On Motherhood – Page 9

12 Days of Christmas {Giving Edition}

December 5, 2013 By: Angela Parlin

Yesterday I told you a little about how we’re Reconstructing Christmas around here. I hope to inspire your family with an abundance of ideas for giving, family-style.

Before we get started, I have to say–this is not a list we’re trying to complete. It’s so easy to get stuck there, in the trying. If we’re just trying to love God by loving people, I’m afraid we’ve missed something important.

God isn’t looking for a grand performance, even when it comes to giving. He’s looking for hearts fully committed to Him. Whenever I get a little too wrapped up in what I’m doing, I have to go back to this: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul, and with all your strength…and love your neighbor as yourself.

12 Days of Christmas {Giving Edition}:

Start with Shoeboxes. I feel like everyone knows about Operation Christmas Child, but just in case, it’s our favorite way to give at Christmas. We collect items year-round, watch shoebox videos online, make cards for the kids and pray for the ones who’ll receive them. Local organizations collect boxes in November, but it’s not too early to get started for next year.
Care for the Homeless. Pack bags or backpacks with soap, washcloths, toothbrushes, blankets, peanut butter and jelly, crackers, and a Chick-Fil-A gift card. Have the kids make cards, and then give the kits away. Or, head downtown one morning with donuts and coffee (or bottled water) to give out.
Reach Out Together. Serve food at a soup kitchen, help at the rescue mission, or put bags of food together at Stop Hunger Now. If your kids are younger, shop for Angel Tree gifts to love on children of prisoners, or for the rescue mission’s most urgent needs. Be sure to shop and deliver the goods together. If you know a single mom, invite her kids over so she can rest or get some things done. Take her family a meal, or give that hard-working Mama an anonymous gift card.
Ask your kids for ideas. Our kids thought we should ask neighbors (and grandparents) for some chores they could do to serve. They also suggested selling some legos (in bulk on ebay) and using the profits to feed the hungry. I wonder what yours will come up with!
Give Blessing Bags. People in our community serve us all year long, so we’ve made up little bags of candy with THANK YOU and a note to say they are a blessing and we hope they’ll be blessed this Christmas. Ours are simple–a candy cane, some peppermint patties, and chocolates. We’ll give them to librarians, our regular grocery cashiers, the mailman, and many more.
Serve the Servers: We love this idea from our Pastor, and it’s certainly not only for Christmastime. Before you pray over the food, ask your server if there’s anything you can pray for them. And then do it. Tip generously, and leave them a blessing bag.

Take milk and cookies to your local firestation, with a thank you note. If your kids like to draw, let them use their skills to draw firefighters in action and give them to your community helpers.
Be Neighborly. Bake some yummy bread or treats and drop in on your neighbors. Better yet, invite the neighbors on your street over for an open house one evening. Serve drinks and treats but keep it simple. Or start with one neighbor you don’t know well, and invite them over for dinner.
Pay & Pray: Next time you drive through Starbucks, pay for the next car’s order and pray for them.
Love-on-Purpose. Pick a day (or more) to actively look for small ways to love people. At home, play a game the kids love, and do each other’s chores. While out and about–hold doors, return shopping carts for others, and do random acts of Christmas kindness.
Sponsor a Child through Compassion International. If you already sponsor, send a special handmade Christmas card and a small online gift to your child. In-country staff will purchase items, and you’ll hear about it!
Have a “Shop-In” family dinner with the Compassion catalog. Place an order online to support families in crisis, to care for a child waiting for a sponsor, to buy a goat for a family’s livelihood, or provide HIV/Aids testing and treatment.

We find that a lot of great intentions slip past us these days, unless we set a date and time. So make it a plan!

Oh, and this one’s probably just for me, but with all of these fun things to do for others—don’t lose sight of your closest neighbors, the ones you live with, who need your love more than anyone.

Merry Christmas!

Reconstructing Christmas

December 4, 2013 By: Angela Parlin

A Christmas overhaul is long overdue here.

Our problem is, we love buying gifts, wrapping gifts, and taking in the kids’ excitement Christmas morning. And so?

We’ve done this:

Overgifted. Big-time. {That wasn’t even all of it. Unfortunately.}

We’ve taught the kids with words it’s better to give than to receive.

To be fair, we’ve also taught them to give with our actions. But they wake each Christmas to another Get-Fest. Christmas morning becomes all about finding loads of gifts with their own name attached. And eating yummy food.

We read the story of Jesus’ birth together and they act out parts with our Little People Manger set. But they are giddy over the abundance of sparkly, tangible gifts they are ready to receive. Gifts that dazzle and fill their little minds with big plans. Gifts that leave little room for wonder over the greatest gift of all.

And it’s not only the children…we grown-ups are also easily amused by treasures we can hold. In some ways, we forget Jesus is the greatest gift, the answer, the hope.

Well friends, some things are changing up in here this year, and this overgifting issue is just one.

How can we truly live a meaningful Christmas?

My husband and I have talked about this for a few years, so this year, he suggested a new tradition. He loves new traditions.

In addition to reading scriptures and doing some crafts and activities to prepare for advent, we’re going to celebrate with 12 Days of Christmas, which have nothing to do with 9 ladies dancing or a partridge in a pear tree.

Our 12 Days of Christmas will be hands-on ways to give, serve, and love our neighbors, both near and far–as a family.

We want to give because our true love gave.

“The Son of God became a man to enable men to become the sons of God.” –C.S. Lewis

Later this week, I’ll share some ideas we’ve collected for 12 Days of Christmas {Giving}, and I’d love for you come back and join me. Until then, be not dismayed for our children. They’re still going to find a couple of gifts under the tree. 🙂

If you’d like to receive my posts in your email inbox, click on the Follow box to your right. Merry Christmas!

