SHORTHAND | Quick Thoughts for a Busy World

Archives for September 2015

Choose to Stay

by Leave a Comment

Choose to Stay
In those moments when you want to run away because the demands of life are too much.

Choose to Engage
Beyond being physically and emotionally present recommit to participating in your life and with those around you.

Choose to Move Forward
Don’t give up or give in. If life isn’t what you want it to be right now find ways to nurture those things that matter most in your life. Walk in the direction of your goals and dreams and God will guide you.

Choose to Believe
You are not alone. God is watching over you, helping you, loving you. Just be believing. Just believe.

God Chose YOU
He chose you to live the life you are living. There is a purpose. Your life that you are living has a purpose. You have a purpose.

 

This is what helps me as an overworked mother of six. I have the bold statements printed on my wall. I look at each point and recommit each moment of each day.

The choice to stay can be a hard one to make; the rest is even harder… the first few times around.

The more I recommit to each of these, the more I heal from all the other times I have chosen to leave and disconnect from my life.

I feel alive because I choose to stay, engage, move forward and believe that God believes in me.

 

 

 

The Mother That I Am

by Leave a Comment

It was an hour and a half before church started. We were eating lunch. It was then that I realized that I still wasn’t dressed. Four of my six kids weren’t dressed either. I started to panic.

The panic isn’t new. It is something that suddenly began one Sunday a few months ago and has continued to plague me each week… but just on Sundays.

Every week I come up with a new theory of why it is happening. I have to laugh, or at least chuckle to myself, it seems there is no answer to why it happens, it just happens. But this I know, when the crunch of getting out the door and to church on time appears, the anxiety is sure to flare up. This Sunday was no different, except for this…

“Just be the mother that you are.” It pricked my consciousness for a moment.

Then, as if I was translating the message into my own understanding: Just be the mother that I am.

I am the mother that shrugs at her son’s wrinkled shirt, smiles at the pajamas peeking out from another son’s dress clothes, and laughs at the innocence of a daughter who is prancing around in shoes that are a size or two too big for her, and doesn’t care, while wearing a see-through dress — I made her change the dress. I am the mother who, no matter if she walks in late — again — into the furthest seats in the chapel, still has a positive outlook on the day. I am the mother who knows she has done her best to prepare for today despite all the demands on her throughout the week. I am the mother who loves her life no matter how imperfect it might seem to others. The mother who smiles when others might think she is crazy for smiling when it doesn’t seem to fit.

I am that mother until I start to think I need to be a better mother. Maybe one who would have done better, been more organized, had more time to prep for the Sabbath. Such a discord is sure to cause anxiety, right?

If only I could always remember: I am what I am. I am doing all that I can as I strive to be all that God intends for me to be.

I need to love and accept the mother that I am right now. My Heavenly Father does. His Son Jesus does. I need to too.

I am the mother that I am. I love me when I am being me and not thinking about how to be a better me.

The Cure for Boredom

by Leave a Comment

The cure for boredom is an intelligent thought.

A project to work on.

A thought to chew on.

A personal progress goal.

A fulfillment of purpose.

Plans to create more joy in life.

Gratitude for what you have and where you are.

Boredom isn’t born in idleness, but it in idle thinking.

The thoughts that cure are the thoughts that inspire us to do something to change for the better, uplift others and inspire the world around us.

As My Child Cries

by Leave a Comment

To my two year old the world is filled with injustice, technology overload and his overbearing siblings, which he expresses with constant crying and endless whining.

His cry rings through the house, pierces my heart and drenches the hem of my skirt and my shoulder.

There have been many times when I wished the crying would stop, making me cry myself.

But then today, in the midst of all his whining and tears, as I picked him up I was reminded: He trusts me with his tears.

He trusts me to hold him, to wipe his cheeks gently. He puts all his hope in me to help make the world right again. His littleness clingy to me, looking to me for answers, his perfect trust.

It made me think: when was the last time I trusted someone like that with my tears? Surely God is the only one who knows the deepest parts of my soul. It is Him who I look to calm my fears, keep me grounded, to hold me and wipe the tears of my soul away. It is in Him that I trust to help make my world right again or else fill me with peace to accept that my world is all wrong for the moment and that’s okay.

And He trusts in me to honor the trust this little child has put in me. It is an honor, albeit, one I have to work at accepting in the moment when my nerves are fried.

As my child cries…

As I pour my soul to God…

As He holds us both.

Popular Posts

Archives