Hope in Mommy Guilt

My first daughter came completely unexpectedly....  

When my husband and I discovered we were expecting it wasn't exactly planned, but we were excited.  Then reality hit.... nothing about what followed was normal!

Throughout my entire pregnancy I struggled with high blood pressure, stress, isolation and now as I look back on it, even depression.  

What I had been led to believe was one of the most amazing experiences in a woman's life, becoming a mother, is a period full of mixed emotions for me even four years later.  

Don't get me wrong, I love being Mommy to my two little world changers.  However, no matter how many articles, books and podcasts you devour on the topics of parenting and motherhood, I am not sure that anything prepares you for "Mommy guilt".  Mine started before my due date.

I was admitted to the hospital early in my third trimester and Myka was born nearly 2 months early.  

Enter Mommy guilt....  While in the moment I was thankful that she was alive and doing well even if that meant she was in the ICU, it didn't take long for Mommy guilt to hit.  As we were separated by the length of a hall and the restrictions of NICU for her and bedrest for me the realities of "I couldn't carry her full term", "I'd have to leave her at the hospital while I went home", "I can only visit once or twice a day" began to hit me.  

While our determined little girl, who was born with a check-list, made getting home to Mommy and Daddy a high priority and that phase of Mommy guilt was short lived, it was the introduction of a shadow self into my world of Motherhood.

Your story might not include C-sections, NICU and preemies, but each of us, who answer to the name "Mommy" know the feeling of guilt that we are not enough.  We can't get the ducks of our life in the same pond let alone in a row!  And we are being asked to care for these little humans?!

Somehow over the years, decades and centuries that mothers have existed we have created incredible and often unattainable standards for motherhood.  I have looked for it.  Nowhere in Scripture can I find that we as mothers are required to give our children 5 hugs, 3 books and a special song before they can go to bed (see Boss Baby for context).  As mothers we can believe that the traditions we start with one child are necessary when children 2, 3, 4 and 5 come along.  It's just not true!

I have been learning as a mom myself that we create complex rituals and routines for ourselves.  These become the ways that we assuage our guilt in the periods we need to care for ourselves.  

So my Mommy guilt story doesn't end with my oldest finally making it home.  My Mommy guilt story picks up again over the past few months.  In January, I finished my bachelors degree.  I am now in that fun phase of "between jobs".  Enter Mommy guilt.... My daughters go to daycare during the week.  I struggle with this every time someone asks me if I am a "stay at home mom".  I feel the guilt and shame hit me full force when I am asked about what I do and then am I a stay at home mom.  The simple answer is "Nope.  I am a new grad looking for a job".  So why do I feel less than enough?  

When did we decide that it was an ideal for mothers to stay at home?  Now don't get me wrong I have friends who are stay at home moms and they are amazing!  They take their kids on play dates, go check out all the cool things going on around town and have all the cute little Pinterest projects they do at home (my kids on the other hand think Pinterest is a cookbook!).  On the other hand though... I have friends who help others heal in their roles as Physical Therapist, Occupational Therapist and Nurse.  I have friends who are mothers that run their own business.  All of us are called to something different, even if we are mothers.  Our roles all look a little different.

A friend recently loaned me a book that reminded me exactly why my husband and I have chosen to keep our girls at their daycare.  The most powerful gift I, as a mother, can give my children is relieving them of the responsibility of being the center of our family.  I have two toddlers and they are both full of massive emotions!  These little tykes do not even have the ability to control their anger without guidance and yet so often we saddle them with the role of nucleus of the family.

The same idea goes for Mommy's though... One of the greatest gifts we can give our families is to not make ourselves the nucleus of their world.  None of us were made to be the center of the world.  Think about it.... In science class we learn about the center of the earth being hot.  Some sources estimate it around 6100 degrees Celsius.  So if we as moms make ourselves the center of family life... well... we make ourselves a hot mess, literally!

