Tag Archives: Christian mom

By Now I Might Have Held My Baby

29 Thursday Aug 2024

Posted by in Home and Family, Living Faith

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Dear sisters, this article is about miscarriage. Some things I share may be a little too much if you are in the early weeks of pregnancy waiting for that first appointment, or if a loss is still fresh in your memory. It’s ok to skip reading this for now if that is what is best for you. For the rest, I hope what I share will be an encouragement and a help—if you have suffered pregnancy loss, may it remind you that you are not alone and that your have a heavenly Father who cares for you; and if you have not, may this help you to understand what many, many women experience during their childbearing years so that you can love them well in your own community. >hugs<

pregnancy loss miscarriage story
Maternity photo when my oldest was on the way.

Today might have been my due date.

The pregnancy was a surprise. We had discussed perhaps trying for another child before my fertility ran out (for reference, I’ll be 40 this fall), but we hadn’t made any decision yet to do so. We were both shocked when the test was positive.

My youngest son was 12. There would have been a 13 year gap. I was excited at the thought of a new baby, but I mourned the gap.

We had sold our minivan over the summer and replaced it with a pick-up truck. Vehicle prices had gone way up, and it looked like we would need to find another van.

We were in the middle of a very busy Christmas season, and with my pregnancy-induced autoimmune disease looming on the horizon, I had to find a doctor—and the right one–FAST.

To say that this news rocked our world would not be an understatement.

To add injury to shock, a few hours after the positive pregnancy test, my oldest fell on his other arm, and we were off to the emergency room that very same day.

Thankfully the fracture was mild this time, but while he was still in a brace, his brother got the flu, and we missed Christmas with my family. We tried to go down for New Year’s, but Nathaniel and my oldest got sick as well. We prayed, were careful, invested in some TamiFlu, and I thankfully managed to stay well.

Even so, my first OB appointment got delayed a week since we still had some lingering flu symptoms in the house.

Before moving on, I want to take a moment here to share how I related to God through this time of expectant waiting…

I knew I was a much older mom at this point, and that the likelihood of pregnancy loss was much higher. But I thanked God for the gift of new life, no matter what would come of it. To be expecting again was a gift. To be carrying a child, to love a child I could not yet see, was a gift. No matter what happened.

In terms of symptoms, I marveled that my initial hint-of-queasiness that started at 6 weeks hadn’t ramped up any by almost 8 weeks. Maybe this pregnancy would be different!

And indeed it was.

At what should have been 7 weeks and about 5 days, the ultrasound, though it showed a sac and everything in the right place, measured only 5 weeks and 5 days. No visual on the baby. No heartbeat.

“Everything looks good. It could just be that we’re working on a different time line than we originally thought.”

But I’d been charting my cycles for 16 years. I had the dates right. I knew something wasn’t right.

We were very pleased with the doctor and her staff, however. They were absolutely wonderful. And we were relieved to have a doctor who would readily prescribe the medication I needed to manage my autoimmune disease with nothing more than a phone call as soon as it started to flare up.

To get a better picture of how I was progressing, they drew blood to check HCG levels. And scheduled me to come back two days later to check it again.

But later that evening I started spotting. I thought perhaps it was related to a potential UTI, for which they’d given me antibiotics. By the next morning, it had gotten worse, and I was in pain.

By the day of my follow-up HCG draw, the pain grew intense. I had labored without pain medication for both of my boys, and would gladly do it again, but seeing the writing on the wall, I took a Tylenol to take the edge off for the ride to doctor’s office, which was awful. I’d never labored in a vehicle before. My autoimmune disease had required us to induce twice, so this was a new experience. That car ride was the worst.

Given my symptoms, we did another ultrasound to check on things. This time there was no sac to be seen. I could hear the heartbeat from another baby in another room, but again none in mine. I went home to wait.

The next day I stayed in bed and by evening had lost the pregnancy—and whatever there was of a tiny, yet unseen by me, baby—in the toilet.

I stayed home from church the next morning. Physically needing rest and knowing that I just couldn’t handle it emotionally yet anyway.

Friends took good care of us, bringing us meals. I can’t say enough how wonderful it was to be so well cared for. Our family and church family are such a blessing.

