Truth for the Trenches

(1980s with my mom) As women we still find it hard to grow up. We want our moms to be the moms of our childhood. To forgive, not show their hurt feelings, hold us and love us. But do we let our moms be human? Do we let them be women? This is such a challenging relationship for most, a struggle and a joy tangled together. We want our moms to not have feelings, to not ask anything of us and to think we are the best. I promise your mom does think all those things. But, she is human, she is also a women and she has emotions; they range every spectrum just as yours do. She has expectations, she gets her feelings hurt and she can't turn off her desire and need to protect you. As we grow from girls to women and we ask our moms to allow us this freedom we have to give them the freedom to grow from a mom into a woman. As I got married I pushed away to form a new family with my husband. But, I hurt my mom in many ways and I didn't communicate well. She gracefully walked in h...

“I will sing with the voice that He’s placed in my soul So the world will hear what He was done We must sing if our hearts have been changed by our God Let the whole world know that he has come Come and sing with the angels to the king Come and bring Him your song” -Jeremy Quillo This song has been bouncing around in my head for a while. The idea of bringing Him my song has made me question: What is my song? I spend time thinking about what I am not, how I do not measure up or what I should be. God has given us each a purpose, we each reflect His beauty and glory to the world and we should build on the areas where we do this well. We should use them with a kingdom focus for a purpose: to “let the whole world know He has come”. We have different roles but I think the song we should sing, the gifts we should use are strengths that carry over throughout all those roles. My biggest role right now is being a mother and it is very hard for me. I am much ...

I spend so much time trying to change things, trying to not feel something that really hurts or forgetting to settle into what is truly satisfying. I get distracted or I choose distraction. I don't allow myself the space to reconcile the emotion, to understand the emotion and to communicate the emotion clearly to myself or to others. I think I am not alone. Am I? I am being challenged in this in many areas of life. Challenged by defining myself as "someone who is not sensitive"...but I am. Challenged in my desire to push away from conflict, to ignore feelings until they disappear, but they don't disappear. They alienate, they lie, they disguise themselves as other feelings and cloud my thinking, my reactions and my beliefs. So I am asking myself "what if I settle in?". What if I settled into the hard season or the hurt feelings and explored them? What if I finally admitted  what reality was like? It would be ugly, it would be vulnerable. It would revea...

Are you ever paralyzed by fear, anxiety, indecision? I am often. Typically about silly things, but they never feel silly. EVERYTHING feels significant. These boots for instance...I needed a pair of functional boots: run errands in wet weather, play in the snow, keep my feet warm so I can keep up with life boots. However, the decision on what boots left me frozen. I couldn't make a decision. I wanted to be wise, I wanted them to solve multiple problems and I also wanted to like how they looked. Last night I found 3 pairs of boots and 1 pair of fleece boot socks sitting on the floor of my bedroom. Some had been there for 2 weeks! My daughter voted, my mom voted, my sister voted and my husband voted...enter silliness here! This morning I picked, I put them on and I walked outside in the snow to take out the trash. THERE, can't go back now!  I realized as I stood in the snow in my new boots that fear and anxiety held me back for weeks from enjoying this new gift of boots. ...

“‘Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, you servants of the most high God, come out and come here.’ Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego walked out of the fire. And all the princes and the captains and governors and the king’s counselors gathered together there and saw these men against who bodies the fire had no power. Not a hair of their heads was singed, nor were their clothes burned and there was no smell of fire upon them.” Daniel 3:26-27 We read this over breakfast by my 5 year olds choice. I thought it was an odd morning reading choice but then this passage spoke loudly to me. I started reading it loudly and as I read the excitement grew. God is powerful! I love that King Nebuchadnezzar commanded them to walk out of the fire. But that wasn’t enough, he also commanded them to come to him. He wanted to not just see but to smell and touch the clothes and the men who survived a fire no one else could. I found myself thinking of things I have survived; seasons of hurt in marriage or difficulty i...

In Exodus God provides for His people no matter the circumstances but they still struggle to trust Him, I am seeing that I am the same as they are...walking in fear when I have every reason to trust. God rescued the Israelites from slavery, brought plagues on the Egyptians and protected the Israelites from disease and death and yet they still do not trust God, they still do not believe He will provide and protect them. I don't think I am doubting God because I do believe He will forgive, or provide a job, safety for our family and faith for our children. But, when I am not praying for joy during a really hard day I am doubting He can provide that. When I am counting down the hours until my husband arrives home to be daddy I am doubting God can give me the patience I so desperately need. When I collapse in front of Netflix during nap time I am not trusting God for rest and restoration. Exodus 14:12 "Is not this what we said to you in Egypt: 'Leave us alone that we may se...

I think about things a lot in the middle of the night. Crossing from one warm room through a chilly hallway to another warm room, rocking John and placing in back in his crib to make the chilly trek again. Then laying in bed trying to fall back asleep the thoughts and ideas come flooding in! Last night was the brillaint idea to take a family photo in front of the Christmas tree, with John in his Christmas pj's. Well, we have these perfect ideas that are never perfectly fulfilled. At 5:45a John peed through his jammies! Having already washed them once from a previous incident we just put his dirty ones back on for a quick picture (don't worry he got a bath immediately after)! The lights on our tree have a short in them so we kept having to hit the tree to make them come on. It isn't the best picture but it is a reminder to me that dissapointment over small details can ruin an entire day. Christmas cannot be joyful because everything is perfect...we are celebrating a perfect...