Get In Line

I don’t know what you do all day, but two days a week I spend my day with eight of my best 19 - 26 month old friends. Now of course LOVE my job but when you work with toddlers there are some things you say like a broken record. For me one of those things is “get in line.” Now of course with toddlers it just means a simple stand one behind the other, but I got to thinking the other day that there is an area in my own life where I should put this into practice in a much more metaphorical way.

So often in my own life I pray for God to bless and direct my family and I know I’m probably not the only one. You see the other day it occurred to me that God had given me some very clear direction for my family that I was not yet following, at least not with my whole heart.

Throughout scripture God gives a very clear order for the family. God, husband, wife, and kids; this is the simple line that God calls us to get in. So I had to ask myself, am I in line? So often the answer is no. I will say with my mouth that my husband is the head of our house but when it comes down to it, I really enjoy making decisions and arguing my point until he caves. Anybody else? If you are like me and find yourself taking the reins all too often, let me share with you some of the simple steps God has been sharing with me on how to get in line.

1)      Pray for your husband: pray for your husband that God would lead and direct him to the right decisions for your family

2)      Follow his advice: when you’ve prayed for God to lead your husband, and then you ask his opinion, take it. This seems simple but so often we ask everyone’s opinion and then we pick whatever we were going to do in the first place. If we want to get in line, as God’s Word says, we need to follow our husbands in the little things as well as the big.

3)      Support him in front of the kids: this could be the most important. If our kids don’t see us in line it will be next to impossible for us to ever expect them to get in line.

These seem simple, but for me they are much easier said than done. I am working on this in my own heart and life every day and I hope you will join me. Want to be mom enough to raise Christian kids? Get in line.

“But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife^[a] is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.” 1^st Corinthians 11:3 ESV

Pull out the skeletons…

October is here, and with it comes my least favorite holiday (for several reasons, but that’s a whole other blog ;) and all of the décor to go along. Many people begin pulling out of their closets their decorative witches, ghosts, goblins, and skeletons. It got me to thinking, that’s exactly what we, as Christian mommas, should be doing. We need to pull out the skeletons.

Now before you go thinking I’m crazy and stop reading right there, let me explain. You see the skeletons I’m referring to are not the plastic kind to hang for Halloween but rather the metaphorical ones you’ve stuffed away for no one to see; namely your sins.

In today’s Christian culture we (and yes I’m including me in that “we”) seem to have this idea that we should be responsible Christians and put all of our sin neatly away in a closet for no one to see. Never, ever, ever should anyone think that we are any less than the “have it all together” image we portray. Well I’m here to call that what it is: A LIE!!! It is a lie straight from Satan himself and it is what is keeping A LOT of our children from choosing God long after we stop forcing them to go to church.

You see if we never show others, including our children, our sin, then they cannot understand the grace we preach to them. How can they know grace without first knowing the sin that grace saved us from? Grace can never be real to our children or other lost people without an honest open admission of the sins we have been, and are being, saved from.

What does this look like day to day? I think it looks like honesty. When we mess up we should let our kids see that, and let them see and hear us ask for forgiveness. If there is something in our past, (as they become mature enough to handle that) I believe we should be honest about who we have been, so that the grace that has changed us may come to light in a very clear and real way. I also believe this extends outside the home so that fellow Christians and non-believers alike will be able to see you give glory to God for the change in your life.

So how about it; are you mom enough? Are you willing to be open and honest about the sin in your past and present? I think we can all do this, so please come with me and let’s pull out the skeletons.

“So admit your sins to each other, and pray for each other so that you will be healed.” James 5:16a

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