Solo Parent

Balance: How to Find Daily Spiritual Balance

“Any theology or any way of living that doesn’t lead back to loving God and loving others with all of my heart, mind, soul, and strength is actually bad theology.” – Jake Smith, founder of Plumline www.shamahway.com www.jakesmithjr.com

We want to be deliberate about finding balance in 2021 and that starts with our spiritual lives. And that’s what we talk about this week on our podcast - how to find daily spiritual balance.

Finding balance is difficult for all of us but single parents find it particularly challenging. Many of us don’t experience consistent balance. Rather, we tend to live going between highs and lows as we try to juggle everything on our plates while being a solo parent.

Our guest this week is Jake Smith, a former pastor who created a non-profit called Plumline which is centered on personal development and spiritual, emotional, and relational health. Plumline offers weekly groups that lead individuals through a process that helps them integrate their heart, mind, soul, and strength as they relate to God, themselves, and others.

If we are to find godly balance in our lives, integrating these areas is essential.

Jesus talked about this in Mark 12 when he answered the question spiritual leaders posed, "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” Jesus' response was to quote the Shamah. “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 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 these.” In Matthew 22, he addresses the same questions and says, “All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

“If we want to summarize what Jesus is all about, or if we want to summarize the Scriptures, in a nutshell, Jesus did that for us. He said this is essentially the core of everything. Any theology or any way of living that doesn’t lead back to that, loving God and others with all of my heart, mind, soul, and strength is actually bad theology. So, when we talk about balance, we can pull from what Jesus said is most important by looking at our spiritual anatomy – our heart, our mind, our soul, and our strength. These are unique parts of us, and we need all four parts to developed and interconnected. This is how we can show up to life and to our relationships – with our kids, with our colleagues, at work – with the fullness of our design.” – Jake Smith

So, when we talk about balance, we need to consider these four parts of our “spiritual anatomy” that Jesus talks about in the Shamah because this is how he asks us to relate to God and to others.

What does it look like to show up to my life with my heart, my soul, my mind, and my strength, in an interconnected way, to the people and things who matter most?

Elizabeth, a single mom through divorce, has been part of Plumline groups for the past year. As an Enneagram 7, she tends to avoid her feelings and run from them. She tends to go toward the area of strength first and foremost, but Plumline has taught...

 The holidays can be very difficult for single parents. The one thing we can count on is change, like changes in tradition and changes is time with our kids. What we once knew is often now very different. Gd promises He will turn all things to good and that He is doing a new thing in our lives, but the idea of newness and change can still make us uneasy. Our dreams that have been shattered leave us picking up the pieces while walking into a new frontier. We don’t know how things are going to turn out especially after facing the unexpected already.

How do you embrace the new and encounter God in newness?

1. Identify past dreams and past realities - Be authentic and take inventory of what you have lost and how you are feeling. Take time to grieve specific losses. If you move on too quickly, you can stay stuck and carry the pain with you. As you embrace God in newness, acknowledge your dreams but also acknowledge your realities. Sometimes loss can make us look at the past through rose colored glasses and remember things more utopian than they were making it harder for us to move on.

2. Pray about what could be. Become willing to dream again. Confess to God if you are afraid of dreaming again. Ask Him to help you dream about a new future, new possibilities, and a new you. Change is hard but staying the same can be even worse. Ask God to be with you in the new so you don’t miss the opportunities planned for you in the now.

3. Accept that new is the new normal. Start to live in a state of anticipation. Began to believe that what is coming is better than what you left behind. New can be scary but it is also full of possibility.

Newness can be scary for anyone. As a single parent, Marissa, shares that when she first became a solo parent after her husband died, she longed for an unbroken world where all things were made new and better. What she realized though is that brokenness in the world doesn’t change but we can be made new despite that. Past experiences and losses, while hard, can serve to change us, to make us new and different. Like Paul, we can learn to embrace any circumstance provided God is with us. But embracing change is hard because what comes next may not be what we want. There is uncertainty in “new”. Old feels safe and reassuring because even if it wasn’t best, we still knew what to expect, and in many ways that feels comfortable.