And we got to return the favor rather quickly, as a friend at a similar place in pregnancy had the same experience one week later. We grieved together and prayed for one another.

With my firstborn son, fifteen years ago. Add a few lines around the eyes, gray hairs, and extra pounds to imagine what might have been.

Once I had rested adequately, taking it slow for about four weeks, I threw myself into whatever work was at hand. Speaking at a local homeschool mini conference, planning a surprise party for my husband’s 40th birthday, reaching out to ladies at church, among other things. If having a baby would provide one set of opportunities, not having a baby would open up another. We weren’t sure if we would try again, so in the mean time, I put my hand to the plow and tried not to look back. If this was the door the Lord had open for me, I would walk through it with as much fervor as I had thrown into supporting my pregnancy.

Sometimes it’s hard to know whether we have fresh diligence in our work or if we’re just looking for a distraction from pain. I think it was a mixture of the two for me. I tried to be present with my grief when it came over me, talking it through with my husband, and pouring it out before the Lord. But I also didn’t want to sit in it. Still, it would come on in waves, the triggers taking me by surprise.

Like shopping for clothes for my boys at the big consignment sale event. I didn’t think anything of it most of the time we were there…until we stepped into the room with all the baby gear…the kinds of things I would have been shopping for that day if there was still a baby growing in my womb.

Another trigger hit with a wave of both grief and gratitude.

When I was going through some important papers a couple months after the miscarriage, I came across my youngest son’s birth certificate. I read the words: “Certificate of live birth,” and immediately burst into tears and gave thanks to God. How precious those words were. Because my son is precious, and I can remember how tumultuous his birth was—how I had been monitored for almost ten weeks by a high risk OB with ultrasounds and non-stress tests, how my amniotic fluid levels got to be too low and risk of stillbirth increased, how his heart rate wasn’t great when we went in to induce, how things got better with an IV but eventually got worse and even risky as labor went on, how close we were to an unmedicated emergency C-section, how the doctor coached me to push non-stop-no-breaks until he was out and breathing. “Oh, baby, baby, baby!” That’s how I greeted him when he took his first breath, filled his lungs, and let out his first, sweet cry.

But I had processed all of that before. This time the words hit me with all of that weight and the added weight of a live birth that now could never be. There’s a sinking feeling as I type those words, but my overwhelming takeaway from that moment with my son’s birth certificate in my hands is this: life is precious. It’s a gift. It’s not guaranteed. The fact that I have two amazing sons who are now in their teen years is all of grace, all a gift of God. And I’m thankful.

Fast forward to today. In the midst of a busy end-of-summer, start-of-school, birthday-celebration season for our family, it’s strange to think of how different our current pace would be if I’d been battling an autoimmune disease and late-pregnancy fatigue and had had a baby a week ago (I didn’t expect to reach my due date).

The grief doesn’t rush over me like a wave anymore. It’s more like a sad but distant peak into an alternate life that might have been but isn’t. Our life and our hearts are full, even having been given a taste of another good thing only to have it taken away. God is good.

That’s not a cliché, it’s truth. A truth to cling to in the midst of trials that feel anything but good.

God would be good however it all turned out. The Author of life is the Author of our stories, and we are living in the story He has chosen to write for us–for our good and growth in Christ and for His glory. In so many ways it isn’t what we would have imagined or chosen ourselves. But it is good. He is good.

And that is where my heart can find its comfort and rest.

I hope yours can, too.

Book Review: Mama Bear Apologetics

09 Tuesday Jul 2024

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This is a longer book review than I usually write on Goodreads, so I thought I’d share it here. When I take the time to give a more thorough review, it’s often because I think the book is valuable and that at least some people probably ought to read it, but it also likely means I have some considerations that I think readers ought to keep in mind in order to sift through it and apply it rightly. Mama Bear Apologetics is one such book. In this case, there are some things to “chew and spit” from the book, even as the book itself teaches moms how to “chew and spit” what they encounter in the world today.

Mama Bear Apologetics: Empowering Your Kids to Challenge Cultural Lies by Hillary Morgan Ferrer (and a handful of other Christian women)

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I give this 4 stars, but that’s rounded up from 3.5.

