a word of advice

I'm just gonna rant for a minute...is that ok? I try to write honest, insightful posts that will encourage my readers. But sometimes I just want to use the internet as a vehicle to complain, you know what I'm saying G?

Alrighty so I read a blog today which asked what internet phrases you would like to ban. You know...like "just saying"..."I died"...etc. I don't really mind those too much but there is one that makes me CAPS LOCK CRAZY. When one refers to their family member as DH, DD and so on. If you are fortunate enough to not frequent sites where mothers interact, you may not be aware what they mean. Let me break it down:
DH- darling husband
DD- darling daughter
DS- darling son

Um, no. My husband can be many wonderful things but darling is not one of them. And the teenager? Not so much. don't get me started on the conglomeration of dirt and marker stains that represent my sons. I love all of these people, truly, but not a one of them is darling. Not even the three year old, who fyi has decided that she will no longer be wearing pants. At all. As in she's trying to play outside with a naked booty. Not darling.

I'd like to offer some alternatives to anyone who'd be interested in quitting. So you can still share stories about your beloved. here are a few suggestions:

IBHH: infuriating but hot husband
HWGMG: he who gave me gray
Or if you'd prefer something shorter, just go with TM: that man. We'll know who you mean. Now for your children, I'd suggest
 SWIH: she who is hormonal or
THT: tiny hoarding toddler or even
POMW: people of my womb

for sons-
PP: pig pen or
JOF: jumps off furniture or even
HWGMG, JR: he who gave me gray Jr.

This has been a public service announcement from theMrs. Please meditate on these thoughts and act accordingly. Check yourself before you wreck yourself. Carry on.

"Am I darling? Or maybe just a little bit crazy..."

love

1. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another

 with all that has transpired in the last few weeks, i need to talk about love. we've heard these verses a hundred times and heard a dozen sermons about them. we memorized them in sunday school and saw them printed on greeting cards. but what i have seen come out of the Christian community in the past few months disturbs me. see, Jesus didn't qualify who we should love. so i suppose we have to assume He meant for us to love everyone. sounds easy enough? let's break that down a bit.

we should love people of every color....and the people who hate them. 

we need to love gays....and the people who hate them, too.

we have to love the homeless guy as well as the corporate CEO. 

we have to love the victims and the perpetrators. 

we have to love the unborn baby and the abortion doctor.

 those who agree with us, those who disagree, those who hate us. 

love the person who is your rock and the person you most distrust, the terrorists, the liberal, the religious, the racist, the conservative, the one filled with hate, the one who will never appreciate your love. love them anyway.

because if Jesus is the example, we have to love them all. he loved the unclean and the prostitute and the adulterer and the very people who killed him. he actually died for those people. sometimes it's easier for us to love the victims than the sanctimonious. it's easier to love the sinner than the one who considers himself a saint. sometimes... we just can't bring ourselves to love anyone who doesn't agree with us.

We often confused loving someone with agreeing with them. As if showing love is giving permission. But friends, if you feel strongly about an issue, odds are people know that without you constantly telling them. 

sometimes, it's easy to confuse a person with an issue. to let your stance get in the way of your humanity. to forget that there are real, feeling people behind every platform. that it's not just a "yea" or "nay" on a voting card, it's a person who deserves love.

we've heard all of our lives that they will know us by our love. i think the part left out is that they will judge us by our lack thereof. and rightfully so.

in the words Dr. King "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."

we can preach, we can protest, we can update our statuses with facts and figures and statistics and arguments. but if we have no love for the people we speak of, we have nothing.

Mark 12:30-31

 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’  The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than this.

1 Corinthians 13

 If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues,they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.  For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears.  When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

so today, go out and BE love in the world. be kind. be gentle. Be loving. Even when it hurts.

i still do...

today, We renewed our vows. after fifteen years together. people do this all the time we for us it was a big deal. less than a year ago we weren't sure we could stay married. We were hanging on to the ledge with no promise of a happy ending. We had many friends pray for restoration for us. but it was bigger that. restoration is restoring to what was before. We needed a total overhaul, all the way down to the foundation. and God met us there. in the bottom of the pit, at our lowest, collectively offering up our mistakes and failures. out of options. that's where He does his thing. when the world is screaming "It's over", God is whispering "I'm just getting started."  this day is more significant to us than our first wedding. We know what we're promising this time. and it's just the beginning

10 Pieces of advice you shouldn't follow

i'm going to give you advice on advice. no, the irony doesn't escape me. i am not an expert on anything, i'm not a therapist or a doctor. i don't have a counseling license, half the time i don't even know what i'm doing. but all of these are things i've learned the hard way. i took the field trip. trust me.

10. Never go to sleep angry.  wrong. sometimes you just need to go to sleep. most of us are at our emotional worst by the end of the day. we're tired, impatient and done. trying to iron out marital spats while in that place is a disaster waiting to happen. there are few things that don't seem quite so bad after a good night's sleep. so give each other a kiss (forced) and decide to sleep on it. it probably won't seem like nearly as big of a deal in the morning!