To embrace the new, we must first identify our past dreams and past realities. We must take time to accept that what we once had or hoped for is no longer possible. The ideals and dreams of where our life was going must be examined. We have to face the reality of what is happening now. We all want happy kids, effortless parenting, a perfect home. We often look at our lives through a Hallmark filter that isn’t realistic. It represents hopes and dreams but not our real-life experiences. Before we embrace the new, we have to realize that some of our ideals were not congruent with our actual lives. Looking back is important because we can’t grieve something until we identify it. It’s impossible to move into the new without letting go of those ideals and realities. It’s helpful to see that our lives weren’t perfect in the past anymore than they will be now or in the future. Accepting and acknowledging this helps us grieve and then let go.

Maybe the newness this year means you can’t provide as many presents for your kids as you want to or maybe your house doesn’t have Christmas lights outside. But, instead of presents, remember that your kids want your PRESENCE. Instead of Christmas lights, your kids want to see light in your eyes when you look at them. Embracing the new can bring up grief but it can also help us realign our priorities. As we do this, we may experience transitional hurt. We feel the excitement or joy of what is ahead...

We are in a crazy time this year, and on some days, it feels hopeless. We are trying to get through the pandemic, move on past the election, and find a new perspective for 2021, but there’s just so much going on. We want to look ahead with hope but what are we hoping in? Is it a political outcome, a vaccine, a change in our circumstances?

When we look to these things for hope, we can set ourselves up for a cycle of disappointment and despondency. Today we are talking about finding hope in Emmanuel, God with Us.

We are so thrilled to have Kristi McClelland with us on our podcast this week. Kristi is an author, professor, speaker, and biblical culturist. Kristi teaches the Bible through its original historical, cultural, linguistic, and geographic context. This approach helps build a bridge to help us understand the world and culture of the bible to know what the authors meant and show us who the living God is, what he’s like and what it’s like to walk with Him.

When Kristi was 21 years old, as a senior in college, she lost her father unexpectedly to cancer just a few weeks after diagnosis. It was devastating and felt like the rug was pulled out from under her. Her whole world changed in a moment. As she was mourning and hurting, she would sleep with her Bible under her pillow so she could read a psalm or just a few words of comfort.

Now, years later, Kristi has faced other reasons to need comfort and hope, just as we all have. We all need anchors of hope and, as believers, we have a living Hope in Christ – a hope that is alive, breathing, walking around, able to meet us in our troubles. In times like these, Kristi prays, “Lord, I need your hope to find me because I don’t have it in me to find it.” I’m upside down, I feel disoriented, so find me, find me and usher in that hopefulness.” Kristi describes Living Hope as different from hope that is experienced as a feeling which is how it’s talked about in other world religions. “Our hope is not based in a certain theology, rhythm, or practice. Our hope is based on a man, a living resurrected man. It’s not just that Jesus came but that He is still here, living, moving, breathing, having his way, shepherding us through our lives.” So, hope isn’t a thing, it’s not a feeling. “Our hope is living because Jesus is alive and, in our lives, right now, shepherding our lives in ways known and unknown in mystery and uncertainty. We’re all going to fool around and make it - because of Him. We are going to fool around and make it through this season, as we have every season of devastation and loss that comes before, because it’s not just that He came to earth. He came to earth, He is here, and He’s coming again one day. So, we live in the twilight of who He is so it’s Living Hope.”
After the loss of her Dad and again now in 2020, Kristi shares, “We’ve all had longing and aching this year, for things past and for things ahead. The Bible says God longs for things too.” Kristi says this truth is found in Isaiah 30:18 which says, “Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you. He rises to show you compassion.” Kristi learned it when she lost her dad and she’s learning it again this year. “Compassion is the fusion of two words. “Com” means “with” and “passion” comes from “pathos” which means “pain”. So, compassion in the Biblical world is not an emotion. It’s a location. Compassion means positioning yourself with people in their pain. The Bible here in this verse is saying that the Lord longs to position himself with us in our pain. He rises to show us compassion. “You think of all those seasons in life when maybe you’ve thought, “Oh I need to clean myself up before I come to God” or “Why am I having another meltdown?” “Why can’t I get it together? Why is everybody else smarter, quicker, better, faster, stronger than me, and I’m the one behind, struggling?” The Bible...