While I am a mother, I am not the target audience for Mama Bear Apologetics. I’ve been around the block a few times when it comes to apologetics. The authors are writing to moms who aren’t so familiar with it. But I was excited to see this title in Hobby Lobby and wanted to preview it to see how useful it would be for younger moms I know.

Verdict: The content chapters are very good at briefly covering the various isms and issues of our day–I’m thankful that a book like this exists. I’d say it is useful to its purpose but with a few very important caveats, especially concerning the introductory chapters.

Most foundationally, while I understand wanting to stress the importance of apologetics, there were some problems in how the authors laid it out in the first two chapters. They talked about apologetics as “foundational”. They cited the sad statistics of how few professing Christian teens actually read their bibles (among other stats). But then a few pages later they said that reading the bible (along with Sunday school, etc) isn’t enough–we need apologetics. There’s a disconnect here, folks. If only 5% of professing Christian teens today read the bible, and that’s down from 8% in 1991, then the most foundational problem is that teens aren’t actually in the Word. And what’s more, those teens from 1991 (or the decade or two after that) are parents today–so we have biblically illiterate parents as well as teens. If apologetics gets people to dig into their bibles more, great. But the foundational issue is not a lack of apologetics. The foundational issue is a lack of a foundation–in the Scriptures.

To be fair, the author of chapter two does say: “We need to remain in God’s Word and in regular prayer to Him. After all, we can’t defend Scripture if we don’t know it.” But 1) this was one statement in a sea of overemphasis on apologetics, 2) it still makes bible reading subservient to apologetics (“we can’t defend…”) instead of reading it for its most foundational purpose–to know and love God, and 3) it still only refers to the parents and not the training of the children to read the Bible for themselves.

It may feel to some like I am splitting hairs here, but it is incredibly important to put things in their proper order! Jesus is worthy of devotion no matter what goes on in the world around us. And His Word is precious to us because it is how we grow in knowledge of our God and how we can serve Him. Then we can learn to defend against enemy attacks because we prize what we are defending. We only arm ourselves with apologetics because there is something worth defending and holding onto for its own sake. I trust that the authors agree with this, but I sure wish they had taken the time to allude to the real foundation and give a brief outline of core Christian teachings and basic spiritual disciplines before diving into the rest of their content. A little less cutesy talking down to moms would probably have provided the space needed.

Connected to this inordinate emphasis on apologetics is the idea that apologetics is needed–and even apologetics curriculum!–for very, very young children. Everything in me screams, “No!” Children need to be steeped in the Word of God. Their first instruction needs to be the positive teaching of Christian faith and practice in reference to the Bible and their everyday life, not instruction in reference to the wrong ideas in the world. A closing thought from one of the authors at the end said that in reading this book, “you have taken your first step toward teaching yourself and training your children to love God with their minds. Bravo!” The encouragement intended is not lost on me, but a book like this is not the first step, friends. Confess your sins and trust in Jesus for salvation. Read God’s word, memorize it and meditate on it (THIS is how you train or renew your mind). Participate in local church fellowship, baptism, and the Lord’s supper. Teach and share these things with your children and pray for the Lord to work. The ordinary means of grace are the first steps and they are the step after that and the step after that and the step after that–even as you add some apologetic training to your ordinary, faithful Christian lives.

In chapter two, there’s a bullet point tip to “Carve Out Regular Family Time to Study”. This sounds great on the surface, but it’s not a direct call to read the bible together as a family, it’s a call to go through apologetic resources (which is fine if you’re already doing the basics, but it’s sidestepping the obvious if you aren’t). And if you need an example to help you get started, “we can look to…other faith systems that have successfully established certain routines within their families. Islam, Mormonism, and Orthodox Judaism prescribe specific times each day during which they stop to pray, study their religious texts, or disciple their kids.” My friends, we don’t need to look elsewhere for how to train up our children, as interesting and instructive as an outside comparison may be. Our point of reference ought to be Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and Ephesians 6:1-4 and the countless examples of faithful Christians who have been intentional about training up their children in the ways of the Lord for centuries to the present day. Not to mention countless modern books encouraging parents in their role of discipling their children. Why not recommend one of those books in passing? Why not call parents to their duty in reference to scriptural command rather than in reference to fear of the culture?

