God Loves Me in Spite of How Much or How Little I "Have It Together"

Comparison. It's something we're all really good at. Especially as mothers.

We often compare ourselves to other moms in how we raise our kids, what we feed them, what (or how many) ministries we're involved in, how many Facebook friends we have, how many page views our blogs get, how much our husbands make, how big our house is, how well our house is decorated, how we educate our children and the list goes on.

Sometimes this comparison leads towards pride because we think we've got a handle on some of those things and other times it leads to discouragement and even depression because we see ourselves as inferior to those moms we think are ahead of the game.

But God is teaching me to stop comparing.

2 Corinthians 10:12 tells us that we are ignorant if we compare ourselves with each other. It is foolish to use ourselves and others as a standard of measurement.

Why? Because comparing myself to others only leads to harm. I will either be filled with pride because I think I am doing a better job than that other mom or I will walk away feeling utterly defeated wondering why I can't get things together like her.

God's grace is sufficient for me no matter where I'm at in life and God really doesn't care if I'm the World's Best Soccer Mom or not.

What He does care about is me being a good steward of what He has entrusted to me and He wants me to keep my eyes on Him alone--my sweet, wonderful, compassionate, loving Jesus who loves me and gave Himself for me.

Hebrews 12:1-2 encourages us greatly in this journey of life.

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith"

What weight is slowing you down? I know for me it often comes bundled in this huge burden of comparison and sometimes it disguises itself as "Mommy Guilt."

Mommy guilt creeps in when I start letting what others think of me dictate my choices.

If I'm not careful, it can be this awful weight I hoist up on my shoulders each day the moment my feet hit the floor.

I have lived in the boxing ring of mommy guilt where I would often beat myself up because of false standards in and around my life. It's not a pleasant place to be.

Comparison is a weight that slows us down. It either causes us to be filled with pride and then the good works we do are in vain or it causes us to be discouraged by where we are at in life.

The cure for comparison is fixing our eyes on Jesus.

When we do, His peace and contentment flood the sin of comparison right out the back door of our hearts.

We need to stop getting tripped up by comparison and instead gather endurance for the race God has set before us by keeping our eyes on Him. He is the ultimate goal and He starts and finishes the work of faith in us.

It's interesting that people never really change much from generation to generation.

In Jesus' day, the people were burdened by the ceremonial laws and ever watchful eye of the Sadducees and Pharisees, the spiritual watchdogs of the day.

Christ came to free us from the burden of rule keeping (or maybe we should say He has freed us from the Mommy Wars?) and instead urges us to take his yoke upon us. His "burden" is so much better and freeing because He is "humble and gentle at heart, and [with Him we] will find rest for our souls."

Sisters, we need to stop burdening ourselves with comparison.

We need to find our contentment in Christ because we have been crucified with Him. It is no longer us who live, but Christ who lives in us; and the life which we now live in the flesh we live by faith in the Son of God, who loved us and gave Himself up for us. Galatians 2:20

You have been freed so that you can live your life the way God wants you to live it, not the way you feel you have to live it in order to meet others' expectations.

Remember, "when people commend themselves, it doesn’t count for much. The important thing is for the Lord to commend them." 2 Corinthians 10:18

Will you join me in striving to daily find our contentment in Christ?

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Dear Mom Who Feels Like She Just Ran a Marathon {And "all" you did was go to the grocery store with young children}

I hear ya, Sister. I was just there today braving the produce aisles with our four young children and when we finally got back home it was this huge internal sigh of, "we made it."

Because seriously, taking any amount of young children to the grocery store, no matter how well-behaved they are, is a serious act of bravery.

In fact, I try to avoid it at all costs and usually send the hubs out alone to the grocery store in the evening. But when the fridge and freezer are bare, you sometimes have to pull up your mom pants and just get out there and get it over with.

In order to go grocery shopping with young children I figure there are about 4 Phases (give or take a few depending on how the trip goes):

Phase 1: Make sure everyone is fed, watered, and changed (or that they have taken themselves to the restroom.) Do not, under any circumstances, neglect yourself in this phase.

