All Things Motherhood

Jagged and unrefined

June 29, 2017 By Heather

I feel it most when sand runs through my fingers and the water rushes to the shore only to run back out again. I breathe deep and let the words run through me to form sentences which frame stories. It untethers my word-weaving-soul.

I open my eyes and think how God must’ve felt the same way as he formed our world from nothing.

This is my gift—to write little things and big things, like the sun sinking into the earth, community, God and hurts alike.

Lately sentences have been hard to form. Stories—empty. Pages—blank. Ink—dry. Mainly because I can’t see myself, I’ve lost my purpose and can’t see how He is shaping me.

At least until a friend dragged me to the dump one weekend. Standing in 88 degree heat with baseball cap on my head and a hot latte in my hand—I stood in the midst of her story unfolding.

She spends her afternoons rummaging through tall piles of abandoned pieces of wood. Pallets, old barn wood and construction boxes.

To her, a pile of wood standing two stories high isn’t junk. She sees what I can’t see.

An old barn panel waiting to be dressed in paint and stain of a red dressed girl swinging into the sunset. An old pallet waiting to be Pottery Barn table. She sees the future for jagged pieces of decaying wood, dead and lifeless to become a canvas for arrows, flowers, and bold words.

I’m her adopted sister and sacarcasm runs deep as she sweats in the sun making fun of my latte. I banter back about sunburns and better things to do than being at the freakin’ dump, and the fact she loves the smell of the garbage baking in the sun.

To her—it’s a treasure trove of things waiting for new life.

She crawled around the pile until her trained eye spotted a piece ready to be refined. She found old barn wood, jagged and full of splinters. A discarded pallet.

“Now this is worth the trip,” she quips as she grabs her crow bar and hammer; eager to pull rusty nails from it’s flesh. Sweat trickles down my back as I question her sanity and the value of wood I think is perfect for a bonfire.

Then it hits me. I hear Him whisper, “This is the process, daughter. To be plucked from the mess, refined in my Word and sanded into the future I have for you.” You haven’t lost your way, you haven’t lost your gift–you’re being refined.”

We like to think we’ve already arrived but reality tells us differently. Pride pushes up splinters when He offers to sand it down. Insecurity splits us pieces when God says, “I can mend it.”

As I watched Cindy pry nails and boards apart to be shaped into something new, I wondered how many of us are willing to be laid bare on His table?

Are we willing to go through the process as he puts on His gloves and gets to work, cutting off pieces of our lives that no longer fit. He nails us into place all the while leaving His fingerprints all over His creation.

I see it in every one of Cindy’s pieces of art. But the question is this: Are you willing to be refined? Are you willing to wade through the process to see what His tomorrow brings?

Sometimes the best gifts come in the worst packaging

May 23, 2017 By Heather

Sometimes the best gifts come in the worst packages.
At least, that was the message a woman who I had never met whispered into my ear as I snot-nosed cried into her jean jacket.
She had to turn off her mic so the crowd couldn’t hear me bawl.

And I was embarassed.

My outfit, manicured nails, and poise—all of it gone, drenched in tears and snot.

What woman doesn’t want to completely lose it in front of her church crowd?

I came to the retreat purely because Kim (the Pastor’s wife) asked if I would help greet.

And really who says, “No,” to the Pastor’s wife, right?
But this woman invited to speak–her message was mine; only I didn’t know it until she began to unpack every detail and weave her past into my present.

She had delivered a message about the night her world changed, when her husband became paralyzed; but with a twist, her worst nightmare became the gift she never expected.

My circumstaces were much less dramatic, but left me feeling suckerpunched as I gasped for air standing in the aftermath.

In less than a month my world had been tossed, shaken, and sifted much like Dorothy’s house in the Wizard of Oz. By the time the dust settled every inch of my life had changed.
I would be putting my house on the market—the home I brought my newborn babies to.
I would be saying good-bye to a career I adored.
I would be finding a new school for my son.
I would be finding additional help for my daughter.
I would be learning how to rebuild my marriage and trust my husband.

I would be fighting a cancer scare with a total hysterectomy.

But this is what happens when you say “Anything,” to God. This is what happens when you look at your life and ask if this is all there really is—build a good career, buy the dream home, have the kids, and marry the guy.

This is what happens when you focus on all the wrong things – instead of what really matters.

Several months ago, I woke up one morning, burned out, feeling as though this life wasn’t all it was supposed to be.

I was feeling empty and hollow. I started making careless mistakes and missing appointments. The dream was a dreadful empty machine.

I was using all of my gifts, all of my abilties, dreaming, living, creating, doing. I breathed my career and I lived for my kids, going to bed at 2 a.m. and waking at 6 a.m. just to do it all over again.
Burn Out.
There had to be more.
That’s when I prayed, “Lord, something needs to change, I want to change, use me.”

