Minimalism, The Documentary

I have a confession to make. I have, to the best of my knowledge, never watched a documentary before. Gasp, right? In the past I have enjoyed National Geographic specials, wildlife shows, and various other educational programs on Discovery Channel and such; but I have never found the documentaries I've encountered appealing.

Fast forward to two nights ago and my trying to find something interesting to watch during my almost nightly routine of laundry folding. I decided to make an attempt at watching my first documentary, with the thought that if it were horrible I could always switch back to my routine go-to's of watching Gilmore Girls, Star Trek, or Fixer Upper for the umpteenth time.

I happened across the Minimalism Documentary on Netflix, thinking that it would help inspire me for the decluttering projects I have planned for the New Year, (anyone else cleaning out house for the New Year?). I have found the premise of Minimalism interesting for some time now and the prospect of having less to clean up is greatly appealing.

The documentary itself is a bit dry, so I haven't finished it yet, hopefully that will happen during tonights laundry folding. Although it maybe that I find it dry because that is normal for documentaries, I have nothing to base that thought on though.

What I did find while watching Minimalism was that the thought of minimializing the stuff in our lives can go far beyond physical objects. Again and again, the various people in the documentary state that minimalism is about weeding out the things in our lives by only keeping that which adds value to our lives. The idea being that we only keep that which adds value to our lives and discard that which deprives or detracts our lives of value. This premise means not getting rid of stuff just for the sake of having less, but getting rid of things that do not help our lives to grow to the full potential that we would like them to have and experience.

I began to realize that this thought of minimizing that which detracts value from our lives can also be applied to the relationships and activities of our lives. For a very long time I have been in the process of evaluating the "WHY" behind certain thoughts, ideas, and things in my life. Do I want that object, relationship, or to participate in that activity solely because I have been told that I should want it? Are my ideas for an ideal home, possessions, relationships, or appearance based upon things that I truly like? Or, instead, are theses areas based upon advertising telling me what I should and should not like? And if these things are based upon external sources, what do I truly like?

The idea of focusing on things that add value to our lives isn't something new, yet we are bombarded with advertising designed to warp our ideas of what is useful, necessary, needed, or wanted. Every piece of marketing is designed for the sole purpose of making us believe that we NEED whatever is being advertised. Additionally, we are now faced with Social Media attempting to advertise and dictate to us what our ideas, opinions, relationships, and friendships should look like or be like. None of it actually taking into account the wellbeing of the audience.

I found this train of thought tying in with my last blog post about boundaries and mental health. How often do we NOT draw boundaries because we have been told that we should not have boundaries in that area of our lives or that boundaries are bad? We witness similar relationships through the lens of Social Media and assume that is what our relationship should be like as well. We even go so far as attempting to replicate relationships we see in tv or movies, good or bad. In attempting to copy what we see or assume should be are we actually doing more damage to ourselves or short changing our own wellbeing?

I am not necessarily advocating the dismissal of relationships. We already saw too much of that just from the politics and opinions surrounding the last election and are now learning to live with the fallout of those presumptuous burning of bridges. Instead, I would suggest evaluating the relationships we allow free reign in our lives and the demands we allow to be placed upon us. Perhaps in the process of cleaning, decluttering, and New Years resolutions we include an evaluation of our own boundaries and wellbeing. Maybe in the process of cleaning up our homes we evaluate if and how we should clean up our relationships and lives.

Depression and Religion

Have you ever typed something into a Google search just out of curiosity only to find yourself surprised by the search results? What starts as an innocent search out of curiosity leads to a small tumble down a rabbit hole, or further questions, or, in the extreme, a reevaluation of information you previously knew. Google is great for solving debates, answering curiosity, amusing, or finding information easily. We use it for so much, yet there can be times when the search results return information that can take you off guard, surprise you, or confirm something you already knew.

For many years I have heard it stated that religion can be a insulator for believers, helping them to cope with depression and preventing them from becoming depressed. On a fluke I decided to Google 'depression rates by religion" hoping to have the search results return a quick, easy statistic in answer to my query. Instead I found myself looking through pages of information.