God With Us In Our Struggle

The holidays can be difficult because they bring up so many emotions for all of us. Especially as single parents, it can be hard to celebrate when we are facing painful memories of lost dreams, broken family traditions, and at times, being apart from our kids. Our reality is far different from a Hallmark movie storyline. Celebrating the season can be a struggle because it highlights the pain of parenting alone. 

Because we know the reality of loss can peak around the holidays, we want to offer some strategies that might help you embrace the truth that God is with us in grief. 

1. Identify and confess your strugle. We need to acknowledge and admit that our grief is real. We need to stop being afraid of it. There is no shame in grief. Yet, sometimes we shrink back from naming and facing it. But grief is a normal part of the human experience. Grief is a sign that our losses and pain matter because we matter. When we love someone and lose them, it’s sad. There is a painful void left behind. When we lose the dream of a typical family, it hurts.

2. Accept struggle as normal. It’s normal to feel grief and to struggle, especially during the holidays. We need to let ourselves feel it. We need to let go of the desire to push it aside and ignore it. If you are a single parent, you know a lot about grief and feeling loss. These feelings can become even stronger during the holiday season when the losses are highlighted. Remember though, you are not alone, and to struggle with grief and sadness is normal. 

3. Invite God into your struggle. Don’t be afraid to let your heart be known by God. That is where intimacy and trust are born. Go to Him honestly with all you are feeling. Don’t hide the dark places from Him. Let Him enter your highs, lows, and everything in between. He will meet you there, where you are. 

4. Finally, recognize God’s presence with you in struggle. The Lord is close to the brokenhearted. He is acquainted with grief and He will be with you in it. We can find a sense of peace even in sadness and loss because God promises to be with those crushed in spirit. 

Single parent, Elizabeth, shares her experience with grief especially around the holidays. Christmas is hard being a solo parent. It’s just not easy. The loss of extended family because of divorce is painful. It just is. Seeing pictures of past celebrations pop up on your phone or just having memories come to mind is like a stab to the heart. Ornaments from past years highlight the changes we’ve experienced. Your kids leaving to go be with their other family hurts and feels like a loss in itself. Reminder after reminder comes up even as you’re getting through Thanksgiving Day and putting up a Christmas tree. 

Even as the waves of emotion wash over you, it’s important to remember too that grief and gratitude can coexist. We can be thankful for our children’s connection to their other parent’s family even while we experience sadness at not being with them. And, it’s normal to have FOMO – fear of missing out – when we know traditions are continuing that we are no longer part of anymore. Being disconnected and excluded from special memories and experiences with our kids is hard. 

That’s why this topic is so important. Grief around the holidays is real and normal. It’s healthy to acknowledge and accept it. We can also hold on to the truth that God is with us in that grief. He is Emmanuel. Especially during this pandemic, when everything feels heightened, it’s even more necessary to invite God into that reality. We are all under more stress and more easily triggered. We aren’t necessarily in the best place ourselves so we need God to be with us even more. 

How...

Worth – Teaching Our Kids Worth

We live in a time where our kids are being battered around by all kinds of voices and comparisons, more than when we were kids for sure. 24/7 they are hearing lies about ways they don’t measure up. Depression, anxiety, and suicide are on a serious increase. As adults, we are facing these things too, but we have history, context, and experience to know that these things come and go but our kids don’t.

Especially during the pandemic, the hopelessness, and questions about “Am I worth it” can be very loud voices. With current events like this, it’s more important than ever to notice what our kids are going through and identify how they are feeling about themselves. Teaching our kids how to have a healthy sense of worth is paramount.

