Insignificant: truth or lie?

It's 4 o'clock.  I'm currently in the kitchen starting to get supper together to get in the oven.  Before I start to cut the onions I have to (for what seems like the millionth time) clean off the counters and put stuff in the dishwasher.  At my feet is a little babe who wants her mama, well and food of course (because if you've met my kids you know they LOVE their food).  Not too far behind her, is her big sissy who is currently asking for juice for what seems like the billionth time today. The hubby is off in another room somewhere doing who knows what.  And I stand at the stove and start to feel that deep gross feeling.  That feeling that I get up and do the same menial tasks day in and day out.  I feel....well I honestly feel insignificant....

It's a gross feeling.  And it's honestly one that I know is just a lie.  I mean HELLOOOO if I stopped getting up, making a bottle, making breakfast, pouring juice, changing diapers, pouring more juice, giving naptime, changing diapers, making lunch, making ANOTHER bottle, pour juice, giving snacks, giving another naptime, pouring more juice, changing MORE diapers, giving ANOTHER bottle, making supper, giving bath time, reading bedtime stories and kisses good night they WOULD notice.  And that doesn't even included snuggles, play time, getting Maci to school, comforting them when they get hurt or are sad, creating a budget, paying bills, getting groceries, dance classes, church events...the list goes on.  So if I stopped doing what I do every single day, they would notice. So why do we sometimes, as moms, feel so insignificant?

Maybe it's because we DO do so many of the same tasks every day.  In the small scale of things it is hard to see the bigger pay off.  What caring for our families looks like in the long run.  What the finish line actually looks like when they get big and move off on their own....

As I was standing in front of the stove tonight, Travis was playing hide and seek with Maci.  One of the last times he hid, he hid SO well that Maci eventually gave up and sat down at the table and proceeded to look through a toy catalog.  Lyla then took it as her cue to start crying and needing wanting attention.  Maci made it pretty clear she had given up and I knew Trav could hear.  As I stood there, I felt myself start to get pretty irritated.  Here I was making a home cooked meal to fill his belly and instead of coming to get the agitated kiddos, he was 'hiding' somewhere.  I might have even said out loud "I wish I was a dad so I could just pretend to go hide from the babies."  Come on moms, I know we've all been there.  Irritated at Dad because he isn't doing enough to help in our minds.....

Not long after that Maci went to find him and the house quickly filled with distracted kids and laughter.  I starred down at the hamburger in the pan and thought....."Why am I feeling so invisible? So insignificant? I know I matter.  I know Trav loves me. And I know he helps me in so many ways. So why on earth am I feeling this way?"   The truth is...this mommy thing is hard.  It's draining.  And it does have days where we DO feel insignificant.  Like they just expect us to do it and our hearts don't really matter.  How we are feeling doesn't really matter. That the don't truly see the person who is caring for them....  We are human after all and the same old tasks can get tiring.  And sometimes we just want someone else to be us for a day.  Not because we don't love our families, but because we DO love our families.  We want to feel appreciated and loved and SIGNIFICANT.  And even if our husbands and kids tell us every day how thankful they are for us, we would still feel this way.

And then I remembered reading a blog somewhere where the writer talked about being a missionary at home.  It was something I had never thought about and yet it made perfect sense.  Missionaries devout their entire lives to helping others by showing them who Jesus is.  Some in places they might not even hear very often at all how much their job matters to the greater work of Christ.  All it takes is for them to make one small gesture at just the right time and they could end up changing someones entire world.  And here we are with our babies every single day and know them on a real personal level.  How profound it is when we realize they are our greatest ministry of all! We get to show these little humans every single day what Christ's love looks like.  We may not be perfect at it and there will be days where we feel our work is insignificant but we just have to keep fighting through those days because that's how our babies will come to know who Christ truly is.

While I know my days of feeling like my work isn't significant in any way, shape, or form aren't over, I do pray that God keeps granting me the peace, patience, and love to keep pressing on during those days where it is just plain hard.  And sweet moms out there, I pray that this helps you to continue to know that other moms out there feel the same way you do.  You aren't the only one having these thoughts.  But I also pray you know that those thoughts are lies.  You DO matter.  You ARE loved. And your work IS significant.....