The information I found confirmed ideas that I had already suspected, but thought no one had acknowledged. Religion does not prevent people from becoming depressed, it does not act like an insulator for believers, because religious believers are still human and therefore, susceptible to depression just like anyone else. Religious beliefs don't inoculate believers to prevent depression. To hold to that idea grew increasingly flawed as I read through the articles in the search results.

Unfortunately, the majority of the articles and research papers I found reached a conclusion yet stopped just short of offering any form of explanation, solution, or even valuable insight. They were filled with factual data pulled from studies, research, and experiments. However, they offered no helpful solutions nor conclusions. What's more is that these studies appear grossly outdated with no further research or attempts to understand the problem. It was as if the researchers came to the results and then deemed further investigation unworthy of pursuing. The information, while cold and factual, left me puzzling as to the CAUSE of the higher rates of depression among religious believers.

CBC News practically attempted to portray the information as a reasoning for the conversion to atheism. Drawing upon scientific research from done in a psychiatric study done in 2013. While the article attempted to offer a conclusion the results of that conclusion come across as biased and predisposed in opinion.

The further I read through everything the more I realized the lack of conclusion, or rather the lack of helpful solutions. It began to appear to me that the researchers and authors all recognized a problem, yet offer no solutions or even attempts at helping those who are religious and suffering from depression. As I puzzled through this I began to form my own hypothesis. In an attempt to test if my hypothesis was correct I turned to the Pinterest to test my ideas, very scientific, right?

The more I scrolled through ideas posted by real people the more it seemed to confirm my hypothesis. My theory being that the increased rates of depression among believers is highly due to the discriminatory way that they are allowed, or rather disallowed to draw boundaries to protect their mental health without being attacked by accusations of being intolerant. This regulation of healthy boundaries creates a dynamic in which unhealthy relationships and abuse can be perpetuated unchecked. Should a believer attempt to draw boundaries in order to protect their mental health they are accused of being unforgiving and unreligious; thereby, manipulating them into being in toxic relationships or worse abused. Cries of intolerance go up without allowance for the persons wellbeing or mental health.

Religious believers are faced with demands that they be tolerant in the face of toxic behaviors and treatment. Society as a whole demands that they allow themselves to be subject to mistreatment under the guise of religious observance. Should the person draw boundaries for their own mental health they are then faced with demands to cease practicing their religion or accusations that they are not truly religious. This demand doesn't seem limited to the restraints of their religious peers, and instead seems to be reenforced by society as a whole. I have observed that when the non-religious set up boundaries in the name of preserving their own mental health, wellbeing, and self care they are applauded and encouraged; however, the same reaction is not given as response to religious people setting up the same boundaries for the same reason.

Society seems to have created or is in the process of creating a caste system as to which groups are allowed to care for their own mental health, and wellbeing through the drawing of boundaries. This caste system cannot help but to cause people to remain stuck in unhealthy patterns, and toxic, or abusive relationships through the abuse and manipulation of that persons religious beliefs. It is also demanding that religious beliefs be used as a license to abuse people, and keep them from drawing boundaries to escape toxic relationships or abuse. This discrimination is, perhaps, the largest reason I believe that the statistics show higher rates of depression among religious believers.

This discriminatory behavior seems to scream that if the person not allow themselves to be abused or remain in a toxic relationship they cannot practice the religion of their choice. As if allowing oneself to be abused were a merit badge, or pass required to allow the practice of that religion. Not only does this set up a system solely beneficiary to the abusers but it also creates a culture that, if carried out to it's extreme, denies mental health care to those deemed of the "wrong caste", offering the full benefits of mental healthcare to only parts of that society.

This manipulation of beliefs must stop. Everyone should be allowed to draw boundaries for their own mental health, and wellbeing, irregardless of beliefs or religion. If we are to have an equal society, with equal access to mental healthcare, and equal allowance for the creation of healthy boundaries we cannot allow the perpetual abuse and manipulation of religions as a whole to entangle people in toxic situations and relationships. We also must do everything necessary to stop abuses wherever we can, including learning and teaching the difference between intolerance and boundaries.

40 Days

The other night I was reading in Luke 4 and one single word stuck out to me that changed the entire way I was reading. That one word popping out changed my perspective on the entire chapter. It's funny how that can happen some times, right?