All this month we’ve been building our idea of worth using the acronym VIP, value, identity, and purpose. We are going to use these same ideas to explore practical ways to teach a healthy sense of worth to our kids.

First, psychologists agree a good place for parents to start is by modeling what healthy self-worth looks like themselves. We don’t have to be perfect or have everything figured out to do this. The process is as important, if not more important, than being able to show our kids we know and understand our value, identity, and purpose.

Teaching our kids is reinforcing their value, identity, and purpose in our every day lives. Identity and purpose will come later as they grow in their own story and along their own life path. But we can teach our kids value from day one to create a foundation of healthy worth.

Teaching value is first found in understanding who God is. We often measure ourselves by comparing ourselves with other people. We may not have the same characteristics, traits, or attributes as someone else and we can determine incorrectly that somehow means we are less valuable. But the good news is that value has everything to do with God and nothing to do with us. When we start with who He is, we can accept that our great Creator who hung the stars and moon and created everything on earthy also thought it was important for each of us to be created. He loves us dearly and brought us to life because we each needed to be here. His decision to create us demonstrates our intrinsic value.

But how do we teach this to our kids? We can do this in three practical ways every day.

1. Show affection

2. Speak affirmation

3. Create space

Show Affection

We can first encourage a sense of worth in our kids by showing them affection. Our kids need to know how much they are valued by us. They need to know we are so glad they are here, and they are not an accident.

We can’t assume our kids know how proud of them we are or how glad we are to be their mom or dad. We must demonstrate it by showing them affection. Our kids need daily reminders that we are happy to have time with them and that we enjoy being around them. We can show them this with hugs, sitting together and just being close to them, or telling them with words or acts of service that they matter to us. Showing affection can look lots of different ways, like being at their sporting event, remembering their favorite things and taking time to know what’s important to them.

With older kids, don’t let them isolate to their rooms too much. It’s normal for teens to want some space but make it a priority to be near them when you can - after work, at meals, at bedtime. Use eye contact and body language to show them you care. Being in each other’s physical presence helps our kids develop a sense of their importance and their value. Smile and let your eyes light up when they enter the room. Set aside other things whenever possible to show them they are worthy of your...

Worth – Discovering Your Purpose

Worth is made up of our value, identity, and purpose (V.I.P.). Understanding each of these elements helps us know we are VIP’s in God’s kingdom. Each one of us has intrinsic value because we were created by our Creator. We each have a unique identity shaped and informed by our history, story, strengths, and passions. And, we were created on purpose for a purpose – to walk out the plan God set in place and to do the works He planned in advance for us to do.

Discovering your purpose is part three of our series on worth. Your purpose is a path. It’s a process of discovery, not a destination. There are two distinctives to pay attention to in discovering your purpose. They are your design and your path.

The first is our design. To understand our purpose and unlock our power, we must value our design. This starts with knowing and believing we are uniquely created by the Designer for a specific purpose. When we are anchored in this knowledge, we can embrace our unique design. Some of us believe we have to fit in, perform, or look and behave in certain ways to accomplish our purpose. Instead of trying to fit into these boxes, we need to look into God’s word to discover our design. Our design isn’t found in fashion magazines or other worldly measure like career achievements or accumulating material things. This isn’t God’s design.

God’s design for us is not the same as that of culture or society. “Comparison is the thief of joy” and when we look to worldly standards to measure our design, we can easily lose sight of our godly purpose. We need to be intentional and look to God instead to discover our gifting and purpose. Luke 13:20 says, “He asked, “To what can I compare the kingdom of God? It is like leaven that a woman took and mixed into three measures of flour, until all of it was leavened.” Yeast is tiny and unseen yet it acts throughout the entire batch of dough causing it to rise. Start asking God to reveal the “leaven” He has placed in you. Look for those areas that are evidence of His Spirit acting inside of you for His kingdom. God created you with unique gifts to be used for unique purposes. Take some time to explore how He designed you.

