No More Perfect Moms

I won’t rescue you but I’ll suffer with you

February 23, 2015 By Heather

I’m no expert. I don’t have a degree in psychology, nor am I a life coach or the life of the party but I love connecting with women. I love listening to their stories, raw, tragic, and beautiful. A deep thread of strength runs in each one. I shared one such moment with a friend the other day when I had no idea what was really going on in her life, nor did she really know what was happening in mine.

From the outside life looked normal, typical of any American mom and wife as we exchanged waves in school pick up lane. But this moment was more than that, it was a chance to shed our coverings and be in our skin of motherhood. After we left that sweet spot of no pretenses mixed rich bold coffee, sugary sweet food (for the love of God, we women can connect over ANY carb-filled offerings), we hurried back to our crazy, messy lives.

I ran into another friend, we chatted and then parted ways, she went home to her family, I went to the gym since I’m training for a half marathon. My feet found a steady pace with my thoughts swirling. Sifting through shared secrets, unpacked pain, and naked souls–I realized we are each fighting to make sense of our lives. Strangely enough in the swirling, I found one common perpetrator. We as women don’t know why we are experiencing the pain, the self-doubt, and the messiness of what was supposed to be simple life lived. In each woman’s eyes, I see this nagging sense of self-doubt, that we don’t have what it takes. The loss of clarity over why we are hurting.

Breathing deep, my body pushed through another mile using the pain of a recent situation with my own daughter. Anger and failure ached in my heart as much as my muscles straining to keep pace. Overwhelmed and undone by this magnitude of brokenness in the lives of women I know and in my own, my soul wrestled with God.

Salty tears ran down my cheeks. Exhausted and hurting. I heard Him ever so gently say, “Wait. Wait on Me into tomorrow. I have the unknown in my hands.”

I thought of Jesus and what must have been His worst night on this earth. Him laying face down in the Garden of Gethsemane the eve before He was to be killed. He prayed on His face for hours. Perhaps His heart swelled to the point of breaking as He thought of the pain His people were going through or (would go through) in this life. Maybe he offered intercession as He prayed for God to take this cup from Him.

My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. He said to them, “Stay here and keep watch with me,” Then he fell with this face to the ground praying, “Father if is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will but as you will.” ~Mark 14:34-36

The story continued as Jesus prayed to the point of sweating blood, anguished over what he would face. Perhaps like the anguish I was feeling over the choices and actions of my child. Maybe even my friends felt the same anguish in the midst of their own circumstances. Each of us, alone in the quiet of our homes, faces planted into the carpet, tears streaming, pleading with God to make it stop, to rescue us. Yet, Jesus knew rescue wouldn’t come the way He might have wanted it. It would not come to Him laying face down on the ground, drowning in his sweat and tears.

His rescue was much different. His rescue meant yielding to the pain. To stay in the place, the circumstances that broke His heart. His rescue happened three days later after defeating death. It is the same kind of stay He is teaching us in our stories. That self-doubt we feel is because our marriages aren’t supposed to be crumbling, we aren’t supposed to feel drained, sold out and dragged down by motherhood. We aren’t supposed to be mentally and emotionally gutted from balancing a child with special needs, the demands of work, and feeling as if we are all alone.

We don’t want to stay here but we don’t have to wait here alone. It’s the same kind of wait Jesus encountered the night before the cross. And there’s beauty in that because Jesus is here in the midst saying, “I’ll suffer with you.”

Jesus whispers to our doubt and struggle, “I won’t rescue you because this kind of struggle leads to deep roots, community with others, and legacy of overcoming…”

When shed our Facebook perfect posts and lay bare the ugly before another woman, we don’t stay stuck in self doubt. We move forward into tomorrow leaning on each other. Suffering no doubt, but healing. So turn your face to him, open your heart and embrace the stay, open your heart to another.

Her 10 Pound Birth of Perfection (No More Perfect Moms)

January 16, 2013 By Heather

It’s so easy to compare our bodies and come to the realization, it is imperfect.

Swiping my Bible off the bed, I took its place while hot tears chased each other in a course down my cheeks. My best friend was pregnant again. I was not. I cried out to God beating my body, despising it.

Why could she get pregnant so easily? Why couldn’t I? Seven years had passed since the birth of my daughter in my teen years.

One year later, I learned I was pregnant. After my son was born, a slew of tests were administered and the results?

I have PCOS, a tilted uterus, endometriosis, severe PMS and here’s the kicker…my body was hostile. Yes hostile.

During the baby dancing stage of my life, I viewed my body as defective, imperfect, not whole. I willed it to obey through temperature taking, charting, eating right, exercise, comparing my body to others and lots of drugs. 25 months later, Tori-Grace finally arrived…sort of.