Here’s the thing, we grow up dreaming of the white picket fence, prince charming and cute kids all the while saying “Jesus, yes of course I love you more than anything but please don’t touch this area of my life. In fact bless it this way…”

But then he smiles while thinking, “Many are the plans in the mind of man, but my purpose will prevail.”

And then He says, “Are you sure? Because I have something much better for you.”

And he whispers:
“Do you love me enough to go where I send you? Do you love me enough to give me your dreams while I give you a new purpose?”

And that’s how I found myself sobbing in front more than one hundred women when the speaker cupped my face, wiped my tears and said,
“There’s no shame in what you’re doing. There’s no shame in going where you’re called.”

It turns out BURN OUT is one of such gifts. And it’s like that for most gifts wrapped in ugly packaging.

Loneliness—a chance to seek Him.
Labor—a child.
Mistakes—a chance to grow.
Burn Out—a chance to start fresh.
The Manger, The Cross and The Tomb—Jesus and Salvation.
Yes…sometimes even the ugliest of circumstances, the ugliest of packages has something beautiful within.

I don’t know what path you’re walking but I want to take you in my arms, cup your face and tell you “Face it with fresh eyes, His eyes. Chances are—you just might find the gift within.”

Red Sea Road

April 30, 2017 By Heather

She sat with tears in her eyes, holding my attention and apologizing for something that happened eight years ago.
Gratitude poured forth from my soul, soothing a wound I didn’t know was there as we talked about the hard roads she and I had traversed alone—something I often call Red Sea Roads.
These are the paths that are tough, rocky and lonely. These are the roads we walk with saturating grace of each step and it carries the good and the hard and the mess and the chaos.
Often when my kids are faced with a struggle, I tell them they have some walking to do but their God is with them.
They can visualize their Creator dividing the red sea in half and the Israelites putting one faithful step in front of the other. I’ve walked many of my own red sea roads, this friendship was one of them.
Eight years ago, my friend and I exchanged awkward smiles. Newly married, she moved to Kearney and our paths crossed on hot summer days at the playgrounds, church and MOPS.
We both learned we had the exact same due date for her third child and my fourth.
But then she got the word I had lost my baby as her pregnancy continued to flourish. I reached out for tentative play dates but the calls went unanswered. Recently, we met for a news story and then bonded on common grounds of a healthier lifestyles and marriage.
“I wish we had become better friends sooner,” I said around a mouthful of chicken and avocado salad. She winced, “Me too. I think I owe you an apology. When I heard you had lost Alex, I didn’t know what to say. But now that I’ve experienced the same kind of loss, I wished I hadn’t let the awkwardness of what I felt get in the way. It was safer to stay on middle ground.”
And there it was, tears in her eyes, her hardest truth spilling over a bread bowl of tomato bisque.
It can be hard to share what’s real but feeling alone is even harder on either road.
The middle ground is where we like to be. It’s safe, the path is wide open, steady and stable—because the alternative is un-chartered territory, walking where we never expected.
But that’s the power of friendship. That’s the power of women, if we can’t find common ground, we make our own path to each other. And in this middle place of working through something, of traversing along this road—in the space between moving courageously and waiting to reach the destination, you’ll get there, even if it’s eight years later.

Craving the Much Need Silence

March 6, 2017 By Heather

The days in the Caribbean were amazing. The ocean glittered at sunset. There was sand between my toes and the food lit up every taste bud in my mouth. After the kids were sacked out from a fun day docked on shore, they were lulled to by the gentle rocking of the ship and the hum of the engine.

Late at night, I would sneak out onto the veranda to soak up the midnight blue sky backdropping millions of stars — more stars than I had ever seen in a lifetime.

That week on the ocean has like a fast for my mind. I felt strong, whole, healthy and vibrant in the silence and after the rest. I didn’t realize how much I craved the silence and the rest. I woke up each day ready for rest, self-care and family time.

But it didn’t feel that way at first. It felt as if a piece of me was missing when I discovered my phone wouldn’t work for the rest of our vacation unless I wanted to purchase a rather spendy Wi-Fi package, and even then, connecting to the web was akin to the dinosaur beginnings of Internet dialup. It meant our phones were rendered useless.

My teenager was also panicking about the lack of connection. I began to love the freedom from the cyber connection in favor of soul connections on sandy beaches. Of course, taking a mental break is easy when you’re someplace exotic.

I adored the quiet and the moment of being fully at rest. Gone was the humming of doing, hustling, phone calls, blog posts, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, writing stories, grocery lists, folding laundry and schedules. Instead, there was only time to be fully in the moment, and pieces of those moments slowly built me back to feeling whole.

