Done With the Mom Thing.

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My sweet girls’ smile, her excitedly kicking feet, her laugh, those big observant eyes. When I’m not near her I want to be, I crave holding her little body close. That same little person requires so much of my energy, time, and patience. The nap struggle, feeding from me like I’m a dairy farm, does she need more tummy time or less, google this symptom and that. The mom thing can be exhaustingly beautiful. And so when I need to I’m learning to say “I am done with the mom thing. ”

Heaven forbid that as mothers we choose to relinquish titles and responsibilities to spend time doing our own thing. GASP! Don’t worry, Lilah is well cared for when I take time off from mamahood. I never do so at her expense. But oh how desperately I want my little girl to know how to love and care for herself. And I can show her how by knowing when I need to be done with the mom thing.

Last night I went to a friend’s musical. And as I watched, I felt this passion rise inside me that has been resting for over a year. How I love to perform. And how I love to do so many things outside of my role as a mom. I might even argue that pursuing those passions in tangible ways is just as important as being there constantly for my little one. Because as much as she needs my attention and affection and my boobs, she also needs my example. The example of a woman who follows her heart, whose driven, and dynamic, and multifaceted.

So be bold my mama (and daddy) friends! Follow your dreams and your heart. Make your children a priority But don’t make them your entire world, because really that is doing them a disservice. To my Lilah lu, I hope that you always know how much your mama loves you and also how much your mama tries to care for herself. I love you little one❤️

Naps Change Everything

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I’m obsessed with sleep these days. Constantly thinking about my warm comfy bed, or more often, how to get lulu to stay asleep long enough for me to close my eyes. She’s a professional sleep fighter like her mama. Not sure why, but sleep feels like letting go, which is hard for me, and apparently my poor daughter has inherited her mother’s odd sleep habits. Sorry babe!

But oh how a good nap soothes the soul, both hers and mine. We’re different people when we rest, kind and gentle. When I’m tired, I can barely make a sandwhich, I snap at everyone, use flowery language because no filter. I’m really a mess without sleep.

It’s gotten me thinking a lot about rest. How our culture leads us away from true rest, and yet how much we all need it. I don’t know about you, but I get anxiety when I don’t have my phone. For years before we had Lilah, I needed the TV on to fall asleep. The quiet rest is what is missing. It’s hard to shut off our brains isn’t it? A little boring to meditate or sit in silence. One of the reasons I love to run is because it’s a rest for my soul, yet my body is still moving. I think that’s as close to real rest as I’ll ever get.

But I wonder how our lives would change if we rested more. And I don’t mean naps or Netflix binges (although nothing wrong with a little Greys anatomy). What I mean is a break from all the noise. Driving to work without the radio, doing chores with just our minds to occupy us, taking a walk with just ourselves-phone away. As silly as it sounds, many of us are fearful of being alone with ourselves. Our thoughts and feelings can feel scary or overwhelming. But it’s a disservice to not know ourselves. Every corner of our heart and minds should be explored. How can we love well if we don’t take the time to rest and know who we truly are?

In a world where there is so much noise, so much doing, so much chaos, my soul craves true rest. I find myself floundering when I can’t find that. And while I know true rest is found in the presence of God, I also know that the noise all around me makes it hard for me to hear God, see God, follow God. And sometimes I’m too angry about life’s hardships to seek and so I just rest, and that is enough.

Connection to self is connection to God. Knowing God is knowing self.

Even if the sight of the word God on this page makes you cringe and roll your eyes. Know that is my journey and my truth. Whether you bring God into it or not, rest your soul today.

You’re a Good Mom If…

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For years I have heard mothers labeled as “good moms” and “bad moms”. As a middle class white Christian woman, most of the people I know are labeled by society as “good moms” (which is a whole other issue of discussion). However after working years in foster care, I have also gotten to know the ones that many call “bad moms”. And oh it breaks my heart. It breaks my heart that there’s this division between who is a good mom and who is not. A “good mom” is really one step away from a “bad mom” if we take away her resources. Could any of us really do it if we had a colicky baby in a one room apartment with no partner or family to support us, barely any money for food, and an addiction that has gripped us for years? And yet some of us have all the resources and struggle still.

Motherhood is NOT easy.

