On Motherhood – Page 7

Surprised by Mom {Book Giveaway}

April 10, 2014 By: Angela Parlin

I remember being 22, freshly wed and busy building a new life 12 hours from home.

12 hours from my Mom. Who I dialed up daily, because somewhere in time, she’d become one of my best friends. My chosen counsel. We didn’t need to squabble over the length of my shorts anymore, and I realized, by then, she’d only held me to high standards because she loved me.

One afternoon, I stood on the back deck of my first home, holding a bulky cordless phone in place, and watched my two little puppies play. Mom and I talked about living a life of purpose. I was trying to figure out what that meant for me.

It sunk in suddenly. She was only 19.

When the doctor handed her my baby flesh, and she carried me over the threshold to Dad and my 14-month-old sister. Before her 20th birthday.

I thought about myself at 19.

A college sophomore, that year I went to a party with the boy I would marry. I studied and worked and played and figured out who I was and dreamed of all I wanted to do with my life. I loved that year. All those years. We had a ball without the seriousness of bills and jobs and adulthood.

But my Mom, barely more than a little girl caring for 2 baby dolls–she had us both so young. Young in years. Young in her faith in God. Young and crazy in love with my Dad. {Some things never change.}

Back when we liked our shoulders big and fluffy.

I cannot comprehend how she did it. She was really an amazing (baby of a) Mom.

That’s not to say there weren’t those days. Those days she locked her bedroom door and cried her eyes out. And we had no idea what could possibly be wrong with her. Why did she ever need a break from us? We had no idea. There were 3 of us little girls then, burst onto her scene within 3 years.

Oh, now? I get it.

My friend Lisa-Jo Baker just released her first book, Surprised by Motherhood. In it, she says she’s learned 3 things:

Motherhood is hard.
Motherhood is glorious.
Motherhood is very hard.

I could not agree more, and I waver between the 3. I often want a break, yet I never want this to end.

It’s the best thing I can imagine, but still I complain about the hard parts. Because you know, often their needs and issues get in the way of my desires. Of my life. And yet, my Mom never really had a life, of her own.

But she loved her life as a Mom. I mean, she wanted to control the outcomes. Who doesn’t?

And the three of us “learning to compromise” over dolls and toys and the neighbor’s dog and who would get to be Daisy when we played Dukes again…add the tears and drama and messes and tempers and high-pitched voices erupting in a house full of girls. She rarely lived a day without serving little ones around the clock. It was overwhelming sometimes.

I remember the whole circus fondly, but I never had to be the one in charge. I don’t know how she pulled it off, but I grew up feeling like Mom really loves this. Like it was all she ever wanted.

And then we grew into 3 teenage girls at once, with our sweet, little Tany, our well-mothered (smothered?) baby sister trailing a decade behind. I’m sorry to say, we became a little gang of sisters, who thought Mom was the enemy, too often. We were well aware of all the things she did wrong. In our opinions.

It took some time before we were just as aware of all she did right. Of all her whys and how she tried. The ways she served and blessed us. Her hugs and presence and neverending “I love you“s. Her endless teaching of truth and skills she gathered when adulthood arrived so early at her doorstep.

Who would I be, without her? I mean, honestly. Who would any of us girls be? Without our Mom.

And her outer beauty has nothing on her beautiful heart!

**This post was inspired by Lisa-Jo Baker’s amazing, new, selling-out-everywhere book, Surprised by Motherhood, in which she tells her own unlikely journey to becoming a Mom after she lost her Mother at 17. The beauty of Lisa-Jo’s words help me make more sense of my own story, and I think it will do the same for you. Don’t miss this one!

Because I LOVE this book, and it makes me love motherhood more, I’m giving away a copy Friday. Leave me a comment before midnight Friday, April 11th, and we’ll throw your name in the hat. 🙂 Just tell me one reason you’re thankful for your own Mom.

And if you have a minute, please watch the trailer below. It’s worth your time. Tissues, anyone?

** Update: Congrats to Kyra C. for winning the book giveaway! I messaged you… 🙂

Five-Minute Friday: Writer

April 5, 2014 By: Angela Parlin

Today’s Five-Minute Friday comes to you from a roomy bungalow situated on a breezy Costa Rican beach.

I know, I know, everyone hates me now. Last week Paris, and now this? It’s another gift-trip, and we’ve had to pinch ourselves. In between loving every minute of it.