During our family vacation, I realized I was starving my mind and soul for complete rest. As a recovering over-achieving perfectionist, I have a difficult time hearing myself think. I’d wake up at a frenzied pace, frustrated because no matter how hard I try, I’m already a mile behind and an hour late, never able to find time to re-calibrate.

I’d question whether the demands I placed on my life were priorities. I’d fret that something wasn’t done as well as it could have been or that I could have done better and then worry that there just wasn’t enough time in the day to accomplish all that I wanted or needed to do. All of this takes away from breathing deeply and creating joyful moments.

Now that I’m back home, my phone gets docked on my nightstand and when the world starts to feel noisy and my mind feels full, I retreat to the swing in our backyard.

I close my eyes remembering the beach and the ocean waves, then I begin to pray, thanking God for each and every thing I have to do, for my list, for my kids and even for the laundry.

Here’s the thing I’m learning: Peace isn’t found when I check out of reality on the web or check someone else’s status. It’s found in the quiet.

When the world is noisy and feels as if it’s emptying us, God meets us in the quiet and slowly fills us back up.
This column originally appeared on the Kearney Hub Newspaper. You can read it here.

8 Tips for Peaceful Holidays with Kids

December 7, 2016 By Heather

I used to love and dread the holiday season. As school breaks loomed on the calendar, I began to brace myself as the kids turned into little monsters with their tantrums and other meltdowns. It wasn’t until I saw things from their perspective before I began to truly enjoy this time of year. I realized the kids’ lives were slightly out of whack, instead of the normal everyday life, the holidays are filled to the brim with activities, shopping, eating out, visiting friends and family and more.

In other words, the routine, the schedule and what they are used to on a daily basis had gone wild.

Instead of trying to curb the behavior, let’s prevent the behaviors from happening. This time of the year isn’t meant to be frantic, it’s meant to be enjoyed as we celebrate how thankful we are for Jesus’ birth. Let the seasons of thanksgiving begin….with a few tips.

1. Don’t over schedule your children.

Avoid extra tasks and activities which are likely to overwhelm your kids. For example, schedule a playdate or time with the grandparents for long shopping trips. Shopping during the holiday season is stressful enough, adding a small child with a short attention span who likes routine makes things stressful.

If you have a friend who needs to do some shopping, offer to swap kids so she can shop without kids too. Everyone wins in a situation like this. Your kids have a playdate and you have free time. And when it’s your friend’s turn, your kids will be occupied as you get a few things down around the house.

2. Involve Your Kids in the New Schedule.

Instead of springing it on your kids at the last minute, keep them in the loop about what weekend plans, dinner parties and so forth. This helps bring the stress level down for your kids and helps prepare them for what will happen next.

3. Keep the Bed Time!

As much as possible keep the bed time as close as possible to the normal bedtime and keep the routine. If you read to your child every night before bed, keep doing so. Sticking with routines even at Grandma’s house helps your child rest well at night on top of getting to sleep on time while preventing meltdown’s.

4. Have activity-based celebrations.

Spend some down time with children making cards, decorations, cookies and gifts.
You may wish to let each child select one activity for the whole family to do over the holidays. This not only provides the perfect opportunity for you to have one on one time but also helps your child catch on to the joy of the season of thanksgiving and Christ’ birth.

5. Teach Hospitality.

Teaching your kids how they can help empowers them to make better choices during dinner parties. For more tips and a hospitality sticker chart, click here.

6. Make your home a Sanctuary.

Make your home a sanctuary from the overstimulation of the outside world by making family “quiet time” a part of every evening.

Limit total screen time, including computer games, video games and time spent watching television. Advertisements scandalously target children and the more they watch, the more they soak up the commercial messages of the season…instead of the real spirit of the holidays.
Have a turn off time for all devices. Keep phones, Ipods, Ipads, Tablets, TVs out of your children’s bedrooms and turned off a full two hours before bedtime. This allows your child’s minds to settle down!
Tell or read Bible stories about Christ’ birth or other great holiday stories.

7. Encourage Compassion

Depending on the age of your kids, plan a way to teach your children compassion during the holiday season. By scheduling a chance to serve in the community, it gives you control over their schedules and teaches your children about the needs of others.

8. H.A.L.T.

During the holiday rush of shopping, concerts, parties and more, remember the world H.A.L.T. It stands for Hungry, Agitated, Lonely, or Tired. When your child begins to melt down, ask yourself, if she is hungry or tired. This will help you pinpoint her needs and allow you to make adjustments as need to avoid meltdowns. For more about this great tip, visit Today’s Christian Woman.

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