When a letter to your daughter...turns into a reminder to yourself....

My precious girl,

I see you.  I see the way you are getting yourself all 'dolled' up.  I see you putting on your fancy purple heels with your multi-colored string of pearls.  I see the way you are ever so carefully putting that plastic lipstick on your innocent lips.  I see the way you are putting all the necessities you need in that cute little girl purse.

I hear you.  I hear the excitement in your voice.  I hear you as you tell me you are off to Prince Mickey's ball.  I hear the anxiousness in your voice, if that's even possible for being such a little girl in such a big pretend world.

I watch you as you tell me that you are in a rush and need to go.  You don't want to miss the Prince.  You can't wait until he dances with you and makes you feel so special and loved.  You tell me you are going to marry him and how you love him so.....

I didn't expect this you know, sweet girl.  I didn't expect you having these thoughts and feelings and desires at such a young tender age of 3.  I didn't expect you to understand the desire of wanting a special boy to love you that way...even if in your innocent pure mind it is Prince Mickey at the moment.  I thought this would be something that came later in life.  When you were older and we could talk about it in a very real sense.  When I could tell you to guard your heart.  That Jesus loves you far more than any man on this earth will and therefore you don't have to go searching for that special boy to make you feel all the things your heart desires. See if you were older it would seem, in a way, easier to have these talks with you.  Right now you seem so young and fragile....so pure and innocent....

But baby girl, the truth is we were all born with that longing to have someone love us that way.  With the desire to have someone see us for who we are and love us in every area of our hearts.  Someone to make us feel special and adored.  So I don't know why it took me by surprise when you started with this obsession of pretending to go meet your prince.  I don't know why I'm shocked when I see you play with Mickey and Minnie while making them dance and fall in love.

And so I will take this opportunity to let you start to know that Jesus will always make you feel special and loved in a way no human can.  That you can have that feeling of being loved and adored right now, right here.  I know someday you will want the real thing.  A man to call your own.  A love story that is real and true...something that isn't pretend.  So until that day comes I pray that the Lord reminds me and your daddy daily that you are watching our own love story.  You are watching how we treat one another.  You are watching the way we show our love.  Our words and actions to one another matter more than they ever have before.  We both want you to one day fall for someone who is warm and kind.  Someone who loves the Lord.  Someone who will be just as tender with your heart as we try to be.  And we know the best way to get you to understand this is by starting with ourselves...

I pray that you see how much we fight for one another and not just against.  I pray you see us say I love you as much as we can.  I pray you see that yes, love can be hard but at the end of the day we put each other above ourselves.  That while love isn't easy, it is worth it.  Our marriage isn't perfect baby girl because we aren't perfect.  And while you dream of a fairy tale that is as great as in the movies, I hope that you can see in us that while that's not real, the real thing is far more valuable.

And while I thought writing this would be something to help teach you something, at the end of it I realize instead it's teaching me.  At such a young age your little mind and heart is so impressionable.  You see things in a way that we as adults don't.  Even when we don't think you notice, our marriage to each other has a huge impact on you.  What we say, what we do, how we react to each other....you see it all.  You notice it all.  And it is shaping your heart and how you think about love.

And so finally I pray that you always keep believing in that fairy tale kind of love.  Because if you do, it gives me hope that me and your daddy aren't failing at this thing called marriage.  That maybe we are doing it right.  Because if you still believe in that kind of fairy tale love....it means your daddy and I have maybe shown you that in some sense....it truly does exists.....

An End to the World's Broken Christmas.....

This afternoon we were at Walmart returning a movie.  Now I don't know if you happened to get out and about this afternoon, but if you did and you live in the Sioux Falls area, it was a beautiful December afternoon.  The sun was shining and it wasn't too cold.  Mix this with it being the holiday season and it should make for some amazingly cheery people.  However, I witnessed something today that made my heart ache.  You see as I was walking up to the door, I heard someone very forcefully laying on their horn.  I quite frantically looked in all directions to see where it happened to be coming from.  Was there an accident about to happen? Was a child in the road where they shouldn't be? But much to my surprise nothing like that was happening.  Instead I saw a very grumpy older man (70ish) getting out of his vehicle *which was parked in the middle of the aisle btw) and heading up to a SUV that had just parked in a front row parking spot....