So the writing prompt, this week, is WRITER. And I know that because I had to take a timeout this afternoon. To write.

My 3-year-old napped, and my husband and big kids took an ATV tour (with monkeys and snakes). I stole away from a handful of pools with their frozen drinks, from hangout time with friends and the kids’ nonstop laughter, from catching them sneak extra drinks at the swim-up bar and from the sunshine I’ve been desperate to meet up with again after a long, hard winter. (Northerners, I mean no disrespect. Your winter won, hands down.)

I couldn’t wait for this pocket of time, because there’s this thing I cannot shake. It won’t let me go. I have to write. I am a writer.

I look for time day after day, and don’t always find it. Because I am not only a writer. I schedule time, and it doesn’t always work out the way I plan. Sometimes, I end up writing with wrestlers grunting a few feet away or a preschooler on my lap or a little princess brushing my hair, or in between frosting bread with peanut butter and jelly, because the merry-go-round rarely stops and I can’t always find a quiet space with time attached.

But I still write, because somehow I must make sense of things and this is how I figure out what life is teaching me or where my heart is in a given moment.

My husband shakes his head and says, “Really? You really want to do that when no one is making you?” The way I shake my head about his mornings of leaving this bungalow at 5 am to spend hours in the cold, pruning water where the sharks live paddling around on a board, looking for another ride on a wave. Five AM! Did I mention that?

But yes. For both of us, the answer is yes.

Even though writing’s the thing to do these days and I don’t like doing what everyone else is doing. Even though I hate the idea of platform-building. I wanted to write at age 6, and for 30 years after. So I write.

I still don’t know what I am meant to do as a writer. I want to love God and bring Him glory, through my writing. I want to love people. I want to grow deeper faith and live it in the routine of my daily life. I want to grasp His grace, more and more. I want to help someone, anyone, with anything I can offer. You know, just a few small aspirations. 🙂

But I know, as certain as I know my name, as easy as I wear my other titles. I know because this is what I actually do, because I have always done it to some extent, because when I don’t do it, I can feel it, and it feels exactly wrong.

Because day after day, I write.

I am a Writer.

STOP.

*Find out more about Five-Minute Fridays here.

The Art of Changing Thoughts

March 20, 2014 By: Angela Parlin

First, the blue socks. They were too long, and he hated them.

Then, tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner. He didn’t want that. *Insert fit.*

Next, the green dinosaur shirt with 2 buttons at the top. He liked the shirt before he put it on. It made him roar. He liked the shirt 18 other times he wore it. But not today. The buttons bothered him. Not just bothered, he hated the buttons.

I tried to convince him to thank God instead. (But he hated that idea.)

So I told him to repeat me, It’s going to be okay.

Again and again he grudgingly said it, with an angry face, slowly softening. In a voice so delicious, I would bottle it. Suddenly, all was good, and he bounded off, yelling happily about race cars.

This morning, he needed a little repeat-session again. It’s going to be okay…It’s going to be okay.

The repetition is no magic answer that will cancel all fits beginning tomorrow. But it’s a start. And the more I walk through this with him, I realize, I need it too.

Because I run through days, thinking and feeling, and sometimes I get pretty tangled. I don’t go around telling myself what to think very often. {This is why the lies I owned as a little girl were still kicking and screaming in me up until–oh, last summer.} (Read about that here and here.)

I knew the truth. But I needed to rinse the lies away thoroughly, and repeat truth until it played on auto.

You and I may not turn all huffy-face because of socks that don’t fit right. But there are things, no?

I live in a wonderfully noisy home dominated by not-so-orderly boys. So, there’s a thing or two to get all hot and bothered about. Once in a while. (They’re laughing.)

And then what happens? I suddenly develop great focus and concentration. I think about the bothers, only the really important ones. I try to change them. I pray about them. I write something up on the kitchen dry erase board to remind my people to change!!! I try to inspire change. Or just force it.

But recently, it hit me. Shoot. I need to gulp down a little dose of, It’s going to be okay. Or some other line I don’t overuse. It just might be the secret weapon in my own mental battles.

Think about it differently. Think on something different altogether.

Change–your–thoughts.

Now I would love to hear from you. Do you struggle with tangled thinking? Discontent? Ungratefulness? Lies? When you’re THERE, how do you turn yourself around and change your thoughts?

