Tag: daily life

Dear Weary Mom: They Grow Up Far Too Fast 2.0

Posted on by Mary

I wrote this Dear Weary Mom post in January 2014. We had 4 kids ranging from almost 4 to 8 years old. I BLINKED!!!!! It’s been 10 years!!!

10 SUPER FAST YEARS!

In that original post I talked about them overcoming some hard things in 2013. To be honest I have NO IDEA what those hard things were because what I didn’t know when I penned those words was nothing held a candle to what was going to happen in September of 2014.

Hindsight is always 2020. As I look back over that post and I see the realization that “God has taught me to love my little sinners for who they are…not who I want them to become” Was the groundwork that was being laid to help my children through the mess that would consume us some 9 months later.

It’s good for us to document these things. So we can see how God led us or carried us through the sometimes thick muck of life. It’s why God instructed the Israelites to set up stones of remembrance. So they didn’t forget where they had come from…..and what God had brought them through.

Now my kids are 14 through 18. We are entering new phases of life almost everyday now it seems. Today I find myself weary not from hard things at the moment but busyness that 4 active teenagers bring. Sports, worship team practice, friendships, acts of service, jobs and all the things that come from a graduating senior life speeds by. The realizations that I will have a graduating senior every year for the next three years is not lost on me and that makes me feel WEARY.

I’m so incredibly thankful for that lesson 10 years ago to meet them where they are. It’s something I try to hold onto each and everyday.

Even in my weariness of all the busyness and happy chaos. (and sometimes the not so happy chaos) I know that Jesus is the hope that gets me through.

You can check out all my Dear Weary Mom posts here.

This post series is based on a book called Hope for the Weary Mom. This book literally saved me from myself. It’s words of hope and truth from God’s word helped me to be the mom I am today!

Practice Makes…Progress

Posted on by Mary
practice

“Practice makes perfect.” I’m pretty sure we have all been told this at one time or the other.

It’s a lie.

No matter how hard we practice, we can’t ever be perfect at it….because in short, we are human! Humans make mistakes!

Last week I was working with a bunch of 3rd and 4th graders..learning to read music. Yep let’s all have a good chuckle that Mary is helping in a music class and a recorder class at that. The last time I read Music? Let’s just say I was almost 20 years younger than I currently am..and yes I was an adult! We won’t even TALK about the last time I played recorder, and I digress.

I was playing “note Bingo” with about 5 students and one of them was getting frustrated with the fact that they couldn’t remeber the note names on the staff. ILooking at the poor kiddo and I said “practice makes…..?” In their dejected look mumbled “perfect”. I jumped in and said, “No, Practice makes progress.” They promptly looked at me as if I had two heads. I explained we are humans. We can’t ever be perfect only Jesus was perfect. These kiddos looked so confused.

No one’s to blame. However, as an adult who struggles every day with the battle of perfectionism, I have had to learn a new way of thinking.

Progress over Perfection.

I want to live a life of Excellence, doing my absolute best to serve Jesus with all that I am and with all that I have BUT I know that at the end of the day all I am and all that I have is far from perfect.

What I want is t to move forward, make progress. and grow.

I don’t know if what I shared with that frustrated student that day made any difference, but I hope it did.

Perfectionism is hard to overcome, but ti can be done. Choose excellence in your life, not perfectionism, because no matter how hard you strive for perfection, it will be just out of reach…always.

What can be done to cange your mindset of perfectionism to a mindset of progress?

Oe of the ways I have chosen to do this is to place reminders around my home Progress Over Perfection signs simply reminds me my end goal is to move forward…to grow wherever I am planted!

5 Things I’m Not Responsible For AND NEITHER ARE YOU!

Posted on by Mary
responsible

Happy Wednesday Friends! Over the last few months, I have been doing a lot of heart work, as if you couldn’t tell!!! One of the things that I have had to do was a bunch of reality checks. And A lot of those had to do with unrealistic expectations either I had or ones that others had for me. More often than not though it was one that I had embraced over time, you know the ones. The ones you fight at first but you become so worn down over time then all of a sudden you are like whoa what happened?

That’s where I was when I realized that I had taken on a whole bunch of responsibilities that were just plain and simple NOT mine.