Now I can imagine that you are thinking the same thing as me....The man in the SUV 'stole' the other man's parking pot.  And that's just what the man said as he quite forcefully tapped on the SUV's window.  He proceeded to say "You WILL back out." I quite frankly wasn't sure if I should continue to watch just in case 911 needed to be called or not.  But I decided to run in, return my movie and then see how the situation was when I came back out.  Not much had changed to be honest.  The gentleman was still talking to the person in the SUV, and within a few more seconds he was back in his car driving off.  As I walked by the SUV I noticed the man was an elderly man and it made my heart break a little.  Because frankly I don't think this man was intentionally trying to 'steal' the man's spot.  I honestly doubt he even saw where he was waiting for that prime spot.  A few minutes later, Trav and I drove by that spot and I then noticed a handicap sticker in the man's windshield.  As you can imagine, it's holiday shopping season and therefore handicap parking is hard to come by.  So in my mind I imagine this elderly man trying frantically to get to that front row parking spot (that wasn't handicap parking).  And when he parked, he probably felt so thankful he didn't have to park near the back......and what happened? A quite capable to walk man confronted him with the notion that how dare HE take his spot.  As if he was entitled to it way more than him...even if he didn't see him waiting.....

As we drove home I couldn't stop thinking about it.  The Christmas season is supposed to be filled with joy, gratitude, and kindness.  And what do we see the most of when we are out and about? Shoppers frantically trying to check off their to do lists and if we are honest...not much holiday cheer.  We as a society have started to make it quite clear that we feel entitled to what we want...when we want it.  And if things don't go our exact way (whether it be the parking spot we want, an item we 'need' to buy, or how someone else treats us), we lose our holiday magic quite fast.

I know for a fact, I can easily 100% fall into this trap.  Christmas time can so easily get stressful.  All the events we need to go to, all the people we need to shop for, all the chaos that seems to be happening at stores all over the country.  On the flip side there are also many that are hurting this holiday season.  Whether it be grief, finances, or what seems like a very broken Christmas.....

Therefore as we are out and about, we encounter all types of people that fall into all kinds of categories during this time.  And we are left with a very hard decision.  I say hard because it isn't an easy thing to just do.  We need to be intentional about this decision and constantly make the choice by the minute sometimes even.....

We are left with the choice to either let our entitlements and emotions get the best of us and turn into a scrooge and quite frankly a crab....or we can choose to let what the Christmas season is really all about to seep into every nook and cranny of ourselves.  And choose that no matter what may happen, no matter how someone else treats us, no matter what we think we need.....choose to be the joy of the season.  Choose to let the hurting world around us see Jesus in us like never before.....

It is something we should be doing all year and yet it also seems to be that this time of year is the hardest to do it.  Let us as Christians shine a beckon of light into what sometimes can turn into a very broken season for the world.  Where society seems to dictate that our selfish wants are more important than being kind to others.  A time where the world seems to push more of the attention on what kind of good deals we can get rather than the love of a Savior....but the world is so desperately searching for that love during this season, even if they don't want to admit it.

So will you join me in being even more conscious of how we are treating people? I thought I do pretty good most of the time but I know deep down in my heart that I don't do as good as I should.  I don't have to be happy and smiling all the time, but it could be something as simple as not getting so irritated when the check out line is taking longer than I want.  Letting someone who only has an item or two go in front of me.  Holding open a door as someone is running to get into the warmth.  Perhaps buying coffee for the person behind me and handing them a note saying "Merry Christmas! Jesus loves you!" Not snapping at the cashier even if they are being beyond rude.  Or simply letting someone else have the closer parking spot......

Christmas should be about the love and warmth of our Savior being born into this world.  It should be about spreading that love to celebrate His birth.  This isn't an easy choice to make when our worlds seems to get so chaotic during this time but it's one I think we need to be reminded to make daily.....  

If we want how broken the world seems sometimes during Christmas to come to an end....it starts with us.....

When we choose to not see the beauty.....

In the past week and a half, we have received a total of about 25 inches of snow.  Give or take of course.  And this snow hasn't just been off and on for almost 2 weeks.  No this snow has happened in just 2 snow storms.  One moment we were having enjoyable fall-like weather and then BOOM the next day we were covered in 17 inches of snow.  And then today we woke up to light snow falling and them BOOM another 8 inches or so.

This first snowfall was the first we have experienced in our current rental house.  My sweet husband was dreading this day.  You see, our landlords put in red rock for a driveway.  Not the ideal choice when you live in the Midwest and winters tend to come with lots of snow involved.  Travis did his best to shovel the entire driveway a week and a half ago.  He quickly learned that was not the best way to go.  Tonight he used my dad's snowblower he loaned us.  Well we again quickly learned that wasn't the best route either.  After multiple hiccups, Trav finally gave up and came in for the night.  He was not only exhausted but also very clearly mad.  I sat and listened to him unload his frustration and then it was time for bed.  When I came downstairs from checking on our oldest, all the lights were shut off in the house.  I went over to the window and looked out to see if it was still snowing.  And suddenly my breath got taken away....

I saw the beauty and magic of the situation...

I sat and looked out into the peacefulness of the snow still falling.  Off to the right are some tall bushes, and they were so beautifully covered in snow.  The dim streetlight shining on them ever so gently.  As you looked up into the streetlight, you could also see the shimmering of snowflakes still making their way down to the ground.  It literally took my breath away.  Travis soon came out into the dark living room to see what I was doing exactly.  I said, "Look at those bushes.  How gorgeous they are.  All that snow sitting on them so peacefully."  His response? A muttered "You go out in it and shovel then..."  Here I was wanting to go grab my camera and head out into the night to capture the beauty that was around us while he was on the polar opposite end of it. While I chuckled at his comeback, it also left me thinking how much of our daily lives are like this.....and how I have so been in his shoes with not wanting to see the beauty.

Instead of looking at the mounds of snow that needed to be shoveled...

There are always 2 different viewpoints to every situation.  We can either find the beauty and contentment in whatever we are faced with, or we can choose to let ourselves get swept away in the negative.  There have been very few moments in my life when I'm faced with a trying situation and still choose to be content.  Where I willingly choose to see the beauty.   It is incredibly hard to do.  Especially when we live in a world where we are taught that we can have what we want, when we want it.  Where we are essentially taught that we are entitled to what we want, when we want it.

So how do we try to turn the tide? How do we strive to always be content with what we are given or find the beauty in any situation? Gratitude.  What if when we start to feel ourselves getting bogged down in the negative of a situation, we take a step back.  We pause, take a deep breath, and think of at least one thing we are thankful for.  No matter how tiny or small it may seem, we choose to take the time to be thankful for that one thing.  I will be the first to raise my hand to say I struggle in this area 99.9% of the time.  When I think the situation I'm dealing with is crappy, that's all I can think about.  Why me? Why this? Why now? But the truth is, I'm not entitled to having a picture perfect life all the time.  Crappy situations are gonna happen and they aren't going to be fair.  But instead of wasting my energy on the bad, I want to intentionally pick out some things I'm thankful for among all the bad.

Currently I'm reading Raising Grateful Kids in an Entitled World by Kristen Welch of 'We are THAT family'.  I'm only on chapter 1 and this is what it is doing to my heart.  That's right friends, it's supposed to be a book on how to raise my kids to be more grateful.  I wasn't expecting it to point out where I'm clearly lacking.  But the truth is: what we want our kids to be good at, we also need to be good at. Preorder of the book begins TODAY!!! And I strongly encourage you to head over to the link and order yours.  Not only do you get some free goodies for preordering but man is it gonna be good for your soul.  Not only does it have good good stuff to help us be better parents, but man does it show you that you aren't alone in this parenting world.  The struggles you have are the same in every family.  We aren't alone in this.  We can learn from one another.

What situation are you facing that is yucky and not so fun? As hard as it might be, can you think of at least 1 thing to be thankful for? Or to be content with in the situation? And if you feel comfortable sharing, I would love to pray for you.....