Tag: life

Lightning, Thunderstorms, oh…Revelation???

Lightning, Thunderstorms, oh…Revelation???

FLASHBACK POST: …a continuation of my series on miscarriage. This entry is vulnerable, real, and raw. The dead of night is always the hardest when you are going through something tough. It is when you are completely alone in your feelings. I remember this night 

On My Knees

On My Knees

FLASHBACK POST: Lately, I have realized that I need to share what brought me into the blogging world: my story. My original blog (hello, MySpace) was a place where I recorded milestones and triumphs of our first born and our adventures in a new town. 

My Whole Life. My Whole World.

My Whole Life. My Whole World.

FLASHBACK FRIDAY: A Post on Motherhood to Celebrate All The Mamas Out There

Ten years ago my husband and I loaded everything we owned into a moving van. We strapped our 15-month old into his car seat and headed 3,000 miles east to plant new roots in the middle of the country. I had a deep longing to stay at home with our son and moving was the only way we could live this lifestyle. Everything I had known, most of my identity, was stripped away from me the moment we pulled out of the driveway. No longer was I a teacher. I had graduated from college so student-life was a thing of the past. My family and friends all stayed behind so I had to find a new village. The only part of me that remained was wife and mom. Two things I cherish(ed) but I wasn’t used to them being the only things that defined me. Transition. Change. It’s the hard stuff.

Flash-forward and I have been a stay-at-home mom and wife for ten years. I have found my identity in this role and gotten comfy. I dappled in photography and taught preschool for a split-second, but, the majority of who I am is found in wife and mom taking care of the home front. I like it. I don’t want to let go of it but I feel it slipping through my fingers like wet sand.

My boys are my entire world. I wake up every day and think of the things I need to do to care for them. As every mom knows, that list is long and seemingly endless. They always have needs. Always. But, I happily oblige these things because those boys are literally my whole life; my whole world. Yes, I am a daughter of the King first, wife second, and mama third. I get that and try my very best to live out that pyramid. I also know, that in this season, I am called to our home and the raising of these kids. However, something very peculiar is happening and it’s happening fast: they’re growing up. (Que the ugly cry)

I gave up myself so that my boys could have a good life. I chose to leave my identity behind so I could fully take on the role of mom. I am here for them most of the time. They have a need, there I am. Lately, however, these kiddos have desired a little freedom. Mind you, I do not do everything for them. I truly believe in teaching kids from a very early age how to care for themselves and be an active participant in the needs of the home and family. What I am referring to when it comes to freedom is the need to explore outside of my hovering. They want to ride their bikes with their friends around the neighborhood. They want to go down to the lake and explore without mom right behind them. My oldest wants to stay home instead of run errands. Mom is still needed but in a different capacity.

My whole life and my whole world is growing up entirely too fast. It is such a bittersweet experience. I absolutely LOVE sitting back and watching my boys become their own person outside of their dad and I. It’s like a glimpse into their future selves. My oldest is going to his first day of middle school on Monday and while I feel more sad about this than the day he entered kindergarten, there’s an excitement within me knowing I will get to witness my boy become a man in the next few years. What a privilege.

My boys will always need me. Their needs may change, but there will always be a need for their mama. What they need from me now is space: space to grow, space to be, space to make mistakes, space to be alone. It’s scary entering this new world. How do you let your whole world go? It’s like the first time your toddler tells you, “I do it.” On one hand, you are elated that you no longer have to buckle them into their car seat because they can do it and on the other hand you want to cry because they no longer need you in that capacity. I am there only their “I do its” usually refer to doing something completely outside of me.

Motherhood. It’s this black hole of so much love and indescribable emotion. You feel like your heart may explode because you love them so much. You want them to need you while at the same time, you just want to pee alone. Your parents and those older and wiser tell you it all goes so fast and you don’t believe them. And then one day you blink and the 15-month old that you buckled into his car seat before you gave your life away to be his mama became this incredible young man about to enter middle school. It’s a wicked game that time.

My whole life and my whole world are growing up at warp speed. I can’t slow time down. I wish I could but I can’t. All I can do is savor the moments; collect them in a jar in my heart and let them be. It’s truly a gift to witness these little guys grow. It’s been a wild ride. One I will never ever regret.

I am so thankful I gave myself up so I could be their mama. And just because they may grow to be taller than me doesn’t change who I am to them. I will always be their mama.