Former single mom, Kimberley, shares something her daughter said when she was 8 years old. “Hey Mom, the word “us” is part of “Jesus” so that means we belong together. Jesus and us.” Yes! So simple and yet so profound. Jesus and us. We were made for connection with Him. We were created to know and follow Him. Both our design and our path our part of our purpose.

And His purpose for our lives is so much better and higher than our own. When we open ourselves up to God and His purposes for us, it can look a lot different than we expect but it is so much better. Robert Beeson, founder of Solo Parent Society, says his solo season revealed more of God’s plan for him than ever before. It is at rock bottom that we sometimes find our deepest connection to God and understand ourselves more than could have in any other circumstances. Being intentional about our solo season and asking God to show us who He created us to be can be pivotal. We can come out on the other side transformed, ready to embrace our design and the path we are on, however unexpected.

And our path is the second part of discovering our purpose. Often when we think of purpose, we think of it as a destination or something we determine. And that just isn’t the case. Purpose is not an objective, it’s an outcome. Purpose is found in our design and in the path that God has us on, even when that path includes hardships, trials, and brokenness.

Everything happens on purpose for a purpose. Sometimes we get in a rush. We get impatient and we want to see the ending, but God gives us “just enough light for the step we’re on”. Our purpose...

Worth: Uncovering Our Identity

Single parents have often walked a challenging path experiencing hurts and obstacles along the way. These difficulties can shake their sense of worth leaving them feeling empty and unsure of who they are. Regaining a sense of worth is found in recovering our sense of value, uncovering our identity, and realizing our purpose. 

Each component builds on the other. The first one, our value, is unchangeable and intrinsic. God determines our value which is foundational to our sense of worth. The second component is our identity. Our identity is made up of characteristics that distinguish us from one another. It’s our individual stories that set us apart. Finally, our worth helps inform our purpose. We were created intentionally by God to fulfill good works planned for us. When we have a solid understanding of our value, identity, and purpose, we can walk with confidence in our worth, knowing we were created by God, on purpose for a purpose. 

One of the components needed for a healthy sense of worth is uncovering our identity. We can gain valuable knowledge of who we are through four facets: 1) our history, 2) the setbacks we’ve experienced, 3) our unique strengths, and 4) our individual passion. 

First, our history starts with our family of origin. Part of understanding our identity lies in understanding how we grew up and how it impacted us. Whether raised in a big family or as an only child, whether under ideal circumstances or difficult ones, our upbringing has shaped and molded us into who we are today. Understanding our history helps us understand our identity today. The story of Joseph illustrates how our family of origin can shape us. Joseph was a favored son and his brothers became jealous as a result. His childhood experiences of having dreams and being able to interpret them are a big part of his family history. Your family history matters too. 

Another facet of our identity are the setbacks we’ve faced. Each one of us has experienced different hardships and difficulties that inform our identity and sense of who we are. Joseph was betrayed and sold into slavery by his brothers. He was accused of something he didn’t do and was thrown into prison. These hardships impacted his identity just like we are impacted by our own. Adversities like divorce, abuse, illness, or betrayal change our life trajectory and the way we see ourselves. Some alter our identity while others reinforce it or cause us to reinvent part of who we are. 

Like our history and setbacks, our strengths are another facet of identity. Our unique talents and strengths help us understand who we were created to be. Some of our experiences develop these strengths and others reveal ones we didn’t even know were there. Each strength informs part of our identity. Taking inventory of our strengths is an important part of recognizing our worth. One of Joseph’s strengths was charisma. He first found favor with his father and later with those he encountered while he was a slave and in prison. Joseph also knew how to interpret dreams. This gift from God gave him an advantage and set him up to gain stature in Egypt. Knowing our strengths is a key facet to knowing our identity. 

Passion is the final facet in discovering our identity. We can find our passion by looking at the things we are drawn to, like nurturing kids, being creative, or starting a business. When we take the time to understand our individual passions, we gain a greater understanding of our identity too. Sometimes the turmoil we have faced as a single parent can rob us of some of our passion, but these same adversities can also fuel it. 

Taking time to recognize our passions is...