The above examples are real point-of-reference problems in the book (almost all from the introductory material in chapters one and two). As much as I love the content chapters on the issues of our day, the way in which the entire discussion is framed falls short–readers ought to take this into consideration. Seek out positive examples of Christian training and instruction in the home–from real, live godly people and solid books. Apologetics is only one small but important part of the whole, and unfortunately that isn’t communicated well in Mama Bear Apologetics.

Most of the rest of the book was very good and helpful. The chapters on Discernment and Linguistic theft were great. As were those on Self-Helpism and Naturalism.

But Chapter 7 on Skepticism (agnosticism and atheism) contains encouragement for Christians to embrace a “healthy skepticism”. This is clever, perhaps, but I don’t see the Scriptures promoting any kind of skepticism. Wisdom and discernment and turning away from lies, yes. Taking captive every thought, yes. But not “skepticism.” I think this is a poor word choice when there are Christian virtues and scriptural language that could be forwarded instead. There are great points in this chapter about being willing to wrestle openly with doubt and questions, but please take care not to promote “skepticism” to your children. I couldn’t pray along with those words in the scripted prayer at the end of the chapter.

The chapters on Postmodernism and Moral Relativism are pretty good, but after the chapter on Emotionalism I felt like I needed a break from the book.

Switching between writers mid-chapter (especially in the chapter on Emotionalism), was confusing at times and made for a less than great reading experience. I didn’t care for the overly-caricatured tone throughout the book, either. Everything is in “mama bear” terms, and it gets a little old and cheesy (even for a seasoned mother!). And some of the illustrations just didn’t work logically. I put the book down about half way through due to these frustrations, but I am glad I picked it back up several months later to finish it. I found the latter half (chapters on Pluralism, New Spirituality, Marxism, Feminism, and Progressive Christianity) to contain better writing and argumentation and to be a bit more serious in tone.

While I don’t believe we need to “advocate for a healthier feminism” just like I don’t believe my kids need to be “healthy skeptics,” the general handling of all of these isms was really very good.

Bottom line for young moms: This book can help you get a handle on the big ideas competing for hearts and minds in our world today, and if you have kids in public school where they encounter these ideas early, or if one or more of your kids are 10+, it can equip you to practically start and navigate conversations with your children.

But if you only have little ones, there isn’t anything to do with this information yet other than to learn it yourself. Your young children primarily need you to do the normal (traditional) Christian things: pray with and for your children, read the bible to them, sing hymns and praise songs and scripture set to music, memorize key bible verses, learn to give instruction with loving patience, but also teach them to obey and to repent and to believe and trust in Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection. Love them and their father well, teaching them to be respectful by your example. Be faithful members of a biblically-solid local church. Love God and your neighbor. Live out your faith alongside your children and before them. Teach them ordinary life skills. All of the above, laid down little by little, is the best foundation you can give them. You’ve got time to learn and grow yourself in all of these things, so don’t parent scared. Be faithful in these “little” things, and when it comes time to tackle tough issues or formally teach your kids apologetics, trust the Lord that you’ll all be ready for it–and trust in the Lord that He will be there with you.

Proverbs 3:1-12

View all my reviews

Have you read Mama Bear Apologetics? What did you think? What was most helpful for you?

Fair vs. Right: A Story

30 Tuesday Apr 2024

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Some time ago both my boys were sick. And then one of them had mostly recovered.

One thing you ought to know about my boys is that they do an awful lot around the house, so when they’re sick, I have to pick up the slack, and some things just don’t get done.

Photo by Vika Glitter on Pexels.com (This is not my son, in case anyone was wondering. 😉 )

It’s His Turn!

This time it was the compost bin that hadn’t been taken care of. I told my recently-recovered son that it was time for that thing to be cleaned. It was nasty, let me tell you. It stank. There were gnats and gnat larva. Ew.

My recently-recovered son, at that moment, decided to protest.