Luke 3 ends with Jesus being baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan river. A powerful and beautiful moment that is immediately followed by Jesus being led into the desert by the Holy Spirit. Chapter 4 begins there, with Jesus being led around the desert by the Holy Spirit.

Luke 4:1-2 HCSB - Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led around by (under the influence of/in) the Spirit in the wilderness for forty days being tempted by the devil. And He ate nothing during those days, and when they had ended, He became hungry.

I have read this passage many times, yet the other night one thing in it stuck out to me. Verse 2 starts by stating that FOR forty days Jesus was tempted by the devil. Reading this in the past I jumped to the conclusion that it was at the end of the forty days that the devil showed up and tempted Jesus. It hit me in that moment of reading the passage again that it was over the course of the entire forty days that Jesus was tempted, not just at the end.

In that moment I realized that Jesus wasn't just sitting around doing nothing, or sitting around praying the whole time. He spent that forty days being tempted the entire time. Never once in the following verses does it say that it was at the end of the forty days when the devil showed up to torment Jesus, it just says that the devil did tempt Him. Jesus wasn't just tempted when He was hungry, He was tempted the entire time, and we are given only 3 examples of how He was tempted.

HELPS Word-Studies gives this interesting thought on the forty days.

(Link)

Following this thought from HELPS Word-Studies this time period was to grow Jesus in the knowledge of God's approval of Him. Interesting when we consider that the last thing that Jesus heard from God was "You are My beloved Son, in You I am well-pleased" (Luke 3:22 HCSB).

As I was studying this a few things went through my thoughts. The devil, as we know, tries to steal, kill, and destroy; often in the very midst of God revealing His love to us, or more deeply to us, depending on where we are at.

You see, what God approves, the devil tries to steal or destroy. The devil attacks us, in that moment of closeness with God, in order to hurt God. His goal is to hurt God as much as he can in his war against God, using us like pawns to inflict hurt and harm, in order to win the war.

The devil is a narcissistic manipulator. He lies and manipulates. He twists everything to confuse and trick us. He warps and twists every word to entangle and mislead us to the point where we think down is up and are left wondering how in the world we became so confused and lost. Outsiders in that moment, looking on, staring in rightful confusion, wondering how we got in that place of such confusion. The devil comes into that moment of closeness with God and tries to lie and manipulate us into letting go of or giving away what is rightfully ours.

The devil will never receive God's blessing so he tries to steal ours instead. If he can't steal it he will do his best to make us miserable. The saying goes that misery loves company and so does the devil. He will do whatever he can to drag as many as possible down with him.

During these forty days that Jesus was in the desert He was tempted by the devil the entire time. Given that details of this are in the Bible, I can only come to the conclusion that Jesus either told His disciples about it or the Holy Spirit revealed the details to the disciples after the fact.

We are only given 3 examples of the temptation that Jesus went through in the desert. I find it interesting what was chosen to share with us.

Jesus was tempted in His flesh by bodily hunger. The devil taunted Him, mocking His physical hunger by trying to get Him to eat rocks. Yes, Jesus could turn the rocks into bread, but in the natural humans are not able to transform rocks to bread. The devil didn't truly believe that Jesus was the Son of God. He was testing to see if this was true. Either way in that moment the devil would have thought his victory sure. If Jesus wasn't the Son of God, had He given in to the taunts, He would have been eating rocks. Yuck! The damage that would have done to His body in that moment would have been a victory for the devil. Had Jesus turned the rocks into bread He would have been giving into the devil and taken 1 step down a slippery slope of listening to the devil instead of to God, becoming easily taunted into disobedience. Jesus ends up doing what the devil didn't expect in that moment and speaking truth into the face of manipulative lies.

Jesus was then tempted in His pride. Jesus knew that He was the rightful ruler of all the earth, He was there at creation, and knew that in finality all the kingdoms of the earth would bow before Him. The devil throws the temptation for immediate gratification at Him. The devil offers rulership and the gratification immediately to Him, if only He will serve the devil. The devil appeals to His pride in His identity. Satan in that moment attempts to twist Jesus's previous quotation of scripture back on Him. Tangling scripture in a very narcissistic manipulation of Truth. Twisting scripture trying to make himself the worshipped instead of God. Jesus doesn't fall prey to confusion, holding to Truth as one lashing themselves to a solid foundation in the midst of the chaos of a hurricane. He refuses to bow to the devil, seeing through the manipulation to Truth.

