New life . . .

This time of year has always made me sentimental and it's not just because the sights, the sounds, and the smells of the season tend to bring a sense of nostalgia with them.  Somehow these first two weeks of December mark some of the most significant beginnings of my life.

Recently I was reminded that it was on Sunday, December 11, 1995 that I made my public profession of faith by being baptized as a 19 year old college sophomore at my first church home.

It was the beginning of December, 2002 that my husband and I started dating.  14 years later I still smile when I think of the significant dates this month that mark the beginning of our story. I see our early days played out as I decorate our tree.

Just last week I was volunteering at the Compassion Experience, which was being held across the street from my last apartment. I knew my husband was interested in me when he left his parents' home early on Thanksgiving weekend to help me move in to that apartment. Less than 2 weeks later he picked me up for our first date at that apartment.  One year later he helped me move out of that apartment, but by then I was wearing a ring on my left hand and he was helping me move in with my parents for the last 3 months before our wedding.

It was the first week of December, 2005 that 2 lines on a home pregnancy test told my husband and I that we were going to be parents.  9 months later our firstborn arrived in dramatic fashion.

Today, on Saturday, December 10, 2016 our son, the one whose arrival we found out about 11 years ago this month, and whose delivery still has us praising God for the way things turned out that day, will make his own public profession of faith and be baptized.  He will be baptized by my husband and I, on the same stage we got married on nearly 13 years ago.  As my husband and I baptize our son  tonight, friends and family will celebrate, including my husband's former youth pastor, who baptized my husband 35+ years ago, who was one of the pastors who performed our wedding, and who is now the Senior Pastor at our church.

As we prepare our hearts and minds for Christmas, and the celebration of Jesus' birth, I'm incredibly thankful for all the new beginnings December brings in my life.

Good Bye 30's . . . Hello 40's!

10 years ago today I woke up to my last day in my 20's.
Today I woke up to my last day in my 30's.

10 years ago I was 6 months pregnant with my firstborn.
Today I have a 9 year old and a 7 year old.

10 years ago this week I traded my Mustang in for my "Mom Car".
Today that car has about 108K miles on it and I'm still driving it.

10 years ago I thought I knew (most of) what I needed to know to be a good parent.
Today I feel like I know less about parenting every day.

10 years ago travel plans were dictated only by vacation time.
Today all travel revolves around the school calendar (and a dog!).


I can't pretend to know what the next 10 years are going to hold but I know how fast these 10 years went and I can imagine:


10 years from now my firstborn will have finished his freshman year of college.

10 years from now my baby will be finishing up her Jr. year of high school and we'll likely spend at least part of the summer visiting colleges.

10 years from now my husband and I will be preparing for an empty nest.


Most of my 30's are a blur because they were spent raising young kids and I wouldn't trade that blur for sanity (most days).  I'll be turning 50 before I know it so my goal for my 40's is to slow down and enjoy the ride.

Raising Grateful Kids: A Review

It's been a long time since Dr. Hoffman required book reviews during college and 20 years later I don't remember the proper format since I don't know if I've written one since earning my degree, but as with everything else in the digital age the rules have certainly changed, so I'm just going to hope Dr. Hoffman isn't reading this.

When I found out Kristen Welch was coming out with a new book, on gratitude & entitlement I couldn't wait to read it.  I have long been a fan of Kristen's blog We Are THAT Family, her work founding both The Mercy House and Fair Trade Friday, as well as her book Rhinestone Jesus, so I knew I would love this.  In fact, many of my own views on how to encourage gratitude in our home have come from reading Kristen's blog over the years.  More than a year ago Kristen wrote about what their family eats on Mondays and we adopted the same tradition, for the same reason.

I applied to be on the launch team, and was accepted, thinking, "This book is going to be easy for me to read."  I didn't expect the level of conviction I would feel.  (God has REALLY been chipping away at my pride lately).  Kristen's words come from a mom who is in the trenches with a daughter who is in high school, a son who is in middle school, and a daughter who is in elementary school.  Kristen readily admits that she didn't write the book because she has all the answers she wrote it because she doesn't.

The first few chapters were hard to read, and I didn't like them, despite my familiarity with Kristen's work, and knowing where she was coming from.   The reasons I didn't like the first few chapters had nothing to do with Kristen's words and everything to do with my own conviction.  I didn't want to think that, while I was trying to raise grateful kids, the reality is that I have become pretty entitled myself.   In the days that followed reading the opening of the book I started seeing things in my own life that I expected or deserved. As Kristen wrote, "We often buy things not so much because we need them, but because we feel like we deserve them.  We work hard; we owe it to ourselves."  OUCH.

As I continued to read the book, pray, and examine my own heart I was cheering for Kristen as I wrote this. THIS is what I want our family to look like.  I want our family to be counter-cultural, even though I know it's going to be hard.   I want a home that is Christ-centered and focused on the needs of others, rather than our own wants and desires.

More than one friend has commented "This is the book I wish I'd had when my kids were younger."  I can identify with Kristen, and her perspective, because we are in similar places in life.  While her youngest is roughly the same as as my firstborn, she is parenting in the same world of technology and social media that I am.