“[My brother] was supposed to do it last Monday, before we were sick, and he didn’t. I shouldn’t have to do it. It’s his turn.”

I raised an eyebrow: “[Your brother] is sick. And today is his birthday. The compost bucket needs to be cleaned out, and you can do it.”

He balked and wanted to “explain” the situation further, so I employed the mom look.

He quickly said, “Ok, I’ll do it.”

Mom look: 1

Middle school boy: 0

He did do it. And he did a great job.

Fair vs. Right

Later, as I was relating this story to my husband, I began to put my finger on what my son’s response meant. He was responding in a very natural and understandable way. But it wasn’t right. Why?

In the moment when he objected to my request, he was focused on fairness instead of righteousness. As it turns out, while those two ideals can overlap at times, they are actually quite different.

A quick look at Merriam Webster’s can help us see the difference.

Fair : 1 a : marked by impartiality and honesty : free from self-interest, prejudice, or favoritism…
B(1) : conforming with the established rules : ALLOWED
(2) : consonant with merit or importance : DUE
a fair share

When it comes to the case my son was making, he was in line with that last part of the definition. He didn’t think that taking out the compost on that particular day was his fair share. He knows we try to divvy up the chores in our home reasonably and equitably, not dumping all of the responsibility on any one person, not letting one brother off the hook and forcing the other to play Cinderella.

And while it can be reasonable to appeal to such precedent at times, there is something higher than fairness. Consider the dictionary entry for righteous:

Righteous : acting in accord with divine or moral law : free from guilt or sin
2 a: morally right or justifiable

That definition matches our common English use of the term. In the Bible, however, “righteous” or “righteousness” seems to carry a more active and positive connotation—it’s more than merely not breaking divine or moral laws. When Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, tells his listeners that their righteousness is to surpass the scribes and Pharisees, He elaborates on that point in the verses that follow. He not only gives instruction to keep oneself pure or from transgressing the law (Matt. 5:21-37), but He also calls His followers to go far beyond mere technical obedience to law in order to show radical love to others—even to our enemies (Matt. 5:38-47).

[For a bit more study on how righteousness looks like more than an avoidance ethic, see Psalm 37:21, and Proverbs 10:16-21, 12:10-12, 21:26, & 29:7.]

Self-righteousness is often focused only on the “without guilt” or “racking up points” idea of righteousness—it focuses on keeping score for oneself. And it often doesn’t mind making a fuss when it doesn’t get what it thinks it deserves.

True, biblical righteousness (the practical kind believers are to grow in, not the only-in-Christ theological kind that we receive by faith) thinks of God and others and not one’s own winning streak. It does what is just and good concerning duty to God and others. It implies judging rightly (according to God’s law and/or the needs of a situation) and acting in accordance with that judgment.

Fairness is Good. Righteousness is Better.

If my other son hadn’t still been sick, I might have agreed with my recently-recovered son that it was right for his brother to pick up the slack that he himself had left behind. Even if it was his birthday. That would have been both right and fair.

But when one of our number is out for the count, the right thing to do is serve them, or serve in their place. To go the extra mile. To give the cloak off of our back.

Love covers a multitude of sins. And spills. And forgotten or just-didn’t-get-to-it chores.

This is, of course, not just about middle school boys and their excuses. We can respond to the obvious needs around us with the same attitude, can’t we?

We may complain that it isn’t fair for us to have to do whatever it is that needs to be done right now. Maybe it is unfortunate, even unfair. But that doesn’t change the fact that the thing needs done and that God has given us eyes to see it.

Will we whine like a teenager over fairness when it conveniently serves our interests … or will we simply do what’s right to the glory of God and the good of those around us?

If we’re paying attention, we’ll probably begin to see that this question pops up on the daily.

Do you ever see your own attitudes reflected back at you by your children? Those moments can be comical and convicting! Share your story in the comments below.

30 Day Dress Challenge Recap

25 Monday Mar 2024

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This Christmas I received a Wool& plum Brooklyn wrap dress (thanks Mom and Dad!). I have one other dress from Wool& and I love it, so I was excited to get another.