You Will Fly {Five-Minute Friday}

November 22, 2013 By: Angela Parlin

I’m linking up once again with Lisa-Jo Baker for Five-Minute Fridays. Today’s prompt is FLY…

A newly-born Mama, I woke up to a bad dream. This was not a safe place to birth a baby. I’d been tucked away in a bubble, feeling invincible. But now—pieces of my insides existed outside of me, outside of my control.

I remember the stiff hospital bed and holding him, cheek to cheek. I inhaled his perfect scent, and sobbed.

The world is going to hurt you.

So I clutched tight my swaddled bundle and wrote him the first of many Letters from Mom. I wrote for comfort, but not to comfort him. He was already happy and warm and snuggled in close. I was the scared one, trying to hold it together.

But I learned, a day at a time.

I learned to take the rest when it came, to put my feet up. I learned how to do life at home and let people help. I learned we needed the outdoors, on all the days but the frozen ones. And I hovered. I took him out but shielded my fragile human from the elements—and flying insects—and other people’s germs.

I learned to be me but not really me anymore.

I felt so young on the inside. Too young to know everything a Mama knows. So I kept my own Mom close those first weeks, until I knew I could do it. Actually, until she had to head back home.

My Mom kept telling me I had this. I could do it. She taught impromptu courses–How to Bathe a Wet, Angry Baby and Burping For Real Results. {I cried through the first and failed the latter.} I cried a lot those days and had no idea why. I was both gloriously happy and shockingly terrified. Mom said it was all normal. Hormonal-normal.

You’ll feel normal again once the abundance of hormones leave your body, she said. Actually, I hate to tell you this, but you’ll never feel normal again, at least not the old normal. She said it with a laugh, like one who’d been around this block a few times or four.

But you’ll do great.

You’ll fly.

Grace in Stillness

November 19, 2013 By: Angela Parlin

I waved goodbye to the stillness of the lake and headed toward the beautiful chaos I call home.

It was a quick weekend retreat with a few admirable women. We met at a friend’s cozy cabin, surrounded by trees and overlooking the water. It was an opportunity, a gift to spend a number of hours alone with the Lord, praying through different scriptures. But the best part of that was the listening.

I didn’t touch my laptop, my day planner, the TV. I didn’t answer questions by the handful or serve my littles a meal or pick up all their things. I didn’t run from event to event or keep anyone on schedule. Time at the lake was a different, wonderful rhythm.

Jesus often left the chaos of the crowds and went off alone to pray. He also left that solitude to meet people’s needs. We can imitate Him by spending time at home each day away from our crowd, in His presence. But so often I find that time rushed. Which is a by-product of a life spent rushing.

“When I am constantly running there is no time for being. When there is no time for being there is no time for listening.” –Madeleine L’Engle, Walking on Water

We are clock-watchers, schedule-keepers, and list-makers. We are phone-scanners, instant-messengers, and facebook-checkers. Our lives are a series of events. We breathe shallow. This is our usual rhythm, and that of our neighbors.

Most of us know we need margin. We know it won’t appear out of nowhere. But we still fight the urge to say yes to every invitation.

I don’t know about you, but it catches up to me. Sometimes I know I’m worn out, but I just keep swimming.

What would happen if we did less? Would we miss too much? Would our kids? Or would we all gain something more?

Psalm 46 ends with this amazing grace–Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations; I will be exalted in the earth.

Another version says, Cease striving.

It’s okay to stop striving, to stop keeping up with everyone else. Because He is God and He will be exalted.

In all my running, when it’s busyness gone wild, what exactly am I striving for?

And when striving, who exactly do I trust in?

In Hebrew, the word translated “be still” could also say Let Go.

Letting go is the heart of stillness, and herein lies our struggle to be still and listen.

May we let go, and acknowledge that He is God.

Take the Years Back

October 29, 2013 By: Angela Parlin

He turned 10, and I decided the family photos needed new homes. So I slipped pieces of our story out of sleeves and reseated them in stronger albums. Which reminded me, we’ve done some things well.

We’ve seized days and lived them to happy exhaustion. We’ve thrown parties and enjoyed friends and taken trips and played hard.

Sometimes I forget this on the in-between days. I read a blog and see some fabulous thing others are doing and think, Oh no! We haven’t done that! (Our kids will be ruined…) Of course, we have done our things, and so it’s good to remember.

But after we celebrated this double-digit birthday, I mourned a little, because we’ve come this far.

Of the time we *expect* to get to keep this big boy at home–with us–we’ve lived over half already. I thought it was hard to say goodbye to the little bed and little pants and little blankies he carried around. So imagining him over halfway launched was horrible.

It hit me in the pit of my stomach.

A whole decade has passed since I became a Mom. It’s been amazing and heartwrenching and glorious, but oh…

I wish I had done some things differently.

Do you ever think about that? What would you do differently, if you could have a do-over?

I’ve been too consumed with the details, stressed far too much over the house, and believed all the things are up to me.

I would let go of all that. I would put fewer to-do’s on my lists.

I would relax more, with the kids. I would have MORE fun and be more loving.

Far more often, I would be patient. I would hurry them less. I would smile more–especially in the morning.

I would spend more time outside with them. We would take more walks. Share more laughs. Have more spontaneous conversations where I would listen more.

It sounds ideal, right? The problem is, I don’t feel capable of it all. It would require more of me, and some days, I don’t care to be ideal…I just want to make it to bedtime.

Those days are simply part of being a Mom, or being human. I am beginning to accept them.

Instead of feeling discouraged when the days of our lives fall short of ideal, maybe we resolve to get back up {when possible} and seize every great opportunity we can–every chance we get. Not only the picture-worthy opportunities, but those that happen around the table, in the hallway, or playing in the yard.