This first stage can be a feat in and of itself, but is something that must be done or you WILL regret it when you are about half way through the grocery store. It also, in my case, must be timed perfectly. As in, it must be accomplished either right before the baby wakes up from his morning nap or shortly thereafter so that you can get out the door, do all of your shopping and get back home BEFORE the baby's afternoon nap. Otherwise, he will fall asleep in the car for a whole two minutes and not want to go down for his nap. True Story.

2. Get everyone loaded up, buckled and then unbuckled and unloaded upon arrival at the grocery store.

This one isn't too hard but can be more complicated should you choose to grocery shop on a day when it is raining out. Statistically, it is more likely to be raining or snowing on those days of the week that your fridge is most bare.

3. Enter the store and begin to shop.

This, my friends, is not a task for the fainthearted. Did I mention? I'm fainthearted. Why do you think I usually send my husband out to do this?? But, man, I'll do just about anything for food.

Once we got in the store, we got ourselves in order and the children were given strict instructions to stay close to Momma and follow along behind me. I'm sure we resembled a mother duck and all her ducklings as we weaved single file in and out of the aisles.

And let's not forget the assortment of people you come across while shopping with children. Especially when three out of your four have red hair. It happens every time. The elderly ladies just can't get enough of that red hair and they want to tell you all about every second cousin, once removed that had red hair too.

And bless our lone dark-haired child. After people get done gushing about the red hair of his siblings, he stands there waiting for a second to talk and then politely shares that he has red hi-lites.

Now don't get me wrong. I appreciate these sweet ladies who want to talk to my children and me, but at the same time, I can feel my heart start to race in my chest because I know that if I don't get moving again, things can fall apart real fast.

The whole time you're shopping it's like this mad dash to get what you need and get out before someone decides to let everyone around them know they are "so over shopping" or before the baby starts to cry and wants out of the stroller. (Which by the way, I found the stroller to be uber helpful today. My 8 year old pushed the baby in it while the middle two walked and I piled the groceries in the cart. Using the stroller for grocery shopping was a first for me, but I think I'm going to stick with it for the next time I venture out alone grocery shopping again with children in 2019. (Did you notice that the word "alone" takes on a whole new meaning once you have kids? Pre-kids, that word meant I was literally the only human being in a room. Now it just means I am the only adult with all the kids and that type of alone is not even close to meaning the same thing it used to.)

4. Load the kids and groceries into the van (good thing we got that Big Daddy Van I told you about!) and then unload the groceries when you get home.

This one can be tricky, but today, it went very well. We only had a few heads of cabbage and spaghetti squash run away from their bags and roll around in the van on the way home. When we got home, our oldest, bless his heart, volunteered to unload all of the groceries for me while I put them away and the middle two entertained the baby.

Once everything was put away, we celebrated our adventure with a Bolthouse juice the kids spied on sale and a bag of overpriced share size Lays Potato chips I got in the checkout lane. We snacked on our treats in celebration of Survival and one child even said it was such a great day. Doesn't take much, does it?

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Enduring the Labor Pains of Life

Right now it seems like I am experiencing the waiting and anticipation much like I am at the end of my pregnancies.

It feels as if the random contractions of life aren't doing much and I am wondering when, or if, "labor day" will come and when/if we will be delivered from the waiting and wondering stage we are in right now.

Sometimes in the labor pains of life, the hardest part is right before the delivery.

Delivery from the waiting. Delivery from the pain. Delivery from the unknown.

It's at this point we are most tempted to quit. We don't feel like praying about the situation anymore. We don't want to wait on God anymore. We just want to get "this" over with.

Personally, I'm tempted to complain about the contractions of life that are squeezing me and pressing me in. I want to say "I'm done!" I want to get past the hard part and enjoy the new life experiences.

Do you ever find yourself in situations in life like that?

I am there. Right now.

Back in the fall, a house became available that we feel would meet the needs of our growing, homeschooling family. The house will need a lot of work to get it ready for our us, but we feel the payoff will be worth it.

The house is near our present location so we will still be close to all of our current stores, doctors, church and even neighbors. It's also next door to my parents which would be a blessing to have family right next door.

The only problem is, we have to sell our house first.

We packed up about 1/4 to 1/3 of our stuff and put it in storage so that the house would "show" better. That means all of the kids' dress up stuff, train tracks, school desks, many toys, seasonal clothes, most of our art/craft supplies, books, pictures and anything considered a luxury is gone for now.