Jesus was finally tempted in His identity. The devil couldn't confuse Him into idol worship so He attacked His very identity. Jesus was taken to the very top most parts of the temple in Jerusalem. He is taken to the very seat of God's throne on this earth. The center of worship of God, the place where God's Spirit rests among men. Where God meets with men and speaks. Where atonement is made regularly for sin and offerings made daily to God. In this place Satan mocks Jesus, and in reality mocks God's ability to protect and save His creation. The devil isn't just tempting Jesus at this point, he is flat out sending the message to God that God isn't stronger than him and saying that all of mankind is his for the destruction. Perhaps at this point it was starting to dawn on the devil that just maybe Jesus was the Savior. In that moment the very temple erected to worship God was also the tempting ground and a place of battle for Satan and Jesus. They stood toe to toe in that moment sizing each other up, getting a measure of their opponent. One trying to assess the success of the coming battle, the other knowing the outcome of the battle. Jesus stood toe to toe with the devil, and took a swing. Jesus lifted the full weight of scripture, and hit Satan with it. Sending Satan reeling backwards to gather himself, reassess his strategy, and plan his next attack.

Satan had his forty days of attacking Jesus, assessing Who Jesus was, testing his merit against Him, and ultimately failing. Satan spent not just the finality of those forty days attacking Jesus, but the entire time. Unbeknownst to Satan in that moment, he inadvertently further enabled Jesus to relate to the very people Satan sought to destroy; and thereby gave us an advocate against himself to equip and enable us for victory.

Not only was Jesus tempted in those forty days but he also passed through that refining period as one passing through fire, emerging fully ready for victory. What Satan intended to use to tear down Jesus was used to sharpen and equip Him for battle. Jesus left that desert fully knowing and understanding God's approval of Him. He became the victorious battle champion, honed and ready to win every battle forever more.

Be a Part of the Picture

With the 4th of July holiday upon us I felt that this needed to be shared (again).

So often moms are left out of pictures due to self-consciousness, self-criticalness, and just plain logistics, but in our modern era this doesn't have to be.

Dear sweet mama's,

Your children won't remember you through the negative filter that you see yourself through, they will remember you with love and appreciation. They won't remember of your rolls, lack of makeup, under-eye circles, 5, 10, 20+ extra pounds that you can't shake. That is because that isn't how they see you.

Think about it, when you remember your mom from your childhood what do you remember? We remember the laughs and time spent together. We don't remember our mom's for their flaws, we remember them for their laugh, and by the way, my mom has the best laugh! We remember the good times and the fun. We remember the tears and the hugs. We don't remember our mom's as having flaws because in our eyes they are beautiful and amazing. And dear mama, so are you! Your children will remember you with the same love and adoration that you remember your own mom with.

So often moms are left out of pictures due to self-consciousness, self-criticalness, and just plain logistics, but in our modern era this doesn't have to be.

In the age of selfie cams, use those gadgets to your advantage. Turn the camera around and smile because there will be a day when your kiddos go off to college and they WILL want to take a picture of you with them (whether they admit it or not).

Ask someone to take a picture with you in it. Buy a selfie stick. Whatever it takes, just save the memory! The days are short, but the pictures will last forever.

Let's leave our children boxes full of pictures of the WHOLE family, not just themselves.

We Are Just a Bunch of Coconuts

I have had a lot of time lately to ponder various ideas. It's funny how keeping your hands busy doing easy things allows your mind time to more freely think and ponder ideas.

Anyways, recently I had this thought that I can't shake. I've been pondering relationships, friendships, and the human need for them, as well as the need and desire to feel fulfilled by all of the various relationships in our lives.

It occurred to me that it is likely impossible to feel 100% fulfilled by any amount or quantity of relationships nor is it possible to feel 100% fulfilled within any relationship.  No matter how deep the relationship or the type of relationship there will always be parts of you that the other person will not appreciate or accept. Yes, they may treat you with love and kindness, but they may also ask you to stop doing certain things.

