Mother Love

My parents and sister were here for a weekend visit, and we had the funnest time! We grilled out on Friday night, and spent the night in with games, snacks, and tons of laughter. One of the biggest things I appreciate about family is that you really can just completely, one-hundred-percent be yourself, even in all your nerd-ness and dumb-joke-ness and silly-ness and they just get it. It was the kind of night that was just good for your entire being, you know?

We spent most of Saturday at home as well, and my parents were so kind to help us with some landscaping and mulching. It’s a huge sigh of relief to have it done now, because gardening work is something I have so little experience with and it intimidates me endlessly. I walk into a Lowe’s Garden Center and I am instantly overwhelmed and have no idea what to do. It was so nice to have my mom here to help formulate a vision for what to plant where and help shop and pick out the plants. We added a few shrubs and bushes to the front beds and got everything mulched as well. It’s such a nice finishing touch to our home now and it’s amazing how fresh mulch just makes everything look so fresh and new! We had dinner out in the evening and the obligatory coffee stop before heading home for the rest of the night.

My family headed for home around eleven the next morning, so we had breakfast and sat on the floor all playing and laughing at Ayla for the morning. It’s so funny how entertaining a little one can be, and it’s all like, what did we do before she was around to play with?! The rest of our day was relaxing with naps and taking a walk in the sunshine and going to church in the afternoon. A lovely Sunday!

What about you: do you enjoy gardening work?

I’d love to hear your thoughts!

You know what drives me crazy? It’s when I let my own insecurities and limiting beliefs about myself keep me from something amazing. Goodness, that drives me crazy.

I had a rough Easter weekend. What should have been one of the best weekends of the year spent celebrating Jesus and spending time with the ones I love was instead largely spent in some kind of weird emotional, spiritual funk. Ben was off on Friday, and I love those extra days when we can be together and go do fun outings or work on house projects. But I’ll be honest:: Friday was not a fun day. I don’t know why, really…but I felt like I under this cloud of accusation and judgment and shame. I couldn’t enjoy the breakfast outing we took together as a family and spent the entire meal wrestling against the old familiar thoughts of “you are so fat and ugly and embarrassing, you eat too much, you are worth nothing, you will never be beautiful.” I spent years living these thoughts as my truth, but Jesus has done an extraordinary work in my heart in the past two years and normally when I’m hit with negativity about myself, I can let it bounce off. But not on Friday. I spent the whole day with these lies nipping at my heart, feeling like I could’t get away from them. I spent most of the next day in the same state of mind, barely able to enjoy the time at the park with friends or the taco lunch on a perfect spring day or the time we spent on the biking trails. Shame chased me all day long and ruined what-should-have-been a perfectly delightful weekend.

I believe that shame has become one of the biggest enemies against women today. I know it’s certainly been one of my biggest enemies. Shame as defined by Brene Brown is this:: the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging.

Do you ever feel that way, like you don’t belong, like you’re not worthy of connection with other women, like you’re just not good enough? I so often feel like a shadow of a real woman, especially when I’m around other women. I let shame rob me of rich, meaningful relationships because I don’t walk in the worthiness that has been given to me by Jesus. I let comparison creep in, and before I know it, I’ve worked myself down into a pit of misery and dejection…feeling like I will never measure up, never be enough, never be the beautiful, worthy woman I want to be.

It’s lies, all lies. It’s the shame, coming to steal, kill, and destroy my heart. And I’ve just had enough of it! Enough of it in my life and enough of it in your life. There is no place for shame in our hearts. Jesus died to take away our shame and to give us love and belonging and connection and life abundant. When I feel the lies, accusation, the shame coming back to haunt my heart, I have to run to the One who is Truth itself. I have to. It’s the only way to get out of the funk. It’s the only way to shut down the lies and find Truth and wholeness and freedom from shame.

So go on, woman…get rid of the shame. Don’t let it keep you down any more. You are worthy, beautiful, delightful.

What about you: do you find yourself battling shame in your own heart as well? What are your thoughts on rising above this shame?

I’d love to hear your thoughts!