Over my life I have had a love-hate relationship with what we in faith circles infamously call "the Proverbs 31 woman".  She has been elevated to an ideal.  So much so that I have noticed it is not uncommon for men to think they need to "free" women from this burden.  Rather than freeing us from it I think we really need to take a closer look at her.  This woman was amazing!  Not in the way that we typically think of her as slaving over her family, providing for their every need.  She was amazing because she is our first model of what a passionate woman looks like.  

She was the first feminist... (vs 15) She provided for her female servants!

She was a servant leader (again vs 15)... She provided for her female servants!

She had her husband's confidence in a culture where women were inferior to men (vs 11).

She is a business woman, buying land and planting vineyards.

And I can't help, but think when I read that "her lamp does not go out at night", she networks and has others working when she is asleep!

So she is a business woman and has female servants... I think we tend to place ourselves in the context of this woman and her place in history while forgetting that we live in a different era.  This woman is very likely taking care of her female servants because they are helping take care of her children...  

When we just look at this woman in Proverbs 31 through the lens of a stay at home mom ideal then we are missing the freedom that she is bringing to us.  In the era during which Proverbs is being written this woman gives hope and inspiration to all of the women who feel inferior and less than enough.  The more I read her story the more I become convinced as a mom that her role was never intended to create an ideal.  It was intended to give hope and freedom to women.  She is in Scripture to remind us that we as mothers do not have to be the nucleus of our families to be loved, respected and honored.  We do not have to show up to life guilt ridden that someone with the gift of relating to and teaching children is spending the day with our children while we live out the gifting God has given us.  

I become more and more convinced that our children need our presence, our boundaries and our example to help them navigate the complexities of life.  They do not need to be the center of our worlds.  Nor do they need us as moms to move ourselves to the center of their worlds for them to thrive.

What I'm reading 

Making the Terrible Twos Terrific

When Vacation Is More Than An Escape

Have you ever noticed the way most of us approach vacation?  We push through everyday life dreaming of the next escape we get that we call vacation.  It is our chance to escape life... to go to the mountains or beach to go on a cruise or tour Europe.  We live looking to these little pockets of time as our reprieve from the drudgery of life. 

Our family just returned from vacation.  Yesterday in fact.... We still have unpacking to do.  We still have laundry calling us and everyday life is starting to kick in once more.  My husband is working while I am doing the everyday tasks once more of running the littles and puppies to their respective appointments.  I found my way to my corner of Starbucks where I once more connected with the people I have come to know in this space that has begun to serve as my "unofficial office" over the past couple of years.  

This time the experience of vacation and the return to "normal" life has been markedly different for our family.  We all struggled to move this morning, but we still managed to get to our respective places in a timely and orderly fashion.  In fact, there was a feeling of contentment as we all resumed the rhythm of life that we had put to the side for the past 10 days.  Our newly turned 2 year old was super excited to resume her routine while our extroverted 3 1/2 year old was all ready to meet up with her friends and tell them all about her adventures on the beach.

The anticipation with which our entire family began to view our trip home as we neared the end of our vacation time this year has caused me to reflect.  What had changed?  Why was this vacation different?

As I thought about this I began to see that over the past few years my husband and I made the choice to pursue a more intentional lifestyle for our family.  We began to prioritize date nights, we began to make sure we made adventure a part of our everyday life.  We framed simple things like running errands as a family as adventures.  We slowed down and took the time to explore the things we were actually familiar with looking for the new and unexpected.  We slowed down to try to see the world around us through the eyes of our toddlers.  

So often as adults we become cynical.  We view the world through the jaded eyes of our "vast experience".  We perceive our children as lacking our understanding of the world when maybe the more accurate viewpoint is we lost our wonder at the world.

Don't get me wrong, I am all too aware that we live in a world where evil abounds, but sometimes our jaded eye sees everything through the lens of evil intent.  The eye of a toddler sees the world through the lens of wonder and adventure.  The little things like shells on the beach, the power of an ocean wave and the quirky nature of birds take on a completely different meaning when experienced in the context of a toddlers world view.

Jesus reminded his disciples in Matthew 18:3: "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."

What if the true gift of children to our world is their ability to see the world through this special lens? What if that lens is what Jesus was encouraging us to embrace?  What if in stopping and allowing ourselves to learn from the children in our lives we are moving closer to the kingdom of heaven that Jesus promises?