~~(For first time mothers reading this…look away. Look away NOW).~~

It was no easy birth. Having been induced once, I had to come back a week later to do it again. After 12 hours of the highest pitocen drip possible, the nurse discovered scar tissue and broke it accordingly. The epidural didn’t “take” leaving the outside of my body numb and the inside where its needed–not so much. Waves of fear crescendoed with each contraction as I watched the doctor’s expression reveal fear.

Tori was so large, I couldn’t push–it hurt too much. Yet, the body I hated did it for me. With each wave of contractions, my body pushed Tori from her cramped living space and into the world. She arrived oversized, 10 pounds 2 ounces to be exact. Tori had the doctor and nurses breathing deep sighs of relief after she exited her once cozy home. They feared she would get stuck, they knew births like her consisted of damaged nerves, broken clavicles and hemorrhaging. My body conquered these possibilities (I won’t mention how many stitches were needed though :-)).

Tori-Grace is now a vivacious four-year-old with a strange attachment to her big brother. She wakes up asking for him. As she stumbles out of her cobweb of dreams to find him, I smile and hold my stomach. I’m thankful for what it did. Left behind are my battle wounds from birthing three children, 8, 9, and 10 pounds respectively. I hug myself, smiling as I think of Alex, whom my body carried only for a little while.

I follow Tori as she climbs into Elijah’s loft bed, thanking God for my joy–my kids whom wouldn’t be mine without the work my body did. Though it isn’t pretty according to fitness and beauty fanatics, it works for me. It may have love handles and scars but it works hard for me. I have arms to hold my children, legs to chase, a mouth to scold and encourage; a heart swooshing life to every extremity. I have a body perfectly suited for my needs.

Jill Savage of No More Perfect Moms writes her challenge,

Take a good long look in the mirror and know this: regardless of what you see, God sees the beautiful person He created, and He loves every square inch of you just the way you are. Memorize 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 to help you remember this truth.

I Expect My Kids to Fail (No More Perfect Moms)

January 11, 2013 By Heather

Day 7 of the No More Perfect Mom Challenge.

Cheyenne was shaking by the time she got home from school. Dad tried to reassure her that I would not take her life. She knew it was debatable at this point.

She disobeyed.

Her disobedience cost her $279.00 and a shattered Ipod. She knew the rules. I had reminded her about it last weekend when she went on a bowling excursion with her youth group. As I pocketed her Ipod while driving down the road, I asked her,

“What are the rules with the Ipod, Chy?”

“Until I have $279.00 saved up to replace it, I am not to take it out of the house.”

“And….”

“And I need to socialize like normal teenagers, face to face and I can’t do that playing games.” (Big sigh).

“And?”

“And I need to carry my cell phone instead because it can make phone calls and text you, even without Wifi and my Ipod can’t.”

One week later, Cheyenne had somehow forgotten these rules. While out a friend’s house, she tried to take a picture of their cat when she slipped and her Ipod went sailing to an ice-shattering end.

As I calmed my emotions and took a TIME OUT, I recalled what Jill Savage had written:

“We do need to expect responsibility from our kids. We do need to expect obedience. We do need to expect social skills after we teach and train them to those standards. But we also need to expect them to fail at those things. Yep, you read that right. We need to expect our children to fail…perfection doesn’t exist.” –Jill Savage, NO MORE PERFECT MOMS

I expected obedience. I expected my words to be taken seriously, thinking Cheyenne saw the value and wisdom in my words.

She failed.

She failed to see the bigger picture. Often times, you and I fail to see the bigger picture of what God is teaching us throughout the trenches of motherhood, if not throughout life. We build up high expectations of our children, of motherhood and we fail to experience the joy. We fail to see God’s hand in the messes. We fail to realize there is no such thing as perfection. Sometimes failure is a good thing because we learn a million different ways NOT to do something.

In the end, she learned a $279.00 lesson and I am reminding myself to expect my children to fail. And you know, it isn’t such a bad thing. Failing means learning. It means making messes within the boundaries of childhood while it’s still easy for them clean up their mess under our guidance.

P.s. I found on Amazon a digital repair kit for her Ipod. It cost me $12.00 for the kit and a new screen. I’ll wait until she earns a little more cash before I tell her about it. 🙂 You can find it under Ipod Digitizer Kits.

P.P.S. I AM REALLY LEARNING THIS LESSON. We have rules about playing so close to our flatscreen plasma 40 inch TV. My son was bowling on the wii this morning and you guessed it…he lost control of his remote and it went sailing RIGHT into the tv. Did I mention its our ONLY TV? And it was a gift from my brother??? Oh boy.

P.P.P.S. If you have moments like this, I encourage you to take a TIME OUT. 🙂 I have a book just for you, Mama Needs A Time: Daily Getaways for the Mom’s Soul.

Good & Perfect Women Rarely Make History

January 9, 2013 By Heather

Have you taken the No More Perfect Moms Challenge with Jill Savage from Hearts at Home? I have, although I’m a little late to the party. I’ve also had the incredible opportunity to be a part of her launch team which means reviewing the book before your pretty little mama eyes gets to see it.

