Raising Thinkers
I like to tell my kids what to do. I’m just being honest. I like feeling like I have some semblance of control over their lives. It makes me feel safe. It helps me feel like nothing bad can happen to them. I know this …
Tag: boys
Summer Dreams
My childhood summers were spent in Southern California. We spent our days barefoot and outside. We didn’t come inside until we heard our moms yelling our names or the street lights came on. We explored, ran around in the street of our cul-de-sac, and road …
Summer of Independence
I have some goals this summer. Like, get my kids to make themselves breakfast and tie their shoes. I want them to be able to man themselves for more than 2.5 seconds without Mama Camp Counselor calling the shots. I created three of you. Three built-in buddies. Surely, you can play together and entertain each other without my intervention. What I didn’t realize, is that teaching my kids independence meant I had to learn some independence, too.
I have served my family for twelve years. I left my teaching career eleven years ago to stay home and raise our kids. All I’ve known this season is serving others. My identity formed in the throws of motherhood. It’s hard to just let that go. My sister says that God doesn’t just pull the band-aid off. Little-by-little, your children gain their independence and slowly move from needing you for everything to only needing you for certain things.
As much as I want my boys to gain independence, I have realized that this is difficult for me. I know it’s my job to raise competent humans. But, it is also my job to love and care for them. I am learning that mommy has a lot of growing to do this summer, too.
Giving your children independence is a lot of work and not just for the kids. My heart needs to let go; if only just a little bit. I need to make space for the boys to learn, grow, and make mistakes outside of their mama. These are the moments that will propel them towards becoming a good human.
I’m not going to lie, though. It’s tough. Giving your kiddos independence means you lose a little control. Your kitchen may become a disaster; things left done but undone. Yet, we were all designed for independence.
Independence is where my children will find the God their dad and I talk about. Independence is where their faith will be tested and hopefully strengthened. Independence is where they will fall and learn their need for a Savior. Independence is the place where their faith will become their own. And this is what I want my kids to learn this summer.
This is the summer of independence. A summer of mom letting go and kids coming into their own. Space to make mistakes and find grace. A time to find and develop their need for and (hopefully) for Jesus. A season to realize they truly are capable of so many things. We will all be challenged, pressed upon, and frustrated at times. But, the reward is too great not to step into a summer of independence.
Love & Blessings,
Meg
Imperfectly Perfect
FLASHBACK FRIDAY I am a recovering perfectionist. Weeellll, I can’t honestly say I’m recovered, but I am working on getting there. I did have to do about a bazillion things and get them all perfectly in order before I could sit down and write today. …
Flashback Friday: Ministry in the Mommyhood
Anyone struggle in the parenting realm? I wish I had the hand-raising emoji. I have a feeling we would all be raising our hands. Like any mom, I struggle in all the things motherhood. Just name a day of the week and I can tell …
They’re Not Responsible
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. Romans 15:13
They are not responsible for my joy. No one is, really. My joy does not lie in the hands of my children. Seems rational, right? However, I think so many of us make our joy the responsibility of our children; especially is moms.
So often the tone of my day is wrapped up in three loud and smelly little beings. I have given them full control over the outcome of my day and my feelings. Placing the weight of this responsibility on their shoulders is to heavy and too much; a burden they were never meant to carry. I am also handing over far too much power over my life and my emotions to my children.
What on earth am I thinking?
We carry a lot as moms. We wear worry like it is the newest and greatest fashion trend. Anything that shifts out of our control stumps us and sets us on edge. A kid is challenging naps? We lose it because we, too, are exhausted and need a nap. Another child is struggling with behavior at school? We blame ourselves and pick up the extraordinary weight of guilt that we aren’t parenting right. So much is swirling around us in a day that it is incredible we even survive. So much is wrapped up in our kids, why not lay our emotions there, too.
We did not have our best break over Christmas. Sure, we had some amazing moments together. We laughed and played and rested. We also had moments of stress, fighting, disrespect, and chaos. That’s parenting. You teeter on perfection and complete disorder all at the same time.
I was so exhausted and frustrated one day that I truly thought I was going to break. I could not take one more moment of bickering, not one more inquiry for snacks, and if I had to pick up socks from some random location one more time my head may explode. I did what all moms do, and text a fellow warrior. I asked this mama and friend to pray form me because I was wondering if I would survive motherhood at all. It wasn’t until I reached out to that friend that I realized I was placing the responsibility for my joy in the hands of my children.
My boys do not get to determine the outcome of my day or my emotional well-being. Do my kids bring me joy? Absolutely! But, they are not the source of my joy.
They source of my joy can only come from one place: the Lord. When I look to my kids, or my husband, friends, or life circumstances to find the source of my joy I wind up empty, depleted, and disappointed. It is only the joy that comes from the Lord that sustains. That is why Paul can say that he counts it all joy when he faces trials of any kind in James 1:2. He knew the source of his joy and that it did not rest in anything outside of God.
The moment I took the responsibility away from my boys to bring me joy and rerouted my joy-focus back to the Lord, I felt a million pounds lifted from my shoulders and theirs. Now, I could enjoy my boys more because they were no longer the source of my joy. When they do what kids do like argue, disobey, or leave their snack wrappers stuffed in between the couch cushions I don’t freak out. I remember that they are being exactly who they are (KIDS) and that their job isn’t to bring me emotional stability. Their job is to be a kid learning their way in this big wide world and I am their guide.
I changed. We think it is our children that need to change when, in actuality, it us that needs the change. And you know what? Once I realized this and took action, my kids changed, too. No longer did they feel the pressure to make mommy happy. All they had to do was be a kid and I got to be their mom. How freeing!
Romans 15:13 says it all. God fills me with joy. God. Not my kids. Not my husband. Not my friends. Not the look of my home or whether or not we take a vacation this year. My joy rests in Him and Him alone.
Rendering that control back to the Lord, where it should have been all this time, was so healing and so very freeing. God is my Sustainer. So, when life looks like pandemonium (because it will whether the kids are home or not), I can still have joy because it comes from an endless Source.
Love & Blessings,
Meg