9. You can't spoil a baby. Uh, sure you can. Obviously infants need their needs met to form healthy attachment. No one is debating that. But your baby does not need to be held all of the time. Or while they sleep. Because even though that seems precious now, in a year it will not. When your child screams outside the door every time you shower. When you can never have a date night because you're the only one who can put your little darling to bed. Or worse, when you haven't had sex in a year because that sweetheart will only sleep between you and your husband. No baby has ever died from being allowed to cry while his mother showered. Trust me.

8. Don't cry over spilled milk.  Listen, if that milk is spilled in your minivan, which now smells like curdled death every time you get in it? Go ahead and cry. It won't make your van smell better but it may make you feel better. Besides, it's good for kids to learn that sometimes mommy cries too.

7. Marriage is 50/50. No. Marriage is more like 150/150, if it's going to last. I'm not a mathematician, but i'm pretty sure that adds up. There will be days when your spouse gives far less than you feel like they should. Give even more those days. When the tables turn and YOU are the depleted one, they will hopefully give it back.  The premise is simple: if both parties of a marriage are focusing their energy on making the other happy, odds are you will both be happy.

6.  It takes a village to raise a child. Not so much. In fact, we really just need the village to stop telling us how to raise our children on facebook.

5. Boys will be boys! Yes, they will. Until their mother teaches them how to act likek civil human beings and doesn't excuse their behavior by their gender. I have boys that are ALL boy. I can let them be that without letting them act like savages because they have a penis.

4. It's the thought that counts. If the thought was "My wife would LOVE an ab roller for Valentine's day!" you are wrong and it does not count.

3. God will never give you more than you can handle! Uh, yes He will. If you could handle it all on your own, what would you need God for? He will not, however, give you anything that the two of you cant handle together :)

2. Enjoy every moment! If you enjoy googling how to get urine out of furnace ducts, I can't help you.

1. Fake it till you make it! I think this one is the most damaging to mothers.  You know what? If you are not "making it", you don't have to pretend you are. It's ok to tell people you are struggling and you need help. It is good for you. Sometimes we all just need to permission to be a hot mess.  If you fake it, how will your  friends know to bring iced lattes and take a kid for an hour? Be real. It's the only way to survive this thing called motherhood with a shred of sanity. Your friends will appreciate it, your kids will learn that it's OK to ask for help and you will model for them that weaknesses are not dirty secrets to be hidden away. You will teach them to be who they are, flaws and all. And isn't that what we really want for them?

Mompetition, Part 2

if you've been here a while, you may remember this post. it was one of my most widely read. it was all about the competition that is motherhood. nobody talks about it but it's there. in the past few weeks i have seen it rampant on facebook. from judgement about where to send your kid to school to the great breastfeeding debate, it's everywhere. and now we have pinterest and facebook and etsy to really bring home all of the things other moms are doing that we aren't. have you ever searched "kid's birthday party" on pinterest? holy. cow... don't do it. if i've learned anything in 13 years of parenting, it's stop comparing yourself to other mothers. stay out of the race, you can't win.

and yet... i still battle it. i find myself justifying my parenting choices to those who disagree. or getting irate at a facebook debate with people i don't even know! i realized a few weeks ago how far i need to go while attending a parent's meeting for one of my children. my kids attend a phenomenal private christian school. we love it there and we work our tails off to afford tuition. that being said, we are probably not your typical "private school parents".  So i'm sitting in this meeting, looking around, noticing how different i am than most of the other mothers. i don't own a sweater set. i have visible tattoos. i've never once sent an adorable themed snack to school for one of my kids' birthdays. heck, most of my kids' teacher may not even know what i look like. but the thing that stood out to me the most was that i was the only mom sitting alone. most of the other mothers know each other because they all volunteer often.  i'm at work. i don't have time to be at the school in the middle of the day. i have five kids and a job and a business and a million other responsibilities. i sat there feeling judgement that probably didn't even exist. if i really think about it, i bet none of them had a thought about me at all. but it bothered me. i began that familiar condemnation of mom guilt...reminding myself of all the things i don't do.

i've never thrown a big party for any of my kid's birthdays. in fact, i've never even sent anything to school for them. 

i've never made a costume, a set of curtains or even hemmed a skirt. i bribe my dear friend Nicole to hem my kid's uniforms!

i've never decorated for a holiday other than Christmas.

i've never taken my kids to disney world.

my  kids don't play sports and i could not be happier about it.

the list could go on on and on of all the things i don't do that make me not good enough as a mother. if i allow it, my insecurity could convince me that i am failing in all areas of motherhood.

