Angela Parlin

So Much Beauty in All This Chaos

Hope for the Deepest Why

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Hope Deepest Why Because He LivesSometimes life pulls us away from our hope. We get busy. We’re distracted. We’re extremely forgetful. Trials and difficulties abound, and our hope gets lost in the middle.

Other times, we lose hope because we’re wading through dark seasons, through the deepest whys.

I remember one such season. We were in the middle of a move, living in an apartment until our new house was finished. We had just left the church we called home for a decade. We had to say goodbye to our dogs. And then my young, healthy friend ended up with cancer.

I remember sitting in the driver’s seat of my car. My husband called and said her fight was over.

It was the day before Valentine’s Day.

I scratched hows and whys on black and white pages, in blood red ink mixed with tears. How wide and deep was this why…

 

Click on over to Fearfully Made Mom, for the rest of this post. I’m guest posting there as part of Abby McDonald’s Renewal Through Christ series. Join us!

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Dear Friend Who Thinks She Should Try Harder

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giftDear Friend Who Thinks She Should Try Harder,

I sat there, while you talked about navigating life with your little people, feeling like I’d already had this conversation with someone. Probably lots of someones.

I kept nodding my head, because I understand the way you feel. Your words reminded me of myself a few years back. Motherhood is hard stuff, and you were looking for answers.

You hinted that your solution was to stay up later. To get more things done. To gather pretty pins and make more lists. To just follow through with the lists you already have.

But I don’t think the answer is waiting for you on Pinterest, at the house next door, or in those glossy stacks of magazines in your living room. I don’t think the answer looks like you doing more.

We are all sold this lie, that if we try a little harder, if we work a little more, we’ll get there. Where? The place where life—motherhood—looks a lot more fun and glamorous and just right. The place where motherhood looks the way we hoped it would look.

We are sold on high expectations and a false definition of being a good mom.

For a long time, I said I was just trying to be a good mom. Just doing the usual things, you know, things everyone was doing. Just keeping up with all I needed to do.

But later I realized the truth. I wanted to do it all. I wanted to be really good at this, at all the pieces and parts of it. Don’t we all want that? For our kids, our family, for God?

Of course, there are other reasons also–we want to keep up with our friends.

So as a Mom, for many years, I lived under an impossible list of expectations, both my own and other people’s ideals. Instead of collecting figurines or seashells, I collected so many expectations on my shelves.

friend who thinks she should try harderAt the end of those overwhelming days, I’d search for answers.

If I could just try a little harder, get more organized, pray more, and figure things out, maybe then I’d be the Mom I always wanted to be.

I usually attacked it in that order, focusing on organization. I usually tried to fix things on my own and asked God for whatever He could do to help.

But friend, who thinks she should try harder, let me tell you what’s different now.

One overwhelming year, I accepted a challenge to read through the Bible with a group of friends. In the thick of those long days, I realized something. I was ruining motherhood, by trying so hard. And somehow half the Bible spoke directly into motherhood.

That year, Jesus offered me freedom from the slavery of striving. He invited me to come to Him for true rest. He encouraged me to take my load from Him–not from what others around me were doing. He showed me how that list of expectations had become an idol I was clinging to.

It’s not like He zapped my life, and everything changed all at once. Or that I’m completely over expectations. But He began a good work in me as a Mom, when I became desperate enough to hear Him.

Days of chronic overwhelm have turned into overwhelming gifts. And when I start to feel like I need to strive to keep up again, I try to take a step back and think about what’s behind my striving.

What about you? Do you often feel like you should do more, and try harder?

 

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From Complaints to Thanks

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from complaints to thanks thanksgiving complaining discontent

I stood beside their beds in the dark, praying for each of my 3 little ones while they slept. Every night on my way to bed, I whispered thanks to God for the gift of being their Mommy. But often tears fell, because I knew the truth of that day. And the one before.

I was discontent with that season of my life, and I had become an under-the-breath complainer.

I didn’t always like that this was what God had called me to do. Because it looked like endless wiping. Wiping counters, spills, bottoms, floors, always wiping.

With a preschooler, a toddler, and a baby, my days looked like finding messes by the handfuls, like potty training and nursing and living chronically behind in housework. It was harder than I’d expected. I loved my babies so much, and yet I wished away the hard parts of those days.

One day, after lunch, I stepped in a huge blob of strawberry jam on the kitchen floor. When I grabbed for a dishrag to wipe it up, I ran my arm through more jam on the edge of the counter. I looked up to see this little trail of jam, smudged across the kitchen cabinets, and started to cry.

I felt mad about the mess, about the way I couldn’t stay on top of 6 sticky little hands, mad at my kitchen, mad at jelly, just mad.

And then, I noticed a verse I had taped onto the fridge, written in beautiful calligraphy:

Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. 1 Thessalonians 5:18, NIV

The phrase, “this is God’s will for you” wouldn’t leave me alone.

His will for me then included days full of messes, all waiting for me to clean them up.

His will included a jelly-coated kitchen some days, and jelly-filled hands to clean.

His will included loving and serving three little people, much of which would be done from the ground, on bended knees.

His will for me also included giving thanks, even in never-ending, sticky-mess moments.

It’s easy to thank God when life feels good, when the house is tidy and the days go as planned. But thank God in the middle of the mess? I didn’t even know how. I hated messes.

I decided right then, to try, even though I didn’t really feel it. So I thanked God for the day He made, for the home we lived in, for three little people with small, sticky hands.

The more I thanked God, for both big and small things, the less I complained. And the more I enjoyed being a Mom.

I have to admit, I sometimes fall back into a spirit of complaint. But whenever I realize this and confess it to God, He is faithful to change my spirit, from being full of complaints to repeatedly giving thanks.