So here are the 5 responsibilities that aren’t mine to have

  1. I’m not responsible for people’s life decisions!- I can lead them to the truth. I can teach them but at the end of the day if they don’t follow what I have taught it’s not my responsibility and I’m not going to be held accountable for their decisions. (even if they seem to think I am.)
  2. I’m not responsible for others’ relationships with God- This includes my children, my hubby, the people in my church, and my friends. The old adage of ” you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make them drink” comes to mind. Interestingly enough we have to go no further than Jesus t see this is true. Not only did Jesus teach truth, but he also lived and breathed it. Jesus is TRUTH. But not everyone he taught embraced that truth. JUDAS. Was it Jesus’ responsibility to make sure that Judas obeyed the TRUTH? Nope. That is, drumroll, please…JUDAS’S RESPONSIBILITY!! No Joke! We live in a world where we don’t like to take personal responsibility for our actions. We can come up with a million different ways to make it someone else’s fault. Our circumstances may be rooted in other people’s choices BUT what we do with them- THAT’S our responsibility. How we choose to respond, both in action or with words- our choices related to our circumstancences= our responsibility.
  3. I’m not responsible for someone else’s bad attitude. That piggybacks off #2. Their attitude is their choice. I cannot make someone have a good attitude. I can lead them or encourage them to change it but at the end of the day, THEY have a choice to make not me.
  4. I’m not responsible for when someone gets angry and loses their self-control. I’m not responsible for other people’s sins. Someone’s actions do not warrant a lack of self-control. whether to myself or to someone else. Once upon a time, I was told if I did something, someone would harm themself. That is mental/emotional abuse. It is a manipulation tactic that worked. I lived in fear of that person and what they might do. I was in an ongoing game of mental chess. I lived in a constant cycle of “if I do this then they might do this”. As our pastor says “That’s a game you will never win. If they chose to do something that’s their choice and I am not responsible for it.
  5. I am not responsible to fix other people’s sins. Following Jesus is costly, and if someone wants to do so they much chose that hard path. BUT I can’t do it for them. I can give suggestions but I can’t do it for them.

BONUS

I’m not responsible for carrying on relationships. For decades I have felt the need to carry on relationships. I have friends that I have always been the first ones to always text or call. I also have had relationships in my life that will call to ask how I’m doing ad then cut me off just to talk for an hour about their lives and if I get a chance to talk it’s “oh I gotta let you go.” Talk about a complex inducing what is wrong with me scenario. For a long time, I felt really guilty that I wasn’t a good enough friend because they didn’t check in on me or they would get offended when I didn’t check in. the reality is it is NOT my responsibility to carry the weight of relationships. I need to let go of that guilt that comes from passive-aggressive comments whether in person or on social media.

What happened as I have let go

As I have grown and learned and been counseled over the last few months I have come to realize I am not alone in these struggles. That brought so much freedom. There was a release and a huge sense of peace I didn’t expect to experience. I felt as though I was being crushed by invisible weights. Every responsibility I was trying to carry made me feel like a failure. Of course, I was going to feel like a failure because I was trying to do something that wasn’t for me to do. It was more than a feeling I WAS failing. I was failing at being Suzy because I’m not Suzy. I can never be Suzy. Only Suzy can be Suzy. I can only be Mary. When I stopped trying to be Suzy for Suzy I was set free from failing to be Suzy! (Funny how that works)

I am still growing in my understanding of what I am not responsible for. It’s a journey. I hope that my journey ad what I have learned helps give you freedom from unrealistic expectations, whether it is self-placed or placed on you by someone in your life.

Now it’s your turn: What are you NOT Responsible for?

What are some things you are holding onto that aren’t your responsibilities? Have you let go of them? How did you do it if you did or what should your next steps be?

Thanks so much for joining me on this journey feel free to check out last Wednesday’s post Truth is I’m Not Who You Think I am

Truth Is: I’m Not Who You Think I Am

Posted on by Mary
Truth

Happy Wednesday friends. today’s post was born out of an interaction I had a few weekends ago. At one point in the interaction, the woman told me “You can’t handle the truth about who you are.”

OUCH! I was devastated. The problem is this woman didn’t know me. She made some assumptions based on who I was married to or better yet what he did as a job. AND that I confronted some poor behavior. She had met me for a whopping 30 minutes. Along with some texting interactions.

There is no way she could really know who I was in that short interaction.

The Problem and the reality is MANY people make assumptions about pastors and Pastor’s Wives. More importantly, though we as pastors’ wives need to stop drinking in the pressure and the lies peole put on us.