but if i pull myself out of that destructive pit for just a moment, i can think about the things i am doing for my kids. when they are grown, will they be mad that i never threw an elaborate party for them? or will they be glad that i taught them to love every kind of music from punk to gospel to blue grass to hip hop.
will they feel that they missed out on having a mom that does crafts and activities? or will they realize the value of a mom who taught them to dance in the garage, to laugh when life sucks and that it's ok to say "sucks" when no other word will work.
will my daughters wish i had taught them to clean more, cook better, sew costumes? or will they realize that i may have missed those things... i did teach them to think for themselves, to dream big, to be what ever they want to be.

at the core of judgement is our own hearts. what others think is only significant if deep inside we agree.  so if you are a crafty mom...craft on! if you are a dancing mom, turn up the music! whatever your style, be who you are and don't let anyone tell you it's not good enough. especially yourself.

homeschool, public school, private school, breastfeeding, bottle feeding, attachment parenting, staying at home, working outside of the home, car seats, booster seats, potty seats... whatever your choose...
 OWN IT.

 and don't let anyone convince you otherwise!

grace wins

today was a long day. like a tired-stressed-anxious-iwanttodrownmystressinchocolate kinda day. theMr is in full construction mode and working 60-70 hours a week, not getting home until nearly 10 most nights. we are at the beginning of what may be a huge battle over our foreclosure. i spent the afternoon, after work, writing and mailing letters to politicians and media. my brain has been churning all day... grumpy mom plus five kids is not a super combo. by bedtime, i am done. i'm tucking esme in, i lean down to kiss her and she whispers "you is beautiful, mama". oh sweetpea...when she looked at me in that moment, she saw the mom who tucks her in and kisses her every night. the mom who buys her dora yogurt even though it's overpriced and full of sugar. the mom who "carries her like a baby" when she asks. what she didn't see is the frazzled mom who yelled at her today for not putting on her shoes. or the mom who was sick all afternoon from a week of bad eating. or the mom who hid in her bedroom watching tv while her kids played in the next room. she didn't see the mom who loses her temper too often and cusses under breath and doesn't separate the lights from the darks and is a crazy person without her antidepressant. because when she looks at me, she sees love. and love doesn't see flaws. when you look at someone with love, you see all of the things you love about them. the most amazing thing about that interaction is that it's just a glimpse of Jesus. when He looks at us, He doesn't see our sin or our flaws or all of the ways we fall short. He sees his beloved child. He delights in us! how precious that a three year old can model that. i so often think i am the one doing all of the teaching in this relationship, i could not be more wrong.

courageous

since i was a child, i've always wanted to be courageous. someone who lived life without fear. someone who took on any adventure with zest and excitement. i worked hard to become that person. the problem is that i mistook putting on a mask with courage. i told myself along the way that a person who was courageous never showed fear or weakness. they could always handle anything, and if they couldn't, they pretended they could. this false belief has caused me much heartache over the years and has prevented me from connecting with people in a real and vulnerable way. i built up a castle of protection around my heart, no one could hurt me, no one could get in. it wasn't until forces collided in my life that i realized it was a lie. that "being strong all the time" is really bondage. that sometimes courage is being brave enough to fall apart. being brave enough to say i'm not ok. to say i need help. to say i need YOU. i found myself in the last year at the stunning realization that i had believed a lie about myself all of my life. the lie that i have to be strong. that i cannot show weakness. that people won't love me or respect me or want me if i fall apart. what i have found in my brokenness, is that when you fall apart is when those around you have a chance to shine. when you are so desperate and despondent that you can't even ask for help is when the people that love you step up. in early August of 2012 i essentially had a nervous breakdown brought on by extreme crisis. i have never been in a darker place in my life. my friends rallied around me in a way i could not properly put to paper. they held me, they let me cry, they let me yell, they let me cuss, they were there. they saw me sink to a place they had never imagined they would find me in and they came through. in the first few weeks of that time, six of my closest friends and my mother asked me to meet them at our local  house of prayer so they could pray over me. they were so worried about me. as i literally laid on that floor, curled in a ball, sobbing as they prayed and spoke truth over me, i had an incredible vision. i was standing in the middle of war. bullets were flying around me and the enemy was close. i was curled in fetal position, too weak to even stand, much less fight. my friends were standing in a circle around me, facing out. they were fighting the battle for me when i was too weak to defend myself. sometimes courageous is being willing to curl up in a ball and be honest about where you are. as i walk through this journey, i'm learning more and more about who i am and who i'm not. i can be strong, but i don't have to. i can be courageous while still being scared. some days that just means that i keep putting one foot in front of another while praying that the fear doesn't overtake me. some days it means i can smile and know it will be ok. but either way, i know now that i have a net. i'm not hanging off of this cliff alone. i can be courageous... and if i can't there are those that would be for me. and that makes all the difference in the world.

1 Corinthians 16:13 Be on guard. Stand firm in the faith. Be courageous. Be strong. Do everything with love.