I want to scratch “good mom” and “bad mom” from our vocabularies. Because it produces shame, plants guilt, fosters hopelessness. I think many of us wonder if we are truly a good mom, regardless of how the world labels us. We wonder if we’re giving our little one everything they need, supporting their development, creating a healthy bond. But there are so many colors and shades of those colors when it comes to motherhood. We all do it differently. And that is more than okay-it is a gift.

You’re a good mom if you breastfeed or bottle feed, or whether you get milk from a donor whose producing like a farm cow. You’re a good mom if you vaccinate or don’t vaccinate-because both can be scary and the choices can feel hard. You’re a good mom if your baby sleeps on you all day or if they have a beautifully designed sleep schedule. You’re a good mom if your hair looks nice every day or if it’s in a greasy messy bun. You’re a good mom if your house is a mess or if it’s clean and organized. You’re a good mom if you lost all that baby weight upfront or if it’s hanging on for dear life. You’re a good mom if you struggle with a mental illness or if your seratonin functions like a champ. You’re a good mom if your kids have never had a Dorito or if it’s Dino nuggets for dinner every night. You’re a good mom if your little people get baths every night or once a week (if you’re lucky). You’re a good mom if your kids go to private school, public school, or are homeschooled. You’re a good mom if you’ve lived in the same house they’re whole lives or moved around a bunch. You’re a good mom if you back delicious treats for your kids or if you use your oven as storage. You’re a good mom if you’re up in the morning with a pep in you’re step or if you need 75 cups of coffee not to yell everything that comes out if your mouth. You’re a good mom on the days you have patience and the days you do not. You’re a good mom if your kid ends up in rehab, or if they struggle through a mental illness, or if they defy everything you’ve ever taught them. You’re a good mom if you love your kids and are doing your best-whatever that looks like for you. And sometimes that means dumping the kids on someone else for a few hours and crying under the comforter. Sometimes it means taking 3 buses to get to a one hour visit with your kids, trying not to cry as you wonder how you lost them. Sometimes our best is barely breathing. And sometimes we’ve got to pull up our bootstraps and do the things anyway. But we’re all different. Motherhood looks different for all of us. And at the end of the day all of our kids will need therapy anyway.

Mom Expectations-No Thanks

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Yesterday I got out of the house AND took a shower! Double win!  I spent my time out getting myself a 2018 planner because I’ve been without one for over a week now and I’m barely surviving (type A personality problems). When I am out on my own, I feel like I can breathe again. Lilah needs so much from me that sometimes I don’t even realize that I’ve neglected myself until there’s someone else watching out for her and I can just take a minute to be fully in my body. I don’t know whether it’s my own personality, or the pressure of our culture, or just this overall sense of fear that these moments will disappear and I won’t be able to get them back, but I often feel mom expectations strangling me.

It started when I was pregnant. The pressure to adorably capture every single week with a bump picture was suffocating. I never remembered, and part of me just didn’t care about doing it. But I would see other pregnant friend’s posts on social media and I would immediately panic because I wasn’t doing that. Was I missing something? Was I neglecting to capture these memories for my baby girl? And now she’s here, and the pull to capture every little moment, and document every smile, is even stronger. Sure I take a lot of pictures (have you seen that sweet little face?), and I journal most days and include Lilah milestones in that, but not a lot of planned memory capturing going on here. Of course I had high hopes going into this mama thing that I would create an organized online photo album and write all about Lilah’s day every single evening. But instead, our pictures of Lilah are hanging out somewhere in the cloud, and sleep is much more important to me at night than anything else.

Yesterday afternoon, after a particularly panicky moment in regards to my failure to organize my daughter’s memories, I found myself thinking about what is important to me from my childhood. My amazing mom kept journals and calendars for us and it really is fun to see what I was doing 2 weeks after birth, but honestly I can count on one hand the amount of times I have looked at those. But that picture of me running down the beach in my duck bathing suit? I look at that all the time. And that blanket I slept with until I was 10? It houses more memories than I can even explain. And above all else the most important things have been the things my parents taught me. The hours and hours a day my mom spent teaching me to read and write my name. The evenings when my dad would come home and wrestle with us until we could barely breathe we were laughing so hard. Those things above all else, I hold onto.  The other stuff, while sweet and fun to look at, isn’t a must. I don’t have to do it, and Lilah will be okay, I will be okay.