“Behold, children are a gift of the Lord, The fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, So are the children of one’s youth. How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them” Psalm 127:3-5

Love & Blessings,
Meg

NO Regrets

NO Regrets

I looked over at my husband during worship at church and thought, “I want to enjoy this guy for forever.” I just want to enjoy him. I don’t want to try and change him, nag him, or ask him to do all the things. I 

My Best Life

My Best Life

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” John 10:10 I follow a lifestyle blogger who touts living her best life. She just turned forty and decided that it is about time 

It’s Complicated

It’s Complicated

The complexities of faith. We google and search trying to find answers to our faith. We look up the Hebrew and Greek translations studying the context of the time trying to make sense of it all. We listen to the voices from the pulpit and the ones who are deemed authorities on all things Scripture related and write their words in permanent ink on our hearts. Others walk away from faith completely. It’s too hard to understand, makes absolutely no sense, or, we’ve deemed it all crazy. Whatever the case may be for you, we sure have made this whole faith thing complex.

“What made sense to me when I first heard about Jesus is how He doesn’t give us a bunch of directions intended to manipulate our behavior or control our conduct. Instead, He has beautiful hopes for us and has told us what those are, but He isn’t scowling at us when we’re not yet ready to have those same hopes for ourselves. He won’t love us more or less based on how we act, and He’s not stuck telling us what to do, when to do it, or what we want either. Far better, He continues to tell us through our successes and our mistakes who we are, and here’s what He wants us to know-we are His.” Bob Goff

I got a text from a friend the other day. It was the anniversary of a loved one’s death. She was trying to reconcile this person’s faith. He said he believed in God but his faith really stopped there. She was asking us to help her make peace with whether or not he was in Heaven. Since I am not in Heaven myself and cannot give her absolute certainty, here is what I told her. It’s a matter of his heart. We are going to more surprised by who is not in Heaven than who makes it there. The outward actions of our faith carry far less weight than the truths of our hearts.

We get so concerned with and wrapped up in our actions; what people can see that we lose sight of Jesus. The rules matter more than the relationship. Being right according to our faith carries more authority than loving our neighborhood. We exhaust ourselves from trying to do it right all the time when Jesus is asking us to let Him carry the weight of our burdens. Our hearts are what matter; are what’s on the line. Yet, instead of exercising our hearts, we are facilitating our rightness.

Jesus isn’t complicated and that scares us. He doesn’t keep a record of wrongs. He doesn’t roll out His list of rules we must follow. He loves. That’s it. And it’s that love that propels others to change.

Reckless love like that of Jesus scares the heck out of us. When people choose to follow Jesus this way, their faith is questioned.

How can you just love? It’s our job to keep people on the right track.

No, no it isn’t.

How can you love that person? Your job is to hold them accountable.

No, no it isn’t.

How can you love that person? Their lifestyle completely opposes the church.

I can love because of Jesus. We forget that Jesus was there when we were created; when life first began. He knows our ins, outs, and in-betweens. He knows we need time to come to terms with what He sees in us. I know this because I can look at every single person in the Bible and see how each of them needed time to fully accept and step into the person God was calling them to be.

God called Moses to leadership but Moses told God he wasn’t a leader.

God called Sarah into motherhood and she told God she was too old.

God called David to be king but he was the scrawny kid.

God called Mary to be the mother of the Savior yet she was a unwed teen.

God called Peter to be the rock on which the church would be built but he would betray Jesus.

God called Saul to bring the saving message of the Gospels to the Gentiles, yet he killed Christians.

I can go on and on listing others who were not what God called them to be. They could not see this person in themselves. Yet, there was something in Jesus, that extravagant love, that led them to those callings. That same love resides in you and me and those people you shun.

We like rules. We like structure. It makes us feel safe. It gives us a script when everything is so unknown. It makes us feel like we are in control. What I am finding, however, is that the rules are like chains on my soul. They are too complex and I end up living in fear instead of freedom. Fear that I will fail at the next turn because there is absolutely no way I can live out all these regulations. I was never meant to live this way that’s why it feels like a prison.

Jesus’ love scared the Pharisees of His time and it scares us today. Because there are no limits to His love, we steer away from it and head towards our rules. They feel safer than His limitless love.

God’s love is reckless and risky and so very freeing. It allows space for mess-ups and mistakes. His love gives rise to what we are to become and in that becoming, He desires for us to know Him in the deepest parts of our souls. God’s love is simple in a world that is so complex. You no longer behave because you are terrified of breaking one of the rules. You start to live righteously because of Love. You make good and pure choices because of Love. You serve others out of Love not obligation. You are free because of Love.