I feel like this family vacation showed me something interesting about myself... When I stop and allow my daughters to show me the world through their unique lens as children I see more than just nature differently.  I see that I cannot nor do I want to spend my life in vacation mode.  Vacation serves as a break, a reset of sorts.  It is greatly needed to sustain the normal rhythm that is life, but it is not intended to become the normal.  Everyday life is full of needed boundaries that give us purpose and move us forward toward goals.  Vacation becomes the opportunity to relax the boundaries to not hold so firmly to a schedule.  It provides a longer pause that allows us to breathe a little more deeply and slowly as we are freed from the demands of life for a brief period.  If we take vacations too often they lose their wonder as they become commonplace, but when they are inserted at just the right moment they create the perfect pause in the incredible symphony of our lives that God is creating.  

I find myself wondering as I move out of this vacation and back into the rhythm that is life if just maybe those rhythms and rests combined with the world lens of a child is what allows us to experience the kingdom of heaven on earth?  When I stopped to look at our return from vacation through the lens of my 2 year old I see that the everyday rhythm provides a much needed security.  There is a peace and calm that comes from embracing the familiar.  When I look at vacation through the lens of my 3 1/2 year old I see the throwing off of the everyday boundaries to embrace a period of wild, abandon adventures.  When I step back and combine those two lenses, I feel just a little closer to God.  I see His love in the peaceful familiar patterns we return to, but I also experienced His power and joy in the moments we were able to forsake the familiar and explore the unfamiliar with an abandon that isn't possible in the middle of the everyday rhythms of life.

Hope in the Journey

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future."

~Jeremiah 29:11

This verse found its way into my life the year I graduated high school.  It came in the form of a little picture frame.  I remember thinking at the time it was cute, but what would I ever do with it?  My style at the time was fussy and the more swirls and curls in a design the better.  This little frame was incredibly simple to the point of boring.  It read Journey across the top and contained the verse from Jeremiah across the bottom.  Somehow through numerous moves and multiple rounds of decluttering this little frame held on.  Every time I picked it up to put it in the discard pile it found its way back into the keep pile.  It is probably the only thing that I still have from that day.  

Honestly, while I've considered it a verse that has defined my life for a while, I have a love-hate relationship with it.  Sometimes I really struggle with believing that God really does have plans that include hope and a future.

There are moments my life feels much more like The Waiting Place from Dr Suess's Oh The Places You'll Go...

...for people just waiting.

Waiting for a train to go

or a bus to come or a plane to go

or the mail to come or the rain to go

or the phone to ring or the snow to snow

or waiting around for a Yes or No

or waiting for their hair to grow.

Everyone is just waiting.

When I'm in that waiting pattern, it is hard to believe that there could be some greater plan at work.

The waiting place doesn't "feel" very hopeful.

Then I'm reminded of that little picture frame that now sits in my living room holding a picture of my younger self surrounded by larger picture frames filled with photos of my little family of four.  This little frame holds a reminder in the single word arching across the top "Journey".

Journey

 1.  a traveling from one place to another, usually taking a rather long trip

2.  passage or progress from one stage to another

A journey requires waiting...

As Dr Seuss reminds us it can be...

"waiting for a train to go or a bus to come or a plane to go"

When my husband and I were dating we vacationed with his family in Florida.

His family had a practice of driving overnight only stopping for gas and maybe one breakfast.  

We agreed that we would take this approach...

We have not done this since! 

One of the things we realized about ourselves as a couple on that trip is that for the two of us the journey is what we enjoy.  The destination is great, but there is so much to enjoy between point A and point B.  

That trip we pushed ourselves so hard to get to the destination that when we got there we were irritable, overly tired and we spent a part of our first day there just catching up on sleep!

I'd like to say I totally get and apply the lesson to every area of my life from that point on, but sadly that is not always the case.  

I think it is so easy to get focused on where we feel called, the goal we have set for ourselves or the future and hope we imagine God has planned for us.  In an intense focus on making that destination happen we lose sight of the lessons on the journey.  