When wrestling against a certain expectation, I always ask myself if this would be important to the Ingalls family (you know, Little House on the Prairie). And what I mean by that is, was it something that they needed to survive or be happy? It’s my favorite way of bringing myself back to the basics. What do I need here? What does Lilah need here? Is this thing I am obsessing over really all that important? Did Ma and Pa keep endless memory boxes for Laura and her siblings? Nope. They didn’t even have photographs then and yet no one cared that they didn’t know what they looked like as a baby. And I bet that Ma spent way more time experiencing and way less time documenting. And hey, that’s not to say that I’m not going to bask in the beauty that is modern technology, but I’m sure I can learn a few things from the way that they lived their lives.

While I know I will forever battle these expectations of momhood- which bottles to use, or if co-sleeping is safe, or should you really give an infant Tylenol before shots-I am working every day to  create experiences whether I capture them forever or not. Documenting events will not be my obsession, but experiencing them. Lilah may not have a neat little picture album, and the journal of her first year of life may be filled with her mama’s own struggles and insecurities, but I will make sure that she has beautiful, challenging, comforting memories to hold onto for her entire life.

Who Am I?

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Is that not the age old question?

And although I hoped against all hope that I would escape the baggage that question brings this year, I am slowly realizing that I have not. In fact, as the years pass, the stronger the question:

Who Am I?

As a Christian I know that I am a child of God, prized, loved, pure, perfect in the eyes of my savior. But the resounding truth is often muddled with the noise of the world all around me.

Who Am I?

I am a wife, a daughter, a sister, granddaughter, niece, cousin, friend. I am a writer, a teacher, an actress an athlete. I am sweet, I am sassy, I am thoughtful, witty, sad, happy, angry, and a thousand other things.

And yet, I am none of them.

Whenever I let one of those things define me, I falter.

Sometimes I have to remind myself,

“if you were none of those things you would still be enough.”

Some days I believe it and some days I don’t, but I keep saying it to myself over and over. Because, I don’t want to live a life searching, chasing down identities that I can hide behind for a while.

“Who am I?” isn’t really the question. And while I know that i’ll continue to ask it in some form my entire life, I will not let it define me. Because who I think I am in any given moment, isn’t really who I am at all. All these things I think and say that I am, barely scratch the surface of who I am in the eyes of my King.

We Are All Falling Short.

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You know what I’m talking about, right?

On December 31st we are giddy with the excitement for the resolutions, the diets, the hope for the next year. And now here we are, a week and a half in and we are starting to realize that all the baggage we were carrying with us last year is still trailing along behind us.

Wouldn’t it be great if the new year was a door that closed tight behind us, locking all the pain of the last year behind us?

But it doesn’t work that way.

All the yuck comes with us until we work through it.

Some might say we just need to leave the past in the past. But if we haven’t worked through the hard things weighing us down, is it denial to try and walk away from it?

It’s not as simple as just forgetting the pain and moving on. That’s not how our minds and our souls work. We must address the hard stuff, or it will sneak into every part of our lives and take control.

The hardest thing I have ever had to realize is that there is darkness inside all of us.

We don’t really want to go there.

We want to believe that there are bad guys and there are good guys, and that we are the good guys. But we could just as easily become the bad guys if we aren’t honest with ourselves and aware of who we are.

So here is a new year. Same old struggles, same old baggage. We entered January skipping and now midway through we are shuffling along, remembering why last year was so hard.

Let’s look at our lives holistically. Let’s eat right, and exercise, and go to counseling, and meditate, and journal about the really scary things we can’t tell anyone else yet.

Let’s honor ourselves and be honest with ourselves. Honest about our struggles, our addictions, our downfalls.

The places where we feel we fall short are often our greatest gifts.

Allow yourself to fall short. That’s so much more than okay. You don’t need to pretend. We are all falling short. Awesome, right?!

WE ARE ALL FALLING SHORT!

What a relief!

New year my friends. Are we going to live bold, vulnerable, beautifully messy lives?

YES we most certainly will.

 

 

 

 

Saying No To The Typical New Years Resolutions.

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I love the new year as much as the next gal.

I love the mentality of a fresh start, setting goals, moving forward.