Love isn’t a bunch of rules. Love is Jesus wholly and purely present in your life. Go break the rules today and love.

“Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other.” John 13:35

Love & Blessings,

Meg

The Messy Mingling

The Messy Mingling

I had a dream. I was at a conference and a speaker did not show. I was asked last minute to fill in. I did not have any content; nothing written down. I had gone as an attendee desperately wanting to fly under the radar 

FLASHBACK FRIDAY: Recovering Perfectionist

FLASHBACK FRIDAY: Recovering Perfectionist

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. So there’s 

Pointing Fingers

Pointing Fingers

Have you ever gotten out of bed in the morning, walked into the bathroom, quickly looked at your reflection as you passed by, and gasped because you didn’t recognize the person staring back at you? Or, you flip to your camera app on your phone only to see that it’s on selfie mode and you are startled by the reflection. Me too.

Sometimes, I look in that mirror and I like what I see. I’m having a good hair day. My make-up is on point. There is a lot to be said about a little mascara, bronzer, and lip gloss. Other days, I look at that reflection and wonder how on earth I survived the day without scaring anyone, I look so disheveled. I don’t particularly like my reflection on those days.

It seems a lot of us don’t like looking at our reflections. We much prefer the blame game and finger pointing. We have convinced ourselves that this is something that children do, but, it happens at every age and stage. Politicians. Moms. Dads. Friends. Siblings. Kids. We point that finger so often we don’t even notice we are doing it anymore.

What if we took responsibility for ourselves taking action to change from within in order to make our little corner of the world better instead of pointing fingers?

Jesus did this. He was the master of this. In John chapter four, Jesus encounters a woman at the well. They both went there to gather water. Yet, that wasn’t the true intent of the meeting. I will include the verses of this story below. For now, I will give you the summary. The woman was Samaritan. Jesus was Jewish. Those two groups did not mingle way back when. She was also living with a man unmarried. This, after being married multiple times before. She was at that well at that time because she was shunned by her community and most likely could not collect water when the rest of the town was there. Jesus was “passing through” on his journey. But, when researching the story, we know he was purposeful meeting her there.

Jesus asks the woman for water because he is thirsty. They have an exchange about how she was looking everywhere to quench her “thirst”, when, in actuality, the “Living Water” (Jesus) was right there. She ends up realizing Jesus must be the Messiah everyone was talking about and ended up telling her whole town about her experience. She is touted as the first missionary.

While there are many layers to this story, there is one particular detail that pastors, teachers, and commentators don’t mention: Jesus never got his water. He came to the well declaring his thirst, yet he never received his water. He asked the Samaritan woman for a drink, but never relieved his thirst.

Jesus could have pointed the finger at the woman. He could have laid into her for her sin and the fact that she never gave him what he initially asked for. He could have blamed her for his thirst. But, he didn’t. Instead, he gave this woman life. While he was empty (have you ever been thirsty), he decided to fill someone else knowing she needed this “water” more desperately than he needed his thirst satisfied.

What if, we laid down our finger pointing and picked up that jug of water in order to fill the person that frustrates us so much? What if we stopped blaming others for all their wrongs, our wrongs, everybody’s wrongs and decided we are truly going to be a part of the solution rather than inflating the problem?

Jesus was running on empty. He had just traveled in the heat and was tired. Up walks a woman full of sin. He could have picked up his finger and started pointing. It would have been easy. Yet, he didn’t. Instead, he gave this woman life. And because he gave her life, she went to her town and life spread like wild fire.

How can we look at the reflection today?

How can we take ownership for ourselves?

How can we decide today is the day we are going to give life to others?

That reflection looking back at you is not scary. It is empowering. All that hurt, anger, and frustration you see in those eyes staring back at you can be transformed into grace, love, and mercy. Now that’s powerful. Much more powerful than pointing fingers.

Love & Blessings,

Meg

Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee. Now he had to go through Samaria.  So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?”  (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)  The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?  Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?” Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.” “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet.  Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.  You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.  Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.  God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”  Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.” John 4:1-26; emphasis mine)

Flashback Friday: 15

Flashback Friday: 15

Fifteen years. Seems like a lifetime. Seems like a blink of an eye. Scott and I were married 15 years ago. We had a six year dating adventure before we walked down the aisle. While I feel like we have been together for a lifetime