My husband and I strongly sense that the Lord does want our house on the market, but of course, we don't know exactly what He has planned for us.

Are we going to actually move or am I going to have to fit all of the stuff we put in storage back into our house?? (And yes, I have been purging for over a year now so I do consider most of the stuff in storage to be necessary at least periodically in our lives.)

Or, was this just a huge lesson to help us be content with the house we have and to be happy without the worldly possessions we have lived without for almost six months now....

I have no idea what God is ultimately going to do in regards to our house.

What I do know is, He has not left me alone as I wrestle through this. And honestly, I will be fine if we don't move and I'll (eventually...after all the crazy amount of work) be fine if we do move. It's the waiting while a lot of our stuff is packed up that is hard. It's the "Hurry and clean the house up kids. We have a showing! (Oh, and yes, the showing is during lunch and naptime.) That's the hard part.

Just the other day, my six year old daughter was crying because she couldn't have something she wanted that was packed up. I encouraged her to go pour her heart out to Jesus about it. Romans 8:26 "And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don’t know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words."

While this is certainly not the worst trial to be going through by any means, it is still difficult at times.

I also know that God has shown me how incredibly blessed I am. The reason the house is getting so small is because of the six people God has placed together as a family inside these walls. I couldn't ask for a better problem!

I'm also reminded that people all over the world would love to have a house my size (approximately 1,100 square feet) OR that they would love to have four children to call their own.

I am also learning to daily put my eyes on Jesus. I am not to look at the circumstances around me and feel out of control. I am not to let the contractions of life squeeze me without allowing them to make progress in my spiritual walk with Christ.

 

James 1:2 "Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.

It's easy to become restless in our hearts and minds when we just can't see what is going to birth forth from our waiting.

But this I know, Christ has told He won't leave me alone in this labor of life.

He will deliver me at some point because He has overcome the world. John 16:32-33 "Yet I am not alone because the Father is with me. I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.” “Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me." John 14:1

How About You?

I don't know what kind of labor pains of life you are experiencing right now, but I can relate to the frustrations that come when I take my eyes off Jesus and look instead at my circumstances.

I have prayed for anyone who reads this post. I pray that you would first know the One who has overcome the world and I pray that the Lord would encourage you in a very specific way to remind you that you are not alone. He is Emmanuel---God with us.

And would you say a prayer for me, too? Please pray that God would make His will known clearly to us regarding our housing situation, that we would wait joyfully on Him and that we would trust Him for his perfect timing.

If you want me to pray more specifically for a need in your life, I will happily add you to my prayer book. Just send me an email letting me know how I can pray for you. I'm excited to see what God does in our lives!


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Moms, You Can Be the Game Changer

Game changer. It's a term that's tossed about these days. But do you know what it means?

By definition, a game changer is someone who is a visionary.

"A game changer has new and different ideas that stand out from the crowd. This person has an idea that completely changes the way a situation develops." It's someone who... create[s] ideas or events that change the outcome of a plan." source

In a world where motherhood, to some, seems like "not the best use of your time" you can be the game changer.


When I was about 17, I told the Lord that I was willing to be used in full-time Christian service. To be honest, it was a commitment made half-fearfully. Okay, maybe entirely with fear, but I knew that I wanted to live my days in service to God.

At the time, I assumed it meant that I was signing myself up for overseas mission work or something. About a year later I began pursuing a teaching degree and sensed the Lord wanted me to teach in a Christian school.

At that point in my life, I had never been on a missions trip out of the country.

I had, however, served for a couple of weeks each summer through college at a small mission-supported church in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. To be honest, the area was so foreign to me it almost seemed like a missions trip outside of my home country.

At one point I thought maybe God was leading me to teach in a small Christian school in the area, but, considering I was single, and had no income and there was no pay it didn't seem like that situation would work out.

I continued pursuing my degree in education, all the while wondering where I was going to end up.

In fact, one summer I was home from college and went to the local gas station to fill up my car. I was so caught up in wondering if I was going to move back to my hometown or if God had another place for me to serve that I was awakened from my daydream by a guy yelling at me that my gas tank was overflowing! Lovely. The automatic shutoff on the gas pump was broken and I was in La-La Land so some of my hard-earned cash just went towards paying for gas that I had spilled all over the ground.