But I always seem to put a lot of pressure on my new year’s self. Like it’s the job of new year me to pick up the slack on the last year. Okay self, you kind of sucked this past year, so in this new year you need to do all of this stuff, ok? 

Oh my gosh it makes me tired just thinking about all that pressure.

Every year, listing the things I need to do better, do differently. It’s not very encouraging. In fact, I often feel burnt out before I’ve even begun. My expectations set so high, come crumbling down at the first ounce of failure. And then comes the shame. Well, Lizz, you’ve done it again. Another year of failure, missing the mark.

I won’t do it another year.

So this year I wonder how different it would be if maybe we partnered with ourselves a little bit more. Gave ourselves a little bit of a loving pep-talk instead of a strict diet, or an out-of-our-control achievement, or expecting things from ourselves that we are not ready to give.

I am going into the new year with baby steps, not leaps and bounds.

I am going to partner with myself on this life journey instead of expecting myself to move mountains just because the date changes.

Our resolutions don’t have to be a list of things screaming “You’re going to do better this year!”. 

Instead they can be gentle encouragements to ourselves. Set structure, sure. Join the gym, get a new water bottle, carve out an hour every day to work out. But give yourself a few set days off as well.

My old resolution voice might be saying to me this year, “seriously, you have to publish a book! Get a better job. You need to be doing devotions more. You definitely have to be in more plays. Run another half marathon. Blog every day, no matter what, no breaks EVER. Do better! Be better! Love better! Create more! It’s not enough, it’s never enough, Lizz. YOU MUST BE BETTER!

 Oh Good Lord, no more!

This year my new year’s resolution is to pursue my own physical, emotional, and spiritual health by listening closely to my own needs. I will chase after my love of creating no matter where that takes me, letting go of lofty expectations, and stepping into the fear. I will continue to love, learn, and humble myself in all of my relationships. I will give myself grace, and speak kindly into my fears and moments that feel like failures. I will take it all moment by moment. I will work toward trusting myself to know what’s best, remembering that the Holy Spirit is with me and flows through me. Above all else, I will love myself and give myself grace for all of life’s hard moments.

Happiest of New Year’s to all of you, my faithful readers and friends. It is a privilege to share life with you. I pray that as we move into what next year has for us,  we will all be so very gentle with ourselves.

 

 

The Gift Of Giving.

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if you’re anything like me you experience those twinges of guilt around the holiday season. We know that there are people all around us in need, and we’re stressed about getting all the cookies baked in time, and finding the perfect presents for everyone on our list. My mantra for this season is “moderation, moderation, moderation. Everything in moderation”.

Actually, that’s my mantra for all of life. I am an extreme thinker, and so I often get stuck in the all or nothing mentality. But moderation is key to so many things in life, and Christmas is no different. We don’t need to drive ourselves crazy trying to figure out how to do Christmas right. How many gifts we should buy, how many gifts we can receive without feeling guilty we have too much, how many cookies to eat a day, whether we’ve given enough to the needy this year. There is no quota to reach.

Take a deep breath.

I want to tell you a story of the greatest gift that I ever received.

I was a little girl, maybe 7 or 8 years old, when I saw a pair of clogs in the Stride Right store at the mall. We were there buying sneakers for my brother, and I put those clogs on and walked around and around the store wearing them. They were a mini version of a pair of wool clogs my mom used to wear all the time, so that might have been part of my draw to them. But whatever it was I had to have them.

I left the store that day in a cloud of disappointment. I so badly wanted those clogs, but Christmas had passed, and my birthday was not for another few months. They would be gone by that time. And so life went on, and I forgot about the clogs for a while.

The morning of my birthday came. I ripped open every package with excitement and joy, littering the floor with paper. And then in came my brother, a package in his hands. He handed it to me gently and as I lifted the lid, there were the clogs from so many months ago! The ones I had hoped for and waited for. And even though I was still young, I knew how much my brother had sacrificed for those clogs, the allowances he saved, the things he didn’t buy for himself.

I will never forget the kind of love that sacrifices to buy a pair of clogs for his little sister. Never in a million years.

While Christmas can sometimes be an overwhelming time of money spent and pointless gifts, we can reclaim it. Gift giving doesn’t have to be guilt-driven, or last minute, or even expensive. It has the potential to be such an act of love, and a blessing to those around us.