Truth is:

  1. I’m not a religious leader. I’m a woman married to a pastor. I love Jesus and yes I am a leader. That is part of who God made me. AND over the last number of months when my husband wasn’t a pastor I was still a leader.
  2. I am an imperfect leader. I make mistakes and wrong choices and sometimes (GASP) I sin. But I’m not defined by it. There is the underlying idea that pastors and wives are these superhuman beings who never sin. They are supposed to be these super-spiritual people who are at least supposed to look and behave immaculately in public. WRONG. If that is what we are looking for we will always be disappointed. this is aimed just as much at me as it is to those who think that way of me….because perfectionism is just as much of a struggle for me for myself. I am a recovering people pleaser.
  3. Counseling wasn’t meant to be used as a weapon toward other people. It’s meant to help the person grow not as ammunition.
  4. I want to stand for what is right and make Jesus forefront. I don’t want anything to be all about me.
  5. I can’t give what I don’t have. This is twofold. (1) In the case of this woman, she insisted I was withholding information that I didn’t have. And because she laid the accusation I felt intense guilt. Guilt that wasn’t mine to have. (2). Pastor’s families cannot fill every void in the church or other people’s lives. We have just as many jours in the day as everyone else. Sometimes we have less energy. You can only pour out so much.
  6. I don’t know what to do when I get a verbal tongue lashing. , so I clam up. I won’t argue I won’t fight. That is not helpful. I am rendered senseless from past experiences. It doesn’t mean I’m giving the silent treatment It doesn’t mean that I’m being elusive. It means I need to process what has been said
  7. Jesus is able to heal my heart- no matter what has happened and it turns it into something beautiful for his glory!
  8. Not everyone will like me- BUT God ALWAYS will. He loves me just as I am.

So how did I get to these points?

It really comes down to some spiritual growth over the last year. So I woke up the next morning after crying myself to sleep the night before and I began praying. More tears were shed. I took these accusations to the one who knows my heart better than I. And out of that prayer time came these truths. I had to ask myself some hard questions. I had to really embrace what was true rather than the lies that Satan was using to create doubt, shame, and guilt that weren’t mine. THEN I had to do the hardest thing for me to do….I had to let it go ( I know cue the Frozen Song). And for the first time, I did just that, right then and there. I experienced freedom.

NOTHING she said had any foundation whatsoever!

Moving Forward

So what about the future? This isn’t going to be the last time. People are people. Just like me, they are human. They have bad days, they make mistakes and wrong choices. We are all selfish beings. I need to keep the truth in the forefront. As much as people can make assumptions and judge our intentions those things are between God and me. And so to seek his input more than anyone else is the most important thing.

(Personal note: These are responses are to the specific accusations she made)

Thanks so much for joining me on this journey as this was my last phase of processing this situation.

I hope that these things help you if you ever experience this type of situation.

Check out my last post Broken Places

If you are new here introduce yourself in the comments below and also let me know how you have handled these types of situations in your past. What helped you grow past these hard experiences?

Hello June: Happy Homemaker Monday 6/6/2022

Posted on by Mary
June

Hello Friends and Happy June! Lonf time no see! Its been a whirlwind of a couple of months. We have moved (Kinda). We had to put our furry friend Rosie down. I have severly injured my ankle and a host of other craziness. Over the next few month we will also be blogging our journey of transforming a barn into a house!

So far it’s been quite the adventure! A very good adventure. We are enjoyig the whole process. . It is challenging at times but for the most part we are having fun!

So let’s Jump into the firt June Happy Homemaker Monday

♥♥ The Weather ♥♥

Monday –  80 and sunny
Tuesday – 72 and rain  Wednesday – 74 and rain
Thursday – 71 and mostly sunny
Friday -73 and mostly sunny
Saturday – 71 and ra
Sunday -in 72 and rain

♥♥  As I look outside my window ♥♥

beautiful warm sunny day with kiddos playing hockey in the church parking lot

♥♥  Right now I am ♥♥

sitting in my hubby’s office typing away. It’s been an absolutely nutty past week (more on that on Thursday)

♥♥  Thinking and pondering ♥♥

The purpose of this last week. It has been stretching and exhausting in so many ways. Most of the time in a negative way.

♥♥  How am I feeling ♥♥

Good but exhausted

♥♥  On the breakfast plate ♥♥

egg whites.      

♥♥  On my reading pile ♥♥

  • I have some counseling books to finish
  • Hello Fears
  • the book of Romans

♥♥  On my TV this week  ♥♥

Nothing

♥♥  On the menu  ♥♥ 

Monday – Beef Stroganoff Tuesday- Sloppy Joes and baked Poatoes Wednesday Soup
Thursday – Taco Salad
Friday -Mashed Poato Sudaes
Saturday -Grilled Chicken and Rice
Sunday –  Pasta and Salad

♥♥  Looking around the house  ♥♥

Ahem…Camper…A few dishes to be done. I still need to work on my closet and the kitchen table

♥♥ To-Do List ♥♥–

Packing, though we are running low on boxes

♥♥  From the camera  ♥♥

The New View

♥♥  Devotional  ♥♥

Thanks so much for joining me today! For more Happy Homemaker Monday Posts Check Out Diary of a Stay at Home Mom