And let me tell you–its a good one. You can see my previous post here or scroll down. 🙂 Today’s challenge plus her book has me sifting through my memory bank, trying to remember at least one occasion when I haven’t felt insecure. When I’m at church, MOPS or even the Gym, I find myself comparing circumstances and abilities. Jill writes:

Being insecure takes extra time, emotion, and energy that none of us have. So, it’s time to leave insecurity behind! Today is the day to throw away thoughts of “I’m not enough” and give yourself permission to make mistakes and be imperfect.

But, how do we become confident when we’re so imperfect? It helps to remember that everyone else is imperfect, too…and that there’s only one of each of us. We aren’t created to be like anyone else. When we try to be someone we’re not, it wastes the person God designed us to be.

Someone is always going to have nicer clothes.

Be more put together.

Have better behaved kids (at the moment).

Jump higher, run faster.

Cook better.

Clean better.

And the list goes on.

As I’ve grown more mature with age (I’m sure this is sometimes debatable), I’ve taken a step back and compared my mothering before Christ and after Christ. Mothering with Christ means a healthy dose of grace, this includes Mt Laundry-Everest, crumbs on the counters and dishes in the sink.

This includes Grace for those who are better at some areas of life than I am. It means becoming comfortable in my own skin, to relish the curve of my mouth, the padding on my hips (again some days, debatable) and embracing my children for who they are despite their behaviors. It means accepting and being thankful for my life as it is, not how I want it to be. We begin to feel like failures when we compare ourselves to others or when we set expectations so high, we can’t reach them.

As we move on to a new day, a new challenge and a new chapter in Jill’s book, I want to leave you with a little research I’ve done about the women of the Bible. Even the greatest women in history had flaws. None were perfect, some had difficult circumstances, others had to make hard choices. Yet, these women became some of the greatest women in history, their names forever etched in Scripture. And here’s the thing, as I read about these women, their lives, their stories, their challenges no where in the Bible did I find the words, “Perfect.”

None were, nor did they have perfect marriages, immaculate houses and perfect kids. Instead, each gave in to grace and put their eyes on Christ, instead of hardships and comparisons. My question is this, can you and I do the same?

Perfect Moms Aren’t Found Here

January 8, 2013 By Heather

I love writing. It comes naturally and I can create a prose of sentences to pull on the strings of you heart or with a few more strokes I can probably describe your day like it is in my home. If I try just a bit harder, I can create a picture perfect world, like the one I had on Christmas Eve, snow blanketing the ground perfectly while I warmed myself by the fire as my kids rolled into dreamland in their beds.

A picture of perfection is created in moments, mainly because of one little key that is always at the ready to for me to stroke it. In fact, my pinky finger glides across it often–if not 8 to 10 times in one single sentence. Delete.

It’s my safety net. I can write a whole book and if I don’t like what I read, then its a do-over, backspace, delete and try again. Life however does not have a delete button and there certainly aren’t any delete buttons around for my list of things to do. Instead, my list repeats itself in my mind as I pass by the laundry pile that is now Mt. Laundry. There is not delete button for the snippy tone I used with my kids this morning, racing out the door to get everyone to school.

I don’t recall a delete button for the dishes piled in the sink, the dust settling in the corners of my home, nor was there a delete button for all the pounds I’ve gained over Christmas break. Nor is there a delete button for misbehaving kids, tantrums in the middle of Target, over-committing one’s self and setting high expectations.

Jill Savage diagnoses my issues as the Perfection Infection and I think she’s on to something here. In here new book, No More Perfect Mom’s, I am struck with the reality of what is and that perfection is not. Tell me if you are possibly sick with the same virus.

Messy house? Check.
Feeling like a failure because messy house doesn’t look like a magazine. Check. Check.
Special needs child. Check.
Feeling like a failure because you must’ve done something to make her a special needs child. Check.
You’re child misbehaved at school and punched another kid. Check.
You’re wondering why other mom’s kids are so good and what went wrong with yours? Check Check.
You’re hitting the Mc’D lane again, while those Pintrest meal ideas are flashing in brain? Check.
You’re a ministry leader and a mom. Check.
You limp out of those meetings feeling like a failure because it didn’t go as planned. Check.

Good! Then you and I are in the same boat. While we can’t delete these things, we can move forward and create a new perspective. With a simple stroke of my fingers, I can create a new mindset and I’ve got just the community and book to help you and I do it. Together you and I can take her month long challenge to find freedom being you, being me. You can sign up here.

Jill Savage addresses the Perfection Infection in her new book, No More Perfect Moms. Over these next couple of weeks as I read and review, I will be giving you my thoughts on her book and how it’s helping me in all things motherhood. As much as I’d rather have a delete key, having a community of moms willing to put the mommy wars and mommy comparisons aside makes the delete button needed less.

Stop by tomorrow as I give my thoughts about no more perfect moms (aka ME).