For example, I love my kids to the moon and back, but I don't love it when they whine, or throw tantrums, or just scream to get heard. There are things that I can do to cope with those things and make living together easier, but likely I will never come to enjoy the whining or tantrums.

Fast forward to me washing the dishes and pondering this while the kids are watching Moana....

Well, it turns out that the coconut has hundreds of uses. Seriously, I never realized it but the coconut has many different parts and facets that have many different uses. Just like people.

Just like the coconut, there will be parts of you that others might not fully appreciate. I love coconut milk and dried coconut but can't gag down coconut water. That doesn't mean that coconut water is bad, I know that there are many people that love it, but it's just not for me. That doesn't mean that I ignore the whole coconut or that coconuts are bad. That just means that coconut water is just not for me.

The same thing goes for people. We all want others to love and accept every single part of us, but there might just be some parts that others don't care for or appreciate. That doesn't make that part of you necessarily bad though, or mean that all of us is bad or rejected. Instead we have to work to the understanding that no one person is going to love every single part of us, and find freedom on the other side of that.

On the other side of realizing that people are not capable of loving every single part of us IS freedom. Once we are able to realize that not everyone will love every detail about us is the ability to realize that we are wonderful, no matter which parts others love or appreciate. In the end it's not about what or how much of us others accept, it's about learning to accept ourselves. That is what matters.

Some Illnesses Don't Show on the Outside

I am sick, three little words that are hard to write but even harder to say. I don't look sick on the outside. When I am around others I know that I look normal enough. But as they say appearances are deceptive. On the outside everything looks fine but inside my body it can be a struggle sometimes. You see I struggle with being highly anemic.

I know that there are others who suffer with worse, who have illnesses that are even more disabling than mine. To those people, I grieve with you, I mourn with you for all that holds you back, and I attempt to do my very best to empathize with you.

I know that I am lucky, my illness only comes in waves and is not constantly holding me back. Yet there are days, days like today, where every detail of life can be a struggle because the fatigue is so great. On days like this I find my heart grieving because there are things I want to do, time I want to spend with my kids, and I just can't get my body to cooperate to do it. I hurt a little more inside every time I have to say no to my children's requests because I don't have the energy to do more than shuffle through the day.

In the midst of the frustration and struggle I am learning grace. I am learning that it's okay to say no to some requests and do my very best to fulfill others. I am learning to adapt and grow. Most of all I am learning to do all of this without bitterness. It's not perfect, I'm not perfect, but I am striving to be better.

I am anemic, that means that my body struggles to produce the adequate amount of red blood cells. I am slowly learning that this isn't an isolated problem and actually affects many areas of my body, no matter how I would like to ignore it.

When I first learned that I had a problem it was easy to dismiss it as being a result of poor diet from attempting to be vegetarian. Naively I thought that if I just adjusted my diet everything would be fine. I was wrong. The problem went deeper, and turned into an issue that my doctors would try to minimize.

I had great doctors, but when test results are routinely compared to textbook "norms" instead of individuals you encounter a problem. I would be tested for my iron levels and anemia only to be told that I was 1 point above the normal levels, and therefore not anemic, despite showing all of the symptoms. It was then that I learned that I would need to be my own advocate and be informed.

At the same time I was trying to get answers and solutions for the anemia that the doctors dismissed I was also coming to terms with the lead poisoning I had from childhood. Little did I know at the time that the 2 would go hand in hand. I soon discovered that the lead poisoning had damaged my liver and was a contributing factor in my anemia. This means that it potentially may never be resolved, but it also means that I am able to understand what exactly is going on in my body.

It would be so easy to point fingers at others and blame anyone and everyone for my illness or try to drag them down because of it. However, this illness is not anyone's fault. There is no way to foresee the future and to be angry at people and the past for lacking the ability to see into the future is unfair and self absorbedly short sighted. There are very, very few people who would intentionally inflict illness on another person, and to harbor the idea within that those people exist within ones life helps no one.

I cannot convey the amount of peace that comes from having answers and explanations for the problem. It may not be a solution but it sure is better than living in a land of mystery wondering what is going on inside me and why it is happening.

