I threw away the Bac-Os…

So last night I made “Cheesy Bacon Ranch Burger” Hamburger Helper for dinner (remember this is not the blog where you learn how to be Pinterest mom of the year) and they suggested adding bacon crumbles as a topping, so I did… sort of. You see I didn’t have bacon crumbles and I sure wasn’t going to cook bacon to crumble it, so I just threw on some Bac-Os. Something about it just wasn’t right though. I don’t know if you have ever read the ingredients for Bac-Os, but there is basically nothing real in them, just a few ingredients that slightly resemble something that once came from a soy bean and caramel coloring. The Bac-Os left me longing for something more, REAL bacon!

It’s a lot like that in our own lives, don’t you think? We play at this idea of being a Christian but sometimes it seems that there are no real ingredients there, just some stuff that slightly resembles religion. If we truly want to be “Mom Enough” and have a Godly home, we MUST start with ourselves! So how about it, is your faith REAL? Not sure? Look at your ingredients list to find out. Where do you spend your time? How about your money? Even more telling, how about your thoughts? You see these are our ingredients and they tell everything about us just like the ingredients list on the back of a package.

I can see so many of you rolling your eyes at the screen already. You think you don’t have time for Godly thoughts, or reading your Bible, or praying. REALLY?? The God of all creation died on the cross for you and you don’t have time?? Don’t get me wrong I’ve been there and used every excuse in the book too, it’s just that somewhere along the way, someone challenged me to put away the excuses and become REAL. It is because of that challenge, that I challenge you today.

So what does REAL look like? I don’t have every answer for you. There is not enough space on the page or time in the day, but I can tell you very simply where to start. 5 minutes. That’s right, start with 5 minutes every day that you dedicate to God. Talk to Him like He is sitting next to you and then read a couple of verses. Then turn the 5 into 10. Each time you spend time with Him, ask for His presence in your life. You will find that if your heart is in this request He will honor it, and before long your shallow Christianity will have become something so REAL to you that you simply cannot exist apart from it because it is who you are.

You want to be “Mom Enough” to have a godly home? Throw away the Bac-Os.

I wish it would rain...

So I've been thinking of starting a blog for a while now. I want it to be about difficulties, tips and tricks, and devotionals on being a Christian mom in today's world. I've called it "Mom Enough" because this has become a popular phase in today's culture to describe pretty much anything except raising Godly kids, but I would like to use it for just that purpose. Raising Godly kids is hard but I want all my fellow mamas to know that they are indeed "Mom Enough!"

That being said this first blog is more to deal with the current issue in my life and to hopefully bring some much needed REALLY honest conversation to light. So here it goes...

YES I had a miscarriage on Saturday, YES I am sad about it, YES I am disappointed, YES I cry sometimes, but I have not stopped being Tammy. Here is where the tough love part comes in. See when someone goes through something sad and difficult, other people around them seem to all of a sudden go berserk! (How many times do we whisper the word cancer or anything else negative?) I have seen so many people in the last few days duck and cover because they are desperately trying to avoid the awkward conversation. So for the record I would like to put everyone's mind at ease and say a few things:

If you don't know what to say that's ok! If you know me at all you know I am the queen of not knowing what to say in a bad situation. I am still the same girl you knew last week, and we can talk about anything we talked about before. I still love Ranger baseball and Sooner football, I still cross stitch, and play silly games on my phone, and of course as always I still love food; talking about it or eating it! So here is where I'm going to ask you to throw the old "If you can't say anything nice.." phrase out the window. I still need friends and I still love to talk about all kinds of things so please don't avoid me for two months just because you don't know what to say.

If you are afraid to say the wrong thing that's ok too! Guess what?? You probably will! You would be shocked about the tiny things that have made me sad this week. The _ + _ = 4 is still written in chalk on the driveway from where we had taken our new family photo. I sure do wish it would rain and wash that away, but it hasn't and that's ok and it will be ok if you say something to hurt my feelings. If your heart is in the right place I can see that and I will get over it! I will just be glad that you said something! I have cried and will cry, probably a lot, and that's ok. Crying over it won’t make it clean but sometimes it just feels good to let it out.

Lastly thank you to all of the many who have already done this, and to all of you who have been praying for me and loving on me. This is hard, but God is still good. I cannot say how much I cherish all of my friendships you all bless me so much every day!!

~ Tammy