Lord of the Rings in probably the most epic example of a journey we have.  It would have been so easy for Tolkien to focus on merely the journey of Sam and Frodo to destroy the ring, but he doesn't focus solely on this one journey.  Instead he winds together the journeys of several characters all crucial to the ending of the story.  There are periods where these characters had to spend their time in "the waiting place" because of the role they were needed to play in the larger picture.  A role that was critical to the "hope and future" of MiddleEarth.  

It can be easy to think of these stories as just that stories, but stories serve to remind us that a journey is more than just a destination.  A journey is an opportunity for discovery.  A journey is organic and ever changing as people and circumstances come and go.  There is a good chance that most of us will not finish our journey with the same people who were there at its start.  Twenty years later I still remember the person who gave me that small picture frame.  I haven't seen them in nearly a decade.  That little frame over time has served as a reminder that God's idea of hope and future doesn't always look like the destination we think we are aiming toward.  On graduation twenty years ago, I had no idea that a few years later I would graduate from nursing school.  When I graduated from nursing school I had no idea that years later I would complete my bachelors degree in a completely different field.  That little frame with that little girl is surrounded by pictures of a husband and daughters I some days thought would never exist!  

All of that still doesn't stop me from trying to rush to the destination on occasion though!  Do you ever have those moments where you feel that the hope and the future God promises are really distant and seem invisible and highly unlikely to ever happen.  I'm completely convinced that the people Jeremiah was writing to in Babylon felt the exact same way!  Sometimes the waiting while all the details line up feels excruciating.  

You know what still happens on occasion to my husband and I when we take a trip?  

Inevitably we get excited and want to push through to the destination.  

It is in that moment we have to decide if we are going to let the eagerness for the destination override the pace of our journey.

That is sort of how life is....

When we are in "the waiting place" we can juggle the bus, train and plane to get out of that space sooner, but what do we lose in the process?  

What opportunities or relationships are sacrificed?

So if you are in a waiting place (like I am right now) take some time,

slow down, meet the people around you.

Stop trying to juggle the schedule to escape and embrace this part of the journey!

What I Learned from Whole 30

Yesterday marked the end of an experiment for our family.  Well.... more specifically my husband and I...  Shortly after we were married my husband expressed a desire to try out this thing called Whole 30.  Now if you are a woman you can probably totally relate to my initial reaction... 

"Another diet?  I've tried diet after diet and they just don't work for me.  Not only that we haven't been married long enough for you to see me without sugar...  That's worse than me without make-up!"

So we shelved that idea... For about 5 years to be exact...  Enter an author I very much enjoy, Jen Hatmaker.  Randomly across my Facebook feed comes a post about her experience on Whole 30.  As I watched her pictures of amazing food find their way across my social media over the course of the next 30 days, I found myself thinking, "Maybe, just maybe I can do this."

Jump to a few months following her experiment with this life change and I found myself listening to her interview with one of the creators of this system.  The thing that caught my attention in this particular interview was the idea that the purpose of the 30 days was to deal with our addictions to food.  That hit home for me.  

What I know to be true about myself is that when I'm happy, sad, depressed or anxious food is how I celebrate, cope or hide from the pain.  If I needed any reminder of that it had come the year before when I heard the thing no one wants to hear at a doctor's appointment...  I had gained rather than lost weight after the birth of my second daughter.  

In the months following this realization about Whole 30 my husband and I decided that we would definitely do this.  Finally, the day came when I finished the bag of Oreos and realized I just felt yuck.    The food hadn't filled the void that it usually filled.  Shortly after that I did what any rational person would do.... I bought a half gallon of unsweetened almond milk and determined our start date from that singular plastic bottle and it's expiration date.  

That was about 40 days ago...  

When my husband came home five years ago and told me that he wanted to try this thing called Whole 30 I never would have expected to learn about myself from what I thought of as a diet.  What I've learned from our Whole 30 experiment is how I can abuse food.  Crazy thought, right?  I mean we need food to live, don't we?  