Fast forward a couple years and I am still struggling with the anemia. I try to take my supplements every day, and I am getting better at it, but still not perfect yet. I give myself grace when I forget and try to be better the next day. It's easy to dismiss that supplements can help, and in some cases maybe they don't, but in my case they do.

I have also discovered that my Fitbit can be my best friend in living with this. My Fitbit ChargeHR allows me to monitor my heart rate and gives me a glimpse and an early warning system to when I am going to have an episode of fatigue again. You see, every time my anemia rears its head it shows up in my resting heart rate. Normally my resting heart rate is near 65 bpm, but when I'm anemic that can spike up to 80+bpm on a bad day. My Fitbit allows me to see a large picture of where my heart rate is trending and to be able to take measures to care better for myself and more importantly to give myself an extra measure of grace.

I may never get better, but I can get better at living, and that is more important.

What I am Learning About Missions

Last year I had the privilege of taking part in a mission trip to Belize with my church. It has been only 4 months since we returned home and yet it feels much more distant.

As I continue to process my time in Belize and attempt to grow from the lessons I learned I find myself learning more and more about missions. What it is, what it should look like, what it does look like, and most importantly, what is the point.

I entered the trip last year with some preconceived notions and ideas, as I think most of us do with any new life experience. Most importantly, I started with the knowledge that this trip would change me and expand my world view.

Sadly, some of the ideas that I started with I found to be rooted in my own pride and self over estimation. Recognizing these faults isn't a bad thing, provided I grow from them. I also, doubt that I am alone in these falsities.

Now, I don't regret going and am beyond grateful for the opportunity, however; it is up to me to grow from it.

As I process and learn more about missions I found 2 very helpful articles, the first was "The Dangers of Having a 'Savior Complex' During Your Mission Trip" and "10 Steps for Doing Short Term Missions Trips Well".

I am the type of person that enjoys helping others and solving problems, but I am learning that on the missions field it is not my job or place to even attempt to 'save the day'. My time and attention would be better served to focus on loving people with God's love than to focus on problems, which they already know that they have, and trying to solve everything.

During our time in Belize the majority of our days were spent serving at a local orphanage and helping there. When hearing the word orphanage it's so easy to, like I did, get caught in the mental trap of wanting to love and care for the children. I quickly realized that doing that would cause more harm than good. At first that may not make sense, so let me explain. Children in orphanages have only a life experience of temporary, fleeting relationships. If I were to go in with the focus of loving on them, (which is not bad, please don't misunderstand me), I would create relationships with them only to abandon them within a matter of days. That really isn't something I wanted to do. I love the children there, each and everyone of them, but I do not want my time with them to hurt them in any way.

For the children there I was only another person passing through, a momentary figure in their lives. It was not my place to try and insinuate myself in any more than that. My job there was to make their lives easier by helping those who are there permanently. My job and the true purpose of our trip, whether I realized it to begin with or not, was to make the lives of the permanent ministers there easier by doing whatever projects were needed. Is that glamorous? No. It is needed and right though.

I may not have personally connected with any individual child during my trip, but honestly I am okay with that. As long as the few moments I spent there helped the ministers there in some way I have fulfilled my purpose in going. And I will continue to pray for all of the people that I meet there.

Belize now holds a special place in my heart, and not in the way I originally assumed that it would. That is an amazingly wonderful thing.

I'm not perfect

There are day that I wish I had it all together or had already "arrived" but the truth is that I am very much still a work in progress.

There are moments of great realization of how far I have come but they often only happen when I chance to reflect on the past. Due to the pain of certain memories I try to avoid this at times, regardless of the revelation of self growth that comes with it.

Then there are other times, times when I am around people that have known me practically my whole life, those are the times that I realize that the person that I am working on becoming isn't shining out of me the way that I want. I am working hard to become the person I know that God has called me to be, but those who have known me for years often just don't see it.

I see the growth in myself, I also see the work I put into myself growing and changing. Often it seems like others only see the person I was 5, 10, and even 15 years ago. I am not the same person I was then. I am not the person I was before accepting Christ as my Savior. However, no matter what I say there are no words that will make them know this. That is a hard idea to swallow. I can see the change in me, but I also constantly experience the difference in my own thinking, something that they will never be able to see.