When we practice giving thanks in all kinds of circumstances, He fills our hearts with peace and makes us light with joy.

Do you need to confess a complaining spirit today? Will you begin to make a habit of thanking God in every situation?

Thank you Lord, for changes in perspective, for the ability to offer You thanks, even in jelly-smeared kitchens.

 

Join me also over at PurposefulFaith.com,  where this post is also featured.

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Why We Should Never Listen to Burnt Bacon

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motherhood burnt bacon

On an ordinary Tuesday afternoon, I sat at the table working on a writing assignment. When I remembered, it’s Big Salad night.

So I tossed eggs in water to boil, threw chicken on the stove, and arranged bacon on a frying pan. Our piano teacher knocked on the door. We talked, I checked in with food, and went back to writing.

The phone rang, and I talked to my Dad, who’s returning my call from earlier. I tended to food and sat down again. A kid ran in to tell me his online math lesson score. I cheered him on, and sent him off to read.

The doorbell rang, so I checked the food on my way. I chatted with a neighbor, ran back to flip bacon, and sat again to write.

Another kid happened by. Showed me the art she’s been creating. I marvelled at leaves painted different colors and pressed onto her canvas, turned over chicken breasts, cheered her on, and sent her off to read.

It’s supposed to be quiet time, which is why I’m working on a writing assignment and also why I’m cooking dinner to avoid the assignment.

I checked boiled eggs, popped outside for a minute, answered the kids’ most pressing questions, and then our little man woke from his nap. I rubbed his back, fed him a snack, called the next kid for piano lesson, remembered I still needed to clean salad greens, washed and ripped while pondering my writing assignment, and then.

Another kid walked into the kitchen, making a beeline to the stove.

Um, Mom? You know you’re cooking bacon, right?

It took a minute, but I returned to my real place in this real story. I’m cooking bacon. I just forgot. Because the greens, the eggs, the chicken, the kids, the neighbor, the music, the teacher, the back rub, the assignment, and all the thoughts pushed their way forward.

I know everyone does this sometimes. I also know I’ve burned bacon without 16 other things going on. But this story isn’t about the bacon. It’s about being a Mom.

When I became a Mom, I had all these ideas about how to be a good Mom, none of which made space for my weaknesses. Most of them were not really sustainable, at least not for me.

What I’ve learned is, There are a lot of ways to be a good Mom.

Most of those involve the kitchen, but I used to think my kitchen life had to look a certain way. I wanted to be one of those Moms with the picture-perfect meals, all shiny and healthy and planned out for weeks in advance. And while I love serving my family healthy food that will love them back, try though I did, the kitchen never became more than a great place for me to daydream.

So instead of a Mom whose life looks like a Pottery Barn catalog, I’m often the one with the burnt things on pretty plates. And it’s all going to be okay. Because today I heard this little slice of encouragement:

And I quote,  “You know Mom? It looks nasty, but it’s actually not that bad.” 

I’m still laughing. I might need to frame that quote–it’s so Tuesday-typical around here. Years ago, I might have cried because another kitchen-failure. But I’ve grown into a Mom who knows it doesn’t mean anything important about who she is.

So the next time you’re dealing with burnt bacon–or a flopped school snack or forgotten assignment or a botched recipe or any number of things that might tempt you to believe you stink in all things Mommyhood, remember this: ME, TOO.

And it’s probably not that bad. Even if it looks nasty.

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The Poetry of Falling

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falling dying living dying to self John victory surrender

This week last year, my husband was away at Hunting Camp. I was here holding down the fort and struggling through the idea of dying to myself as the way to live. Funny how going it alone as a Mom brings that topic to mind.

I understood in my head what it meant, to die in order to live. But I can’t say I really wanted to experience more of it in my real life…because painful.

Today, I share a little blast from the past, to encourage you to hear the voices of falling leaves, to see this body of BEAUTY surrounding us these days, as arrows >>>——> pointing our eyes to God and our hearts to surrender.

 

The last of the maple leaves fell today.

Autumn winds pressed hard, making red leaves dance, and every little piece found a place to land. Now they scatter the lawn, at the mercy of children who kick and toss and stomp.

I stand here watching, and it feels a lot like poetry.

There’s a mysterious beauty in all this falling, an embedded reflection in the cycle of seasons.

“Before the leaves can mount again

To fill the trees with another shade,

They must go down past things coming up.

 They must go down into the dark decayed.”

 —Robert Frost, In Hardwood Groves

falling dying living dying to self John victory surrender

Jesus talked about seeds falling to the ground to produce more seeds. About death leading to life.

Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. –John 12:24-25, NIV

Jesus was getting ready to produce more seeds–to give us life from His death. Like the kernel of wheat, He fell down to His death before being raised up to glory.

He laid down His life. Concerned with the will of His Father, who was concerned with you and me. This is what it looks like to “hate life” and die to ourselves–in order to live.

Back at New Year’s, I asked God for a word for the year, and immediately knew it was Victory. To which I thought, This will be the year of victory in one of the areas I’ve been praying about. I’m in!

Victory seems like winning, triumph, or success. Not surrender,  falling to the ground, or dying.   

But each time Victory came up this year, the message was clear.

  • Victory is found in yielding, in surrender, in dying.
  • Victory is His strength shining through (not my strength, but) my weakness.
  • Victory is finding joy in smallness.
  • It’s giving up control, and falling into Jesus.

Doesn’t that seem a little upside-down? It didn’t line up with my idea of victory-as-success. But sometimes we have our definitions all mixed up in this world.

So I stood outside this morning, watching trees release leaves at the peak of the season. I thought about how the leaves all fall down and the remaining branches appear dead before they fill up with life again.

I  thought about the way fall displays surrender, and hoped I’d always remember.

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