What I realized as we progressed through the Whole 30 is that I really don't need all of the food I typically manage to consume in a day, week or month.  The Whole 30 helped me realize to recognize when I was genuinely hungry and when I wanted to eat because I was bored  The Whole 30 by taking away my sugar and processed foods made me think about what "treats" really hold value for me.  One of the things I spent the last week doing is anticipating my first Starbucks visit after our 30 days was over.  Prior to Whole 30 I made excuses to go big on my Starbucks visits, guzzling a venti latte or mocha in short order.  This time I found myself like a kid in a candy store with enough to only get one piece of candy.... What was the exact thing I wanted to savor....  What was the smallest size that would give me the greatest enjoyment?  

The Whole 30 made me realize that I had stopped enjoying the things that should have been special.  I was using them to mask or medicate a feeling that I didn't want to experience.  Our experiment with Whole 30 has made me realize that one of the dangers in the addictions that we allow ourselves to have in areas we deem socially acceptable is the way they dull our senses.  We no longer allow ourselves to anticipate the simple things.  They become commonplace.  

When I had to spend 30 days finding some way other than snacking to fight boredom I found time to invest in things that had been on my to-do list, but just never managed to trump sitting on the couch snacking and watching a movie.  I  decluttered our bathroom closet, pantry, bookshelves and half our basement.  I found more time to read and visit the library.  I found time to spend special days with my daughters.  I don't think I've ever tried a "diet" that made me do the soul-searching that Whole 30 did.  

The Whole 30 brought me face to face with my socially acceptable addictions in the form of food and in some respects my laziness.  There were days where the urge to go get McDonalds for the convenience it afforded was so strong, I had to make a decision to make to not make the fast food run.  I discovered there is a part of me that wants to make things easy for myself.  I in no way believe that my struggle with food is over....  I'm human.  I think that this will be an issue I need to continually be aware of, but before Whole 30 I did not see food addictions in quite the same way I do post-Whole 30.  Will I live the remainder of my life sugarless?  No, but I believe that I will choose more wisely how I spend my newly developed sugar allowance.  

The Journey of Discovery

You know that feeling when you feel like your entire world has been rocked on it's axis.  You know in that moment that nothing will ever be the same.  You just cannot see the world in the same way after "that" event happens.

I am not sure about you, but my favorite part of a movie is the moment the lead character realizes, who they were meant to be and just grabs on to it and holds tight.  It takes "that" moment, but then the entire story changes.  We move a little closer to the edge of our seats and try to reach in to the character.  It happens early in our lives.  I think instinctively even as young children we have the desire to be known for who we really are.

One of my favorite things right now is watching my two toddler daughters watch "that" moment in their favorite movies.  For my youngest, Eden it means at 20 months mimicking the motions of Elsa as she runs up the North Mountain and belting out the word "Go" at just the right time.  For my oldest, Myka it means getting out her guitar the moment Ash, in Sing starts to stomp out the beat to "Set It All Free", in a fierce determination to let nothing hold her back any longer.  At a year and a half and three years old my little girls recognize that in this moment these characters have recognized who they are and they want to be a part of that.

As we become adults the movies change, but the draw to that moment does not.  We see it when Aragorn comes into his own in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.   Right now I see it in the song "This is Me" from The Greatest Showman.  As I see this scene I lean in a little closer because I want to feel that moment that this group of misfits leaves the opinions of other behind them and owns their uniqueness.

Uniqueness.... Have you ever noticed how humanity will fight to own a one of a kind original piece, but wants the most unique creation of all, humans, to fit and conform?  This is a brokenness we see all the way back to the beginning of our existence.  The suggestion to Eve that by eating the fruit "you will be like God" is the first invitation to humanity to abandon our uniqueness (Gen 3:5).  From there on humanity manages to consistently find ways to lose or hide our uniqueness.  Overtime we became obsessed with a need to fit in to the larger whole.  To find our place by conforming to the expectations of the most powerful personalities in our sphere.

