Social Media

Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise,  making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.  Ephesians 5:15-17

 

I have a few regrets in life, like everybody else. As I reflect back on these past 13 and a half years of motherhood with all of the ups and downs, challenges, blessings and everything in between, I have come to appreciate the gift of the early years. Recently it dawned on me that there was something missing in those early years, something that, in retrospect I realize, I didn’t miss at all.

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Have you been called to a season of rest?

I’ve noticed a lot of quiet blogs and websites lately, and a good number of inactive social media profiles.

My website has been uncharacteristically quiet the past several months. Between my mom’s passing and my month in the Holy Land, I haven’t had much time (or inspiration) to be online. I manage to post on a couple of sites occasionally, but I decided to give myself some online breathing room this summer.

A lot of us choose to slow down the pace during certain seasons, especially summers. Our homes are chaotic with kids and family, or our schedules are busy with projects and travel.

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Living Your Calling

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The spilled batch of homemade laundry detergent finally pushed me over the edge.

I’d been experimenting for a while with homemade cleaners. Cheaper. Earth-friendly. And I liked the image of myself as the kind of mom who made her own cleaning supplies. If nothing else, it was a great topic for playgroup conversation.

But standing there with gloppy liquid oozing over my toes, it hit me:

This is not me.

It’s not that making your own cleaning supplies is a bad thing. It just wasn’t my thing. Being “housekeeping challenged,” to begin with, why did I want to add layers to my household chores?

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Faith to Move Your Mountain

When you need faith to move your mountain…

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This passage has been a challenge to me. It’s easy to feel like somehow we must manufacture mountain-moving faith–as if it is some secret formula only the most devoted can learn.

Sometimes we’re trying to move the wrong mountain.

I struggled with the questions in my heart about how to have faith to move my mountains. But sometimes we’re trying to move the wrong mountain and too often we ask the wrong question.

Jaque Banas of Vision Writer’s International teaches the concept of journalizing, a specific way of meditating on Scripture by taking dictation from the Holy Spirit and writing to capture, assimilate and obey His personal instructions.In

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When Facebook Starts to Depress You

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Have you ever scrolled through your Facebook news feed and wondered why you felt kind of down?

Maybe you got on to quickly check in with a friend or to post a note and picture about what you’re up to. But, you find yourself scrolling…a quick “like” here…a brief comment there…and you notice something has changed.

Your thinking has changed from That’s a great picture of my friends, to That looks fun. I wish I could do that.

What beautiful scenery! turns to I’ll never get to go there.

I’m glad she finally got to visit there. becomes Must be nice!

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Rest For Your Weary Soul

My sister lives at the end of a long and winding road.

There isn’t much at the fork in the road to indicate safe harbor. In fact, the jarring yellow “Dead End” triangle warns you away.

Oh, but there is nothing dead at the end of this road when you venture past the strongly worded warnings and come through the curve of trees dripping with ivy. The gray-green glow at the bottom of the hill hovers over you with a living light.

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There is a squat brick box of a house, square in the middle yard, with an incongrous bamboo forest towering over the back of it.

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