Category Archives: parenting

How To Keep Dreams Alive

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How do we keep out dreams alive?

Through the mundane of life, how do we keep dreaming about the plans that God has laid and is laying on our hearts? How do we not get bogged down by the bills to pay, diapers to change, mouths to feed? How do we get our eyes off the obstacles in the way and rather lift our eyes a little higher, keeping the prize in view?

When I had already written all the above, I came across this blog entry. He gives some practical advice on how to get out of the rut you may have fallen into and get back into focus.

Some of it is not super practical for a stay-at-home/work-at-home mom like me. Finding a big chunk of time to spend alone and focus on God, the giver and sustainer of my dreams? Near impossible!! I’m thankful for the 10 minutes I sneak by myself in the morning to read God’s Word. But on a very rare occasion, my kids do sleep at the same time, and I really need to take hold of those moments and focus on Him.

I can also do small focus moments throughout the day. I enjoy having a Bible reading application on my iPhone, as well as a couple of devotional apps. I also listen to podcasts of some Christian speakers I enjoy and am inspired by as I go about my day. Sometimes, while my children are playing, I may even have the opportunity to read a few pages of a book! And just interacting with my children reminds me of who God is as my perfect heavenly father, and how His singing and rejoicing over me to exponentially bigger and greater than what I feel for my own children. The bottom line is that It’s easy for my focus to get sidetracked, so I can use these small things to bring it back to Him.

It certainly can be (and is at times) easy to get discouraged when I don’t feel as if I have the time & space to see my dreams come to fruition. As a mom, I need to remember that my primary mission is here at home! God has given me & my husband two (so far!) beautiful children to care for. God forbid I ever look on them as an obstacle to what God has for me in my life. On the contrary, when God knit together His plans & dreams for me, He already orchestrated all the great things my husband, my kids and I would do together!

Rather I keep my focus on the giver and perfecter of my faith, the One who is able to make His plans come to pass in His perfect timing. I’m just along for the ride 🙂

Being Literal

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I recently got a book from the library that an acquaintance recommended. She didn’t recommend it for the parenting advice, but more for the thoughts on having children, birth control, marriage, etc. I was really enjoying the book until I came upon the section on training a child. The book’s author advised not to listen to any of the parenting experts & didn’t offer much counsel of her own, but she did share a couple of readers’ stories which promptly made me lose my interest in the book due to some of their “training methods”. When I asked my acquaintance about it, she said she didn’t really listen to the parenting advice, but simply absorbed wisdom from the other topics of interest in this author’s books.

I have only recently realized how literal I am. I am very, very literal. And I really struggle with reading a book and accepting any of its advice when I strongly disagree with certain aspects of it.

This hit home again recently when one of the blogs I read referenced a teaching by someone I know vaguely, but have heard a lot about from people who do know him. I know this person is not a person of integrity, and therefore, I couldn’t really absorb the teaching. This same issue has come up before in ministry circles. I’m not able to quote authors in my talks or articles who I know disagree with the fundamental premise of why I do the type of ministry that I do. Others can easily quote those whom they may disagree with on certain topics, even if those topics are the core of their ministry, because they simply figure they will not agree with everyone on everything.

To my other literal readers – are you like this? Or are you able to take what you like & leave the rest, as the 12 steps would say? To my less literal readers – are you able to sort of separate the things you agree & disagree with? One of my campus ministry leaders I know always said not to dismiss truth simply because of its source. Generally, I think that’s good advice, but sometimes, I have a really hard time separating any “truth” I might be able to absorb from its source if that source has foundations I strongly disagree with.

Thoughts?

Final Day Conference Update

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I want to make sure to write my final conference update while it is semi-fresh in my mind. A Baptist pastor named Bob Perdue shared a very encouraging testimony. After the testimony, we sang some awesome worship songs, and the worship leader, Marianne Adams, encouraged us to come down front & dance. Guess who was one of the first ones down there? 🙂 Me!