I have come to realize that at some point I have to choose to redefine my relationship with certain people in my life.

There are family members that I will always long to have a closer relationship with, but that is not a mutual desire. Trying to force or encourage a relationship with them will not alter the fact that they have chosen to shut me out. I'm sure they have their own reasons for their choice, but it's on me to respect them and not try to force them to talk to me. I can still love them, but at their choosing that means loving them from a distance and watching their lives much like a distant acquaintance.

There are other family members that I love dearly but I have to accept that, at this time, they will only see me as I was some many years ago and not as the person I am trying to be today. The toughest part of this acceptance is the constant judgement and condemnation they pass on me, and bitter treatment of me when I attempt to spend time with them. I recognize that part of this bitterness is the result of my own past choices and mistreatment of them, something I deeply regret. While, I do not believe God so vindictive as to use their hurt and mistreatment of me as punishment for my past poor choices and sin, I do recognize that they still bear the hurt of it. There is nothing that I can do at this point to help them heal other than giving them grace, love, and time.

Now it is up to me to define what relationships I allow in my life and the lives of my children and how they are to look. As a mother it is my responsibility to ensure that my children are sheltered from the bitterness of my relationships with others. This is a tricky road to walk, one in which there are no books, manuals, or explicit instructions. Luckily, I do not walk this road alone, the Holy Spirit is my constant guide and companion. I am learning to navigate this rocky path by listening to the promptings and directions of the Holy Spirit moment by moment, direction by direction.

This may mean keeping my mouth shut when everything rises up in me to speak against what is being said. It may also mean saying what needs to be said to get to the heart of an issue. I never know. That's okay. His ways are higher than my ways, and His thoughts are higher than my thoughts. Thanks be to God that He is forever consistent, unchanging, unwavering, steady, stable, and always loving. Despite the rocks in my relationships with those around me, and despite their inability to see the person I am today, I know that God sees me and that is ALL that matters.

Some days you've got it, some days you don't...

Some days as a parent are great. You've got everything organized, you've checked things off the to do list, the laundry is folded AND put away, your kids are getting along, and your house is filled with laughter. Other days? Not so much.

There are just some days where nothing seems to go right, your kids won't stop bickering at each other, and 1 or more of them will refuse to put on clothes to leave the house. Those days happen. It seems like those days happen with far more frequency than the good days. Breathe.

While I know that bad days, or just off days happen, I still struggle with cutting myself slack and not getting down on myself. Just being real and honest here. I have accepted that nothing in my home or family will be perfect, and I'm actually okay with that. The imperfection is a lot more fun anyways.

It's not that my house is a huge mess or that NOTHING is getting done. I struggle more with not getting as much down as I would like.

I have had to come to terms with the fact that my kids are typically only able to have the patience for one - two stores when we do errands. The length of my to do list will not make it any easier for them to do or go more than they are capable of. In the moment though the struggle to not get frustrated with not getting more done is very real. It's a moment by moment realization that my kids are not misbehaving in order to drive me crazy. They are misbehaving because they are bored, or tired, or hungry, or a miriade of other reasons.

The realization that my kids behavior, good or bad, is a personal action against me is actually pretty ridiculous and yet in the moment of frustration not so much. The struggle becomes even more tenuous when it comes to getting groceries. My girls will be hungry but trying to explain that the grocery shopping needs to get done in order to solve their problem does not register in their logic circuits.

I'm trying to learn in the middle of the mess and struggle to cut everyone a break, especially my family. I'm learning tools and tricks to make things better for everyone. I wish I could say that I felt like progress was being made but I'm still in the midst of slogging it out. I'm not perfect. There are still days that I hid in my closet with chocolate trying to get a moment of quiet, but I'm still not convinced that this is a bad thing.

My prayer despite everything is that my children will look back and remember that I choose to place them ahead of my to do list. I hope that they will remember me as the mom that made s'mores over a candle at the table or built giant forts in the living room that stayed up for days.

I'm not perfect, but perfection was never my goal, excellence is the goal and I think that I'm working more towards that everyday.