Now we become resistant to our own uniqueness because it now includes unique brokenness.  If we begin to examine that brokenness we begin to feel exposed.  Our brokenness prevents us from conforming.  So we hide it and call it a weakness, trying desperately to conform when we see the glaring evidence that our very brokenness makes us distinctly unique.  No one shares our brokenness exactly because they do not live our same exact story.

C.S. Lewis wrote,

Friendship is born the moment when one man says to another "What you too?  I thought that no one, but myself.."

That is the power in exploring our broken uniqueness.  It is only by understanding the unique gifts we bring to the world that we can truly say "This is me".

Our messy brokenness can be so difficult though.  When we start to explore it, we will experience rejection.  It will make some people who have shared our journey uncomfortable.  We will experience discomfort as we learn about the unique individual that we have spent years and even decades hiding.    We will find beauty.  The moment we lean in to the screen when Elsa throws her glove or when Aragorn give a speech worthy of a king becomes something we have the opportunity to experience ourselves.  It allows us to look at the characters we admire and feel kinship.

I have often spent my life feeling like Mia Thermopolis in the Princess Diaries.  I'm really good at being invisible.  If I stay invisible maybe I won't get hurt or will at least avoid conflict.  Maybe I won't get yelled at or punished.  There are so many advantages to invisibility.  It's the next best thing to conformity.  If you can't mimic everyone at least make sure they don't notice you.  Then I started to realize as did Mia, royalty cannot hide.  If I genuinely believe in this whole God the Father thing, then I need to learn as Mia did how to conduct myself like royalty.  And so I learned to explore my brokenness.

That exploration led me to realize a lot of big things about myself.  I struggle with depression.  I have panic attacks and experience anxiety.  I have PTSD.  I stress eat.  I have moments of crazy insane mommy guilt.  I yell at my husband on occasion.  I also learned that I have a massive amount of grace to extend to others.  I am an introvert, but I am also relational (yes.... those two things can co-exist in one human).  I learned I actually enjoy camping and I love the outdoors.  I realized that I have a gift for details.  I learned that in spite of what that mommy guilt tells me, I actually have daughters who regularly expect to go on "adventures".  I learned that I never outgrew cartoons and I absolutely LOVE Disney Princesses.  I learned that fresh flowers bring incredible joy to my life and that it is ok to have them.  I learned I enjoyed listening to Podcasts.  I learned I love Bible Study and Application.  I learned that I could earn a Bachelors Degree while raising toddlers.  I also learned there were some soul deep hurts that still haunted me.  The crazy thing about emotional and spiritual healing that I am learning is that you never really "arrive".  You can't actually get to a place and say well... Mark that off the list.

The journey of discovery is unique to each of us.  We get to take it at our own pace.  God will stretch us, but he doesn't force us.  He will challenge us, but he doesn't dictate.  What we do get in that journey of discovery is our own moment to say "This is me".  The more we embrace and learn who God designed us to be the more we are able to live in confidence in our uniqueness.  As we embrace the brokenness and the lessons and healing it holds we are able to stop letting others dictate our lives and we are able to listen more closely to the still small voice that knows exactly who we are suppose to be.

2018 One Word - Hope

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD. "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future."

~Jeremiah 29:11

For the past several years I have adopted a Word for the Year.  

2014 - Pieces

2015 - Recklessly Abandoned

2016 - Exhale

2017 Intentional

Quite honestly, most of those years those words have seemed really difficult.  They have become reminders though that words can have more depth and meaning then we ever imagine.  In 2014, leaving a job meant feeling like my life was falling apart.  It meant feelings of loss and abandonment.  It quite literally felt like life as I knew it was falling apart.

The crazy thing about words though is that they create a story.  When the end of 2015 came along I found myself once more leaving a job (which honestly seemed a little reckless), but this time it was with a sense of anticipation.  We were expecting our second child and I was about half way through school.  There was the offer of a volunteer position in the field I was studying and things looked promising.

2016 saw the birth of our second daughter and the releasing of various relationships, expectations and learning how to be a one income family.