Getting Into Wool

Our family has added more wool to our wardrobe a little at at time ever since we got into backpacking. Wool is breathable for all seasons and safe to wear in the winter because it keeps moisture off of your skin (as opposed to cotton, which does not: “cotton kills”). Added bonus, especially when wearing a piece of clothing on repeat: wool doesn’t smell! It has antimicrobial properties that prevent it from stinking, making it great for travel and for not-having-to-wash-it-all-the-time.

Now, when I say “wool” I’m referring to merino wool, which is decidedly *not* itchy like other varieties can be.

My Brooklyn wrap dress is a blend of 78% marino wool and 22% nylon. The fabric is on the thin side, but it feels super soft and smooth and drapes very nicely.

The Challenge (and Dress Photos!)

I decided to try the Wool& 30 Day Dress Challenge: wear one of their dresses for 30 days, post the pictures online, and get $30 store credit. (For more info, check out their official rules here.) Sounded like a good deal to me! And a good way to jump right in to wearing my dress and learning to style it in a variety of ways. Here’s a collage of my pictures (or you can find them with descriptions on my Facebook page here).

mom 30 day dress challenge wool& wooland plum
homemaker mom style 30 day dress challenge wool dress plum
30 day dress challenge wool& wooland

Reflections on the 30 Day Dress Challenge:

Since I started this challenge in winter, I learned right away how to manage static cling by applying a small amount of lotion to the underside of my skirt and/or my leggings.

I love that the Brooklyn wrap dress is reversible. I usually wore a HalfTee under it when the V-neck was in the front. Didn’t need to layer when I wore it in reverse. The high neckline worked well with a long necklace.

Running shoes paired with a dress aren’t automatically frumpy–it can work. I don’t have to be afraid of it.

I can do a lot of things in a dress. See exhibit A below.

mom dress 30 day challenge nerf fight
Playing Capture the Flag with Nerf guns at an 11yo’s birthday party!

I still like jeans and for-the-purpose clothing when working out or doing dirty garden work that might snag or poke a hole in my clothing.

Tying the dress up to wear with jeans worked well, especially when I wanted to walk a lot and not have to manage the skirt all the time. And when I wanted that easy, back-pocket access to my phone.

Tying the dress up made wrinkles in it, and I was afraid I’d have to iron it the next day. But after hanging it up overnight it would be pretty well relaxed and ready to wear the next day!

My favorite outfits: paired with a jean jacket, dressed up with black, or layered and accented with cream/pearl.

Biggest single-day win: speaking at a homeschool conference and not having any anxiety over what to wear! I knew exactly what I’d wear ahead of time, so my headspace was clear to focus on my topics and my audience.

I eventually got tired of the challenge–I wanted to wear more colors, especially green or a true purple.

Wool dress over wool tights doesn’t work well for walking unless you wear a slip. The dress rides up. It’s not a problem over bare legs, but it is a problem when wearing leggings or tights or jeans. A longer skirt or heavier fabric might fair better for these situations.

This dress hits me just above the knee. I tend to only wear skirts or dresses that hit at or below the knee, so I thought maybe I’d only ever wear this dress with tights. But discussing it with my husband, he thought it was totally appropriate and told me not to worry about it.

The only exception to not worrying about it, I have found, is on windy days!!! I wear bike-style shorts under dresses anyway, but on windy days, I definitely would grab a handful of my skirt in order to hold it down!!!

Another solution that was a new experiment for me and turned out to be fun: wearing a skirt either over or under my dress. This was a great way to add color, length, weight, and/or warmth!

I thought maybe wearing a dress and posting pictures every day would prompt me to wear makeup more. But it didn’t. I just posted pictures without makeup anyway. 😛

Body image: I don’t care to post pictures of myself often. This was probably the hardest part of the challenge for me. But through the process, I had to look at myself and consider what I saw every day. And be ok with other people seeing what I saw. I’m overweight, and I can’t hide it. I think this was a good opportunity for me to own up to my current reality. And be ok with it. But also feel a bit of a nudge to do something about it (I’m tracking added sugars now with a friend).