The enemy has been defeated
Death couldn’t hold you down
We’re gonna lift our voice in victory
Gonna make your praises loud

Shout unto God with a voice of triumph
Shout unto God with a voice of praise
Shout unto God with a voice of triumph
We lift your name up, we lift your name up

Amen!! I love that song! I danced so hard my calves hurt the next day 🙂

Then Randy Thomas talked about his journey of healing as it related to singleness & celibacy. He quoted Revelation 3:5, 12-13:

5He who overcomes will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out his name from the book of life, but will acknowledge his name before my Father and his angels.

12Him who overcomes I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. Never again will he leave it. I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven from my God; and I will also write on him my new name. 13He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

I could write a bunch about what Randy said. He’s quite knowledgeable & wise & funny & I always enjoy hearing him speak. But he mainly just shared his journey 🙂 I have to admit also that I had to leave early because we had to drive to Charlotte to catch our flight, but I ordered the DVD 🙂

Over all, I personally walked away from the conference encouraged, as well as challenged & convicted about the importance of the work that we do. I attended the International Conference in the summers of 2004 & 2005, but had not been able to attend a national conference since January of 2006. With all the changes in my life & the challenges of trying to balance motherhood & ministry, I was feeling rather disconnected. There isn’t really a model that I have seen within the Exodus network of how to be a mom & a ministry director. Most ministry directors who have children are either men or women whose children are grown. I don’t know of any other directors who are trying to balance having a small child at home with working part-time, directing a ministry, while their husband works a full-time job in another field (as many couples do ministry together). So I definitely needed the encouragement of reconnecting with my ministry colleagues.

I was also encouraged because we brought the baby & worked it out so that I could attend the conference, and Roy could enjoy parts of it as well. Most of the other moms with small children who were attending left their kids at home, which isn’t possible for me as Bear is still breastfeeding. Plus, that’s a long time to be away from your kids! So I’ve wondered how, as we keep having more children (God-willing), will I be able to continue to do ministry. How will traveling work? Will the kids come? And I see that it can work – we just might want to bring a nanny as they get older so we can both attend the conference together 🙂 Thankfully, the Bear had fallen asleep in the Bjorn, so Roy was able to hear me share my testimony.

I did order the DVD of the testimonies, as well as a copy of my workshop on CD. The final DVD’s will be mailed to me, so I’ll let you know how I feel it all turned out when I get a chance to watch & listen to them!

And now, Roy’s back to work & it’s back to the daily grind for me 🙂

High Needs Babies & Flying

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I haven’t been as good about blogging lately for a couple reasons. First, I’ve been trying to prepare for Bear’s first plane ride. We’re going to North Carolina for the Exodus Freedom Conference in less than 3 weeks! 3 years ago when we went down there, we drove, so we were weighing the pros & cons of driving versus flying. Driving was appealing because I could bring my blender for green smoothies, as well as any food & supplies I might need. But that’s an awfully long time to be in a car with an infant, so we decided to fly. We’re taking a direct flight to Charlotte (only 2 hours), renting a car, and driving the 2 hours to get to Asheville.

The 2nd reason I haven’t been able to blog is that Bear has been extra needy lately. Bear is and has always been what one would call “High Needs”. I don’t like the terms “difficult” or “fussy”; he’s just who he is. He’s been like this from day 1, so I don’t believe it’s something we caused or cultivated.

I remember coming across Dr. Sears’ book “Fussy Baby Book: parenting your high-need child from birth to five”, when Bear was about 8 weeks old. It described him to a T. In some ways, it was really affirming, and in other ways, totally discouraging. I kept hoping it was just a phase that he would grow out of.

All babies are “high needs” in some sense – it’s just some need to sleep and some don’t as much, some need to suck and some don’t as much, some need to be held a lot and some don’t as much. He has food sensitivities as well as acid reflux, which adds to it. He’s doing better than when he was younger, definitely, but he still requires a lot of time and attention.