It is with the greatest confidence that I can say EVERY family in 2016 could benefit from this book, because we can all use a bit more gratitude and a lot less entitlement.

Raising Grateful Kids in an Entitled World is available today!!!

What's Good for the Goose . . .

I know I can't be the only one fighting the "I wants" in my home.  If I were, Kristen Welch of We Are THAT Family wouldn't have needed to write Raising Grateful Kids In An Entitled World . . . a book that has already sold so many copies during the pre-order that they've sold out of the Global Family Kit that was first offered in the pre-sale.

If I'm being honest, my kids aren't the only ones struggling with the wants.  We're doing our best to live simply.  We've prioritized our Compassion children in our budget.   I have helped build homes Amor Ministries.  I have virtually visited the slums of  Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic.  God is seemingly giving me a dose of perspective on a regular basis. While trying to show our kids what it would be like to have to haul water I got a lesson in perspective about a vacation to Disney I'd been holding on to like a god.

Even with all of that I look around my home and I want new cabinets, I want a bathtub I can actually soak in, I want new furniture that wasn't previously owned . . . I want. I want. I want.

Honestly, because we eat nothing but rice and beans once a week, we take our kids to events like the Compassion Experience, because we pray nightly for others, many of whom we've never met, I signed up for the launch team of Raising Grateful Kids in An Entitled World thinking we had a pretty good handle on discouraging entitlement.

What I didn't expect was to be challenged as much as I was.  I looked in the mirror and saw way too much entitlement in me.  While I was expecting my kids to be thankful with what they had, and not ask for more, I wasn't doing the same.   I was comparing myself to others in my upper middle class neighborhood and looking at what I didn't have.   As Kristen so eloquently writes in the book, "If we are going to compare ourselves to those who have more, we must also compare ourselves to those who have less."

 I've been busy telling my kids to focus on those who have less, while I have been too guilty of comparing myself to those who have more.

.  

.

Now that I'm aware of the problem, what am I doing about it?
**We'll continue with what we're doing (rice & beans on Mondays, keeping our kids involved in the lives of our Compassion kids, having the kids help us select toys for our church's Adopt A Family, etc)
**We're going to use the Global Family Kit when it arrives with my pre-ordered copy of Raising Grateful Kids
**We're going to use the Compassion curriculum  Step Into My Shoes that we ordered in November, but haven't touched during the busyness of the past few weeks.
**I am going to continue to read and re-read Raising Grateful Kids
**I am going to continue to pray God shows me my own entitlement and help me root it out

How are you fighting entitlement in your family?


Want more ideas of how others are battling entitlement and pointing their families to gratitude? My fellow bloggers from the Raising Grateful Kids In An Entitled World launch team are participating in a blog hop today!Inspiring an Attitude of Gratitude - by Alison

Raising Grateful Kids - by amanda

Why You Can't Buy Gratitude At The Dollar Store - by Andrea

Missing - Gratefulness in our home - by AngeChoosing Gratitude - by Angela

Gratefullness - by chaley

5 Steps to Gratitude-Fille Family - by Christa

Practicing Grateful Parenting - by Dana

Sing a Song - by Hannah

Cultivating gratitude in our family - by Jamie

Gratefulness In Our Home - by Jana

Gratefulness In Our Home - by Jana

Let It Begin With Me - by Jen

Choosing Gratefulness - by Jennifer

Raising Grateful Kids in an Entitled World - The Book - by jeri

Eradicating Entitlement - What are you rooted in? - by Jessica

Gratefulness in our home - by Kate

The Problem With Entitlement is that it begins with us - by Katelyn

7 Unusual Ways I Know How to Be Grateful - by Kathryn

Raising Grateful Kids - by Keri

How My Children Remind Me to Pray with Gratitude - by Kishona Grateful - by Kristy

Entitlement: The Ugly Truth of a Beautiful Lie - by Leigha

The Most Important Thing You Can Do To Raise Grateful Kids - by Lindsey

Dear Son: How Do I Teach You To Be Grateful Without Guilt? - by Marie Osborne

Gratitude, A Practical Definition - by Mia

Cultivating Gratitude in Our Home - by Nancy

Learning Gratitude through Chronic Illness - by Rachel

Being Grateful - by Rebecca

I've Found Something I Can't Live Without - by Sarah

The Power of Naming our Gifts - by Sarah

Outfitted - by Sarah Jo

Growing Gratitude in our Family - by Sondra

Teaching Gratefulness - by Stephanie

How Grateful Looks From Here - by Alison

Fighting Entitlement in Children and All of us - by Leah

Entitlement Problem - by Karrie

Grateful Today - by Krystal

What's The Word?

I've never been one who has had a "Word of the Year."  There's no reason I haven't, other than it just hasn't been my thing.