Laundry: Wearing the same dress for a month definitely cut back on MY contribution to the laundry pile, though I still had some athletic wear, pajamas, socks, and accessories to wash. I actually only washed my Brooklyn wrap dress ONCE during the entire challenge. I spot-cleaned as needed and put it through the wash to deal with a stain (or a few spots acquired on a single day) that I really wanted to be thoroughly dealt with. The dress never got stinky!!! And washing in the evening and hanging to dry worked perfectly. It was dry and ready for action by morning.

How often will I wear Brooklyn now that the challenge is over? I’m not sure. I definitely want to wear dresses more often than not. I wouldn’t mind being one of those country chicks who dresses like a cowgirl for homesteading chores and then wears cute dresses most of the rest of the time. 😉 But we’ll see. I can definitely imagine keeping Brooklyn in the rotation on a weekly to biweekly basis. Especially with my denim jacket. 🙂

Wool& sent me a survey at the end of my challenge, and here’s what I said was my “biggest takeaway”:

“I discovered my favorite ways of wearing my Brooklyn dress: with jean jacket, or accented/layered with a neutral color: black, cream, or brown. That means I don’t have to think about so many other possible combinations with it. I now know what works and works well.”

Learning my go-to styles with this dress was a big win!

There you have it! Do you wear wool or try to focus on natural fabrics? Have you ever worn the same thing more than just 2 or 3 days in a row? I’d love to hear about it!

Encouraging Resources for Christian Moms

01 Sunday May 2022

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This spring has been full of life: with garden work, schooling, spring cleaning, taxes, and adventures. I just wanted to hop on here today to share some of the wonderful things that I’ve been enjoying (mostly in my earbuds) lately. I’m on a bit of biblical womanhood kick, and whatever the world may bemoan about that subject, I’m incredibly refreshed by reminders of what God has both called me to and given me grace for in this life as a woman made in His image.

The Simplified Organization Podcast by Mystie Winckler (also available as YouTube videos). Mystie interviews Christian moms to get their best tips for parenting and home management to the glory of God. There’s a great variety of topics and tips. The practical and the spiritual don’t have to be kept in separate categories. 🙂 That’s what I love so much about this podcast (and other resources from Mystie)–not just life hacks, but real help toward godly faithfulness in both our homes and our hearts.

Fruitful Homemaker Podcast This is hosted by Emily Drew, a young mom (and fellow Arkansan!) who interviews older women in the faith. I love that she’s seeking to bring the Titus 2 wisdom of truly older women forward for today’s younger women to hear! Some notable guests include Martha Peace, Nancy Wilson, and Abigail Dodds.

Women Encouraged Podcast, Good Theology: As Mothers – with Nana Dolce This particular episode came recommended by a sweet new mom at my church. It’s a great encouragement to think carefully about what we believe and how that affects the relationships in our home–especially our lives lived out before our kids.

Dwell Podcast: Pouring from a Full Pitcher and The Difference between Peace and Self-Care These two episodes were a breath of fresh air from moms who (two out of three of them) have raised all their children and can now share a great deal of perspective on the long, hard seasons of motherhood and homeschooling.

Let Me Be a Woman by Elisabeth Elliot. This is an old classic–one I read in my early twenties and then lent to a friend…never to be seen again. I finally repurchased the book last year, and reading it the last month or so has been such a breath of fresh air in the midst the smoggy mess made by our culture’s current state of confusion.

Speaking of the current state of things, since finishing Let Me Be a Woman, I’ve begun listening to That Hideous Strength by C. S. Lewis. This third book of Lewis’ Space Trilogy confronts totalitarian scientism and many of the themes addressed in The Abolition of Man. It may seem like a strange addition to a list of “encouragement for moms,” but I’ve found it to be great food for thought. Elisabeth Elliot tells about being a woman. Lewis shows it. His character Jane wrestles through it, and Lewis, as the author, lets her be a woman. I’m not done with the book, but I’m finding it quite instructive and freeing, as I tend to have some of the same modern-woman hang-ups as Jane.

What encouragement have you found lately, mama? Not just to get through the long days of noise and messes, but what has been encouraging you to thrive in you role as a wife and mother? What resources help you lift up your eyes (Psalm 121)?