But, back to reality, I kept pursuing missions to see if that is what God had for me.

My first year out of college, I began working at our church to help get a Christian school started. I was planning to teach the following year when it opened, but during that winter I went for a couple of weeks to help our church's missionaries in Brazil.

I was presented with the opportunity to homeschool the missionary couple's daughter who was in 6th grade.

The task seemed daunting since I didn't feel qualified to teach the upper grades and I would have to back out of my commitment to teach at the school that fall. I declined the offer and continued to get ready for teaching my 1st class that coming fall.

A short time later, I had the opportunity to serve in Serbia for two weeks.

Again, this was an amazing experience and I learned a lot. I loved working with the people in the church on a building project (Yes, I did swing a hammer and yes, I did manage to smash my thumb once. Ouch.)

Through these short term missions trips, I learned a lot and became grateful for things like hot showers, which were a luxury on at least one of those trips.

I also personally saw unreached people groups in Brazil that lived in nothing more than shanty towns.

My heart ached for those people and I came back from that trip thinking that God really was calling me to serve Him full time by ministering to people who had never heard the Gospel before.

Little did I know that what He was actually calling me to was Motherhood.

So sure enough, He did have an unreached people group that He wanted me to love, care for, minister to, and share His love with.

They are my children.

In all my daydreaming,and gas station mishaps, which I have more of, believe it or not, did I EVER picture myself married and a mother.

It just never crossed my mind.

At that point, I always pictured myself single and serving somewhere other than my hometown. But God had this incredible, awesome plan for me that I am over-the-top about.

Motherhood.

It is, by far, the hardest role I have ever filled and something I still don't feel adequate for. I usually think I have to be strong and brave like, well, my Mom of course.

I have a sneaking suspicion that my daughter views me as strong and brave. I know I am not, but the strength of God more than makes up for my weaknesses (and they are many).

In all those years of searching and wondering, the desire of my heart was always to be in my hometown near my family, but I knew I needed to be open to serving God wherever He called me to.

When I stop and think about how He gave me my heart's desire and He had this plan for my life that I never even dreamed about, I can't help but cry out in thanks to my loving Lord.

I could not fulfill this role of mission work without Him.

In the midst of changing diapers, He has called me to help change hearts.

And that can only happen when His grace is poured out on a little soul through countless days of lavishing the Word upon them. Regrettably, when I think about how little I have exposed them to His Word compared to what I could have done, I feel that I have fallen incredibly short of my mission.

But God's mercies are new every morning and His faithfulness towards us is great.

As I stamp His image deep on my heart, I help stamp the image of Christ on the life of each little one that He has placed in our home. And oh, how blessed I am to be their mother.

I am desperate for God's grace in my mission work of motherhood. And while the days seem long at times, the years are flying by. I know my time is short and I want to pour my life into these precious children.

It is with wonder and amazement that while I assumed serving God full-time meant ministering on the foreign field, He would instead call me to motherhood.


Moms, we cannot do this alone. The calling is far too great, the demands are unending, the sleep is short and there are souls in our care that are in danger of living independently of God.

We have children that are drawing their strength and character from us. This demands that we saturate ourselves with the Word of God. When God's Word is hidden in our hearts, it comes out in our speech and in our actions and then, Christ is glorified in the ministry of motherhood.

Joshua 1:8-9 "Study this Book of the Law continually. Mediate on it day and night so you may be sure to obey all that is written in it. Only then will you succeed. I command you--be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid or discouraged. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go."


Mom's are you a visionary when it comes to your children and husband? Or have you fallen into the trap of living the status quo in your role as wife and mom? Don't despair! God's mercies are new each morning and you can surrender your life to God starting right now. You can be the game changer in your family's life and in the world you live in.

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Thanks so much for visiting Purposeful Homemaking. Stay connected so you don't miss a thing:

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This post may involve product that was received in exchange for a review or contain affiliate links for which I will earn compensation should you choose to make a purchase. I am disclosing this information in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR Part 255, Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising. Thank you for your support of Purposeful Homemaking.