And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Philippians 4:8, NLT

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Oops, We Did It Again

March 10, 2014 By: Angela Parlin

I was going to ask, Do you ever…? But instead, how often do you completely overdo your weekend? Because oops–we did it again.

This morning, it showed. It was ugly. Not one child wanted to get up, so there was coaxing, soft and sweet at first. I always begin this way. It doesn’t often yield the intended result. So I persist, in between trying to get my own overtired self ready.

Then I flip lights on, hard and fast–the morning kiss of death. I hate bright lights in the morning. Sunlight coming in the windows? Yes, love. But manufactured overhead lights? Oh, please no! Anything but that!!!

Then my voice gets higher and louder. And I issue threats. Do you need to lose {fill in the blank} this afternoon? If you don’t get up and get ready, YOU WILL, buddy. TRY ME.

The threat works. Shew! They forgot how inconsistent I tend to be. They believed I would remember to carry it out. Thanks for the confidence, kids.

With the seriously amazing, above-and-beyond help of my husband (He is the greatest!!!), all we tired people have gotten to school or work or the quiet café this morning. But we’re feeling Monday. The late nights because of sleepovers and long dinners with friends and a handful of basketball games played or cheered for (GO DUKE!), and then rounding it out with the Food Truck Rodeo yesterday afternoon…Wow. That was a weekend!

I sat cozied in my car a few extra minutes this morning, asking God to help me live in the light of His presence today. To help me not to ignore Him as I walk through “my” day. I know that sounds wrong, that I might ignore God, but sometimes I do. I focus on what I need to get done. I just get moving, and I forget Him until I need Him.

That’s my sometimes truth, and I’m sad it’s true, but it still is. What’s beautiful is this: God is not thrown off by my inconsistencies. He is not overshadowed by my weaknesses. He doesn’t go away, even when I do.

Instead, God hears me, from a car polluted by kid shoes, loom bands, water bottles, paper scraps, messy windows, and a hundred pieces of crayola. A car I told my little sweethearts to “clean out before they get out” yesterday, but clearly, not a car I followed up on.

I sat there praying, and He filled me. It’s hard to explain to anyone who doesn’t know what it is to be filled by God. But that’s what happened. I entered His presence, staring at one of the many messes in my life, but when I fixed my eyes on the God of the Universe, my whole tired outlook changed.

Suddenly I noticed the air full of spring. Birds flitting about a sky more blue than winter. It’s Monday, yes, and I love this world we get to live in. I love the Creator Who spoke it into being and gave us all a speaking part. My heart turned grateful again, and my lips spilled it for a while.

Thank you, Father, for Mondays and spring and messes and all the loves this tiredness represents. Thank you, Father, for YOU and this life…and everything.

God bless you, truly, this overtired Monday…

Small {Five-Minute Friday}

February 22, 2014 By: Angela Parlin

He climbs up on his Captain’s bed, stands tall and grabs onto little wooden sailboats floating from the ceiling. “Look, Mom, I getting this big! Now I can get the boats, Mom!”

He knows he’s the little one around here, and three’s as good an age as any to aspire to greatness.

I remember when I couldn’t wait to get bigger. Do you? I wanted to do everything all by my big self and keep up with my big sister and cousins. I dreamed of arriving, and there’s nothing wrong with looking forward.

But today he applauds his growth, and I cheer him on. You grow up thinking growth looks like climbing, increasing, spreading influence. You come up hoping to make something of your one little life.

Yet Jesus came in the quiet, small and helpless. He waited out childhood and grew through awkward years and lived three decades of limitations.

I think of how Infinite made himself finite, to live His Father’s plan. He became a man of flesh to reveal God’s glory and His coming redemption–to reveal it to all of creation.

But people cared more about climbing. People have always cared more to achieve greatness, to accomplish, to make a name for ourselves.

Jesus’ disciples asked Him, Which way to greatness? He rattled our concept of greatness with His answer.

Be like a little child.

Humble yourself.

Serve.

Set aside your own needs, and become a slave to the needs of others.

Forgive every wrong done toward you.

Go last.

Give your life.

Every day, we choose–elevate and climb, or lay ourselves low and serve. We choose to reach for the greatness of the finite, or the greatness of the Infinite.

Still the words of Jesus echo–Be small, my child, be small.