It’s easy to get frustrated when I’m trying to get something done, and Bear wants my attention. As Bear gets older, I’m realizing he has three distinct cries: his “I’m bored/pay attention to me” whine, which is more about wanting my attention vs. actually needing my attention, his “I need you” cry, where he really does need me NOW, and his “I’m terrified, come quickly” cry, which he’s only done when the dog barks too close to him or when the smoke alarm goes off (and we have a very sensitive smoke alarm!). When he’s just whining, I reassure him with my voice that I’ll be with him in a minute and quickly finish whatever I’m doing. It’s generally when I’m in the kitchen preparing his food or mine.

I’ve been struggling to practice acceptance. I have many things I’d like to do, and even things I really need to do. But I figure soon enough, Bear will outgrow his desire & need to sit in my lap & take a nap like he is now. Today, I can choose to fight against Bear’s needs, or I can accept him for who he is and cherish his babyhood. I think I’ll do the latter 🙂

Why Does God Let Babies Die?

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That’s the question I asked Roy today. A woman on a message board I frequent lost her baby today. He was born not breathing, with the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck. He was revived temporarily, but went to be with Jesus last night. I had been praying for her little baby, for his complete healing, & for her family since she went into labor.

The family seems to be holding up as well as could be expected. They have 2 young daughters. Pray for them.

I look at my beautiful son, and my heart breaks to imagine life without him. It gives me a glimpse into the father heart of God, who spared no expense in sending His only son to suffer & die a horrific death.

Roy responded, “Why does God let anyone die?” Good question. There are no easy answers. The fact is we will all die someday. No one is exempt. Does it seem cruel & unfair to me that a sweet little baby boy should have to go to Jesus so soon? Yes. But at least he is not suffering anymore. For now, their little baby boy has received his complete healing and is resting in God’s arms.

Less than 7 months after this, I lost a child to miscarriage. I wrote an article about that experience: Bye, Bye, Pebble Baby

Following Your Passion

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Roy & I stayed home from church today because Bear has a fever and isn’t feeling well. And since we’ve been up since about 5 AM, I’ve been catching up on reading some library books that I have out. And since the Bear is snoozing on my lap, I thought I’d type a post on my new Asus 🙂

2 books really have me thinking: “The Simple Living Guide” and to a lesser degree “Your Money or Your Life”. Janet Luhrs, author of “The Simple Living Guide”, discussing simplifying your life to the point where you can easily live within your means and still save money so that one day, you become financially independent. We are on track to be set to retire in 15-20 years if we continue to pay down our debt at our current rate and continue to earn about the same amount of money with annual raises.

This may surprise some of you, but I’ve always desired to live a simple life. Some of you probably just laughed out loud as you read that because you’ve been to our house and have seen all the stuff we’ve accumulated over the years. Yes, our hoarding tendencies still need to be worked on, for sure 🙂 But ideally, I’d love to live in a small town where you go to the village store and the clerk knows you by name (yes, I have watched too much “Little House on the Prairie”). We’d live in a modest house, and I could have a large garden on lots of land with a stream nearby for Roy. Yes, I would miss the conveniences of city life (like being able to walk to the grocery store and not use any gas to get there!), but I think the pros would outweight the cons. And with all the technology we have available to us today, Roy & I could both work from home.

The question is what work would I do? Luhrs talks a lot about finding work you are passionate about. I’m passionate about a lot of things – ministry, music, healthy eating which does not mean “low-fat”, fyi), green smoothies, dogs, babies, recovery – the list could go on & on 🙂 She talked specifically about how great it was to be able to work from home when her kids were small. Her job? Writing! As I read that, I was reminded of how, in recent years, I’ve really had a strong desire to write a book. I’ve never thought of myself as much of a writer before, but I recently had 3 articles published over at Boundless.org, and those were relatively well-received. There are a few different book ideas that I’ve tossed around, but there’s one specific idea that I feel strongly God put on my heart over 3 years ago. As I sat thinking about this, I actually had several ideas pop into my head, so I hopped over to my Asus & jotted them down.

So get ready, Eva! (She’ one of my best friends and has edited pretty much everything I’ve written since we met a few years ago.) It may take me 2 or 3 times as long to write a book, typing with one finger and a baby in my lap, but it’ll get done eventually!

Shameless plus – I have been reading some great books lately! Check out my Library Thing list below for some recommendations 🙂