So don’t get caught up in that twinge of guilt over what Christmas is becoming or how you’re not doing it as well as you could be. But reclaim it in little ways. Give modest gifts to the ones you love, ask for a little bit less for yourself this year (I’m working on it..), give generously of your time and money to those in need.

And in case you were wondering about an opportunity to give to those in need this very moment, I have something for you. Firstly read this post by Glennon Doyle Melton and as you scroll down, through your tears, you will see a link to The Compassion Collective. This is a movement to save the lives of people just like us, who are refugees right now. This is a call to action, a chance to love deeply and bravely. You will be surprised by what your gift could provide a family right now.

When Setting Boundaries Is The Best Way To Love.

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We have big ambitions.

We want to love every last person on this earth.

We so badly want to reach out to those in need, to be the hands and feet of Jesus, to rescue the broken.

But sometimes guys, it’s not our job.

Sometimes the best way to love is to take a step back.

Relationships are powerful things.

Sitting in the presence of another is a powerful thing.

We are human beings, and we can greatly affect each other.

I have a tendency to melt into people.

I soak up their pain, their sorrow, their brokenness. I soak it in until it is weighing me down like an overfilled sponge. I am no help to anyone when that happens.

And so I am learning to say “no”. I am learning to know my limits when it comes to being in relationship with others.

When someone we love is in pain, we just want to fix it. We want them to know they are not alone, and so we do anything and everything we can to show them they are loved. That we will be there no matter what.

But at what cost?

Do we ourselves begin to crumble under the toxicity of the relationship? Do we begin to lose sleep, our own sanity?

You see, we can love without melting into the other person.

We can say “no” and still care for them.

We can hold boundaries that are necessary for us, and still be loving like Jesus.

In fact, Jesus said, “Love your neighbor as yourself (Mark 12:31)”.

It is just as important to care for our own emotional needs as it is for the needs of others.

And sometimes that means trusting God enough to take a step back. To let go of our need to control the other person’s situation. And to trust God to lead the way.

It’s easy to get so caught up in what we think we need to do to love others, that we forget to listen to God’s voice. We say, “no worries. I got this”, but we forget that we’re not the ones driving the car.

Let’s stop trying to save the world on our own. Let’s stop trying to mend broken hearts in a frantic frenzy because we feel like we need to. Let’s sit back and be still every once in a while, and let the Savior lead us where he needs us.

Let’s relax into the same arms that are holding the world. He’s got this.

 

 

The Biggest Fear.

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Ever since I was a little girl I wanted to be someone important. I even went through a period of time where I was convinced that I would be the next virgin Mary, destined to carry the Savior in my womb. I was 7, maybe 8 at the time, and to me, that seemed like the ultimate proof that my existence mattered.

I had lost touch with that fear until very recently. Somehow as adults we have a knack for forgetting how we actually feel, a gift for hiding pain. And so I had almost forgotten how desperately that little child had wanted to be seen.

I no longer go to a job every day. I am writing full time, in my dining room. It’s an odd transition for me. There are no coworkers, no set time I must be at the office. I am in control of it all, and yet so many things seem out of my hands.

Jobs are funny things because they are not who we are, and yet we attach ourselves to them as if they define us. Regardless of whether really like them, they offer us some sort of reassurance that we are needed, that we matter to the grand scheme of things.

Nowadays my biggest task is to remember to eat lunch amid my ceaseless typing, to meet my deadlines, and to let Max out so he doesn’t pee on the floor.  But if I forgot any of those things, only my husband, my editor, and Max would know. I can no longer tie my significance in this world, to what I am doing every day.

Many of us struggle with the fear that we are insignificant. That we will be forgotten, unnoticed, overlooked. That the world will never see us as an important piece to its puzzle. I think that we all share this fear on some level.

But there is this still small voice that reminds us of our purpose.

The still small voice is the one that brings peace, joy, and love of self and others.

Amidst all the “not enoughness”, and the moments of feeling insignificant, there is a truth I am right where I need to be.

Today I am reminded of the goodness of the creator. His steadfastness. The way he challenges me to be more like him, to find my worth in him alone. I am thankful for this journey that twists and turns, and sometimes makes no sense.

May our significance be found only in him. May our lives reflect his purpose and not our own.