How to Get the Life You Always Wanted

“You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you!” (Isaiah 26:3, NLT)

I sat on the edge of my daughter’s twin bed, stretching long legs across a pink hoot-owl comforter. Dusk seeped through the window blinds, shedding just enough fading daylight for my eyes to scan the familiar scenery.

In a bookcase on the wall, storybook spines lined the bottom shelf below stacks of cardboard puzzle boxes and early reader paperbacks. Stuffed animals, Velcro shoes, and a fraying jump rope lay strewn across the floor. In the corner of the room, a dollhouse held mini furniture lovingly arranged for a plastic family of six. Above it all, hazy blue Dream Light stars glowed on the ceiling.

I listened to the slow, steady breathing of two little girls drifting to sleep. And it occurred to me—this is as good as it gets.

I am blessed.

But. Rewind a few hours, and my mind raced with different thoughts. Grumpy thoughts.

Dirty dