Practically Joyful Mom

Self care is good. But we can sometimes get the wrong idea about what will really fill us up. 

We can end up thinking that if we could just get a massage, just go get a pedicure, just eat chocolate,  or just watch a movie, it would fix what’s wrong in our lives. Massages and chocolate are good. But these things won’t necessarily nurture our souls.

We can do all sorts of skin-deep self care for our bodies, but end up neglecting soul care. Sometimes when we are soul deep weary what we need is to invest energy in an activity that will refresh and refocus our souls. Something that will not just numb our feelings, but that will bring us deeper peace.

Are you feeling weary? This year has been full of things that make us weary, worried and weighed down: a global pandemic, social isolation, political division, racial injustice, natural disasters. Add all of those things to the day to day burdens of motherhood - sleepless nights, never ending diapers, laundry and dishes, financial concerns, work stress, worries about our children and their futures, the list goes on and on. Is it any wonder that we feel weary? That life feels heavy? The good news is that we’re not left alone to try to bear all of this weight on our own shoulders. 

Being interrupted is hard. And as moms, we’re interrupted all the time. I talked last week about how Jesus was willing to be interrupted and showed compassion even to those who interrupted him. This week, I’m talking about what this practically looks like in our daily lives and how it can bring wonderful and unexpected blessings.

It can be so easy in the tension of everyday life to view our kids as just a list of tasks that we need to complete to take care of them - changing diapers, packing lunches, buying food, scheduling doctor's appointments. When we take time to remember that our kids are little human souls we can connect more with them and see the work we do to care for them as deeply meaningful ministry rather than a never ending to-do list. 

There are a lot of things we find ourselves hoping for in motherhood. I hope the baby sleeps through the night. I hope my kids eat the dinner I'm cooking. I hope they don’t fight with each other in the car today. And while it’s not bad to hope for these things, we need a hope that is more secure than just hoping our current challenge is resolved. Because the thing is that there will always be new challenges in motherhood. So putting our hope in our changing circumstances can actually leave us feeling hopeless. Today’s episode is all about remembering where our hope comes from and how we can remind ourselves of that hope, day by day and moment by moment.

Today, my 7 year-old son is joining me on the podcast to talk about summer and about the things that bring joy to our family. It can be so easy to get caught up in trying to give our kids the most exciting experiences and the best activities that we forget what they most want is our attention and our love. Listening to this perspective from a seven year-old helped remind me that we can choose joy for our families in very simple ways.

Summer! It can be so easy to try to cram so many activities into the summer months and have the "perfect" summer. This usually leads to lots of disappointment and frustration when things go differently. On the other hand, we can find ourselves in September wondering where summer went and why we didn't do any of the things we wanted to. Today we're talking through some practical ideas and perspective shifts for a more practically joyful summer. 

It can be so easy to feel unseen and unappreciated in motherhood and this past year has made many of us feel especially isolated. You matter and what you are doing matters. You are loved. 

We all have a finite amount of time energy and attention to invest in things around us. So often we are pulled towards giving our time and attention to distractions or things that will not matter in the long term. But we can choose instead to consistently invest in the things that really do matter. And when we do, our investments will matter and build the things we actually want to grow in our lives. 

We all have times where we get stuck in "serious mom mode". Where we aren't having much fun and we're not fun to be around. Today we're talking about why fun matters and some easy ways to incorporate fun into our lives.