As I have reflected on 2017, I find that once more the idea of being intentional has impacted my life in ways that I never expected.  It meant that in a year that held a lot of change my approach to that changed was different.  I wasn't just reacting to everything that was going on around me, I began to learn to slow down and be intentional about how I responded.  Our family as a whole has tried to be more intentional about how we spend our resources.  It has meant saying no to some good things so I could say yes to better things.

As we neared the end of 2017, I began my usual conversation with God.  It seems like every year my monologue with God goes something like this...

"So, God, are we doing a Word again this year?  I'm not really sure I want to.  Last year sort of hurt.  I'm not quite sure I liked the way that word played out.  Could I maybe have a "happier" word if we are going to do this again?"

Inevitably it seems that when I start this questioning, God begins to show me just how much having a word that year changed me.  I never hear that one word the same way.  I have started to think of it a experiential living.  We live our entire lives using words, but do we fully absorb their impact?  We use words to argue our point in a debate.  We use words to build up, but also belittle others.  Even if you chose a word for the year, have you ever asked God to speak that word over your life for an entire year?

This year God indicated earlier that usual what my word for 2018 would be.
Hope.

I'll be honest.... I'm a little nervous about this word.  I have learned over the past few years that there is always more to a word than we see on the surface.  I think of hope as something clean and pure, a light at the end of the tunnel.  I am a little afraid to have that definition challenged.  What if I don't like what I learn about hope this year?  But what if a new understanding of hope changes me?

And in that comes once again the reminder that words can be one dimensional or they can be experiential.  To live a year allowing God to demonstrate the multi-dimensional facets of one single word or phrase is truly life changing.

Hope will change my life this year.
Will I like all of the ways that happens?
Probably not.
But will I have a deeper understanding of that one singular word Hope by the end of 2018?
Most Definitely!

An Intentional Christmas

Sometimes even though my word for 2017 has been Intentional, it seems like intentionality finds me in curious ways.  Going into November I didn't really think about celebrating Christmas intentionally.  I was just trying to survive.  

Then it happened...

I felt God telling me I had to stop and slow down.

I was doing lots of good things, but they were not necessarily the best things.

It can be funny how we get caught up doing and being part of something and we miss the fact that we are losing who God created us to be in the middle of all the activity.

So I listened 

(after several weeks of sickness that forced rest on me)

And I stopped...

And then I started to hear again...

It is amazing how quickly we can lose the still small voice that God uses to speak His truth into our lives.  

A podcast I listened to recently suggested that the reason God speaks so softly and quietly is so we have to lean in close to him to hear...

I loved the visual this creates....

It makes me think of my own daughters...

One of my favorite things to do in the middle of a tickle fight is to pull them close and say...

"I love you so much!"

And that is how my Christmas season has become Intentional...

In a moment of wrestling and struggling with all the unknowns that loom in my near future God pulled me close and whispered... 

"I love you so much!

I have plans for you that you can't even begin to imagine

and I am working it all out in my time.

I'm working on your future so you can just be and enjoy the present."

So as November faded into the past and December became my present, I began looking for ways to intentionally enjoy a time of year that can be so chaotic and crazy.  

So far we have managed three different visits with Santa for Myka, my oldest daughter.

We have shared the excitement of our annual Victorian Christmas celebration with our community.

We have painted ornaments, made cookies, just driven around looking at Christmas lights.

My husband and I took the time to cram ourselves into a little train because a three year old asked, 

"Can you ride with me?"

We are just twelve days into December, but I have unintentionally met goals early by suddenly having the margin to invest energy I did not have before I listened and stopped.

I have been learning in this Year of Intentional that intentionality is not something that comes easy.

It can look great on a motivational poster.

It sounds really inspiring.

The reality...

It is really hard...

For me this year Intentional has met setting boundaries that protect my physical and emotional health and holding those boundaries even when it becomes uncomfortable.

Intentional has been saying no when the desire to please screams that I should say yes.

But as we come to the end of the year I feel like I am recognizing exactly how much this one word has changed my life.  

The word Intentional has taught me better self care and in teaching me that it has made me a better wife, mother and friend.

Being Intentional has helped me create margin so that I can slow down and listen just a little more closely for that holy whisper that says...

"I love you so much!"