I'm in a private Facebook group of amazing Christian women who have become precious to me.  As 2015 drew to a close several ladies were talking about their word for 2016 and had said God gave their word to them.   I said I had never prayed and asked for a word, nor had a given it much thought, but after 2015, which was the hardest year of my life, to date I chose the word "healing" for myself.  Basically every aspect of my life needs God to touch it and heal it.  While 2015 seems to be marked by struggle, I want 2016 to be marked with healing.

A few days later I truly believe God gave me a different word: Simple

In the past 6-9 months I've spent a lot of time pondering the Ghandi quote, "Live simply, so that other may simply live."  The more I spend on myself, and my own wants, the less I have to spend on others.  Conversely, the less I spend on my wants, the more I have to meet the needs of others.

This summer I talked about how I am am uncomfortably comfortable and I have continued to wrestle with the things I wrote there.  This is a journey, and I don't know if I will have ever arrived in this life.

I don't know when I started, but I recently began using the hashtag #SpendLessGiveMore in my social media posts as it seemed like the best way to condense the Ghandi quote into less than 140 characters.

It's not just about money, though.  As I explained to a friend when we were talking about our words of the year:

My simplicity is about so much more than money.

I want to simplify ALL areas of my life so I can savor and enjoy the best parts of it.  I'm cutting out all the extras.  I'm cutting out the stuff "people" tell me our family needs.  I'm not doing what Pinterest or other social media formats tell me I *should* be doing--I'm living simply and intentionally.

I want to have energy at the end of the day and at at the end of the week to invest in those I love and the things I'm passionate about.  I don't want to give the best of me to something that's not eternal.

So, 2016 will be the year I ask myself, "Is this eternal?" before I spend my time, energy or resources on something.

After losing our friend I'm even more focused on how short life is. I want to invest the best of me now.  My oldest is 9.  He has lived almost half of his life under our roof already . . . we only have about 9 more years with him at home.  These past 9 years have gone in a blur.   I want to live each of these next 9 years pouring into him--the same with my 7 year old.  It's only 11 years until she launches into the "real world".  I'm simplifying our lives to maximize time together.

Hard Things Are Hard

It's been a hard few months, which is why I've been absent.

My last published post in August described a rough week.  Within days of that post my neighbor and our friend's brother passed away.  One left this life on Wednesday and the other on Thursday.

Since then life has been even harder. I've written this blog several times in my head.  Even 2.5 months later I'm having a hard time.

On October 19 one of our best friends died suddenly.  His name is Hal Shrader.  My husband and Hal grew up in the same church together and knew each other for over 40 years.  Their youth pastor when they were growing up is now the Senior Pastor at my church and his tribute is still one of my favorites.

My husband and Hal grew up together, but it wasn't until they were in their 20's and out of college they became close.  My husband's first "real job" out of college moved him to the same town in CA where Hal had just moved with his new wife, Chrisie, which happened to be her home town.  During those years in CA the two of them spent a lot of time together and my husband was "adopted" into the extended family.  Chrisie's parents brought my husband into their fold and were his "CA parents".   My husband eventually came back to AZ, but the two kept in touch.  Among other things, when we got married Hal & Cal Jernigan (our church's Senior Pastor) performed our wedding.  Hal's daughters were our flower girls.  Our kids call the Shraders Uncle Hal & Aunt Chrisie.  Hal's grandmother inspired my Just A Mom post several years ago that caused me to think of motherhood as my ministry.

On October 8 my son had his tonsils removed.  On October 10 Hal & Chrisie came over to see the patient and to bring him a "get well" toy.  Hal and my 9 year old built a Darth Vader Lego set while my husband and I visited with Chrisie.   That was the last time we saw Hal. My husband was texting him at about 11am Monday, October 19 and by dinner that night he was gone.

Hal's funeral was Friday, October 30.   The next Wednesday I was home with my daughter while my husband and son were at Cub Scouts.  I was reading a tribute to Hal when my phone rang and I saw it was my dad.  I don't know the last time my dad called me (he usually texts) and my immediate thought was, "God, no.  I can't take another one of these phone calls."   My dad was calling me, on behalf of my mom, to say that my maternal grandma had died suddenly.  She wasn't feeling well that morning, took a nap and never woke up.

Needless to say it's been a hard season.   Until 2015 I'd been relatively unaffected by death and hadn't lost anyone close to me.  The relatives who had died previously were ones that either died when I was young (as is the case with my paternal grandfather who died 3 weeks before I turned 5) or were people like my Great Grandparents who lived far away and who I didn't know well.  

All of my grandparents live(d) in Southern California and in June we took a "Grandparents Tour" where we visited my 3 living grandparents over a 4 day period.  I'm glad we did since I am now down to 2 grandparents.

My husband and I had talked about how, since I'd reached 39 with a limited exposure to death, that when my grandparents started dying I would probably have a lot to deal with in a relatively short period of time (My Tutu, who recently passed was 86.  My maternal grandfather is 87 & my maternal grandmother is 85) and that it would hit me hard.  Because of Hal & my Tutu dying less than 3 weeks apart my introduction to the grieving process has been intense to say the least.  Both deaths were sudden (well, as sudden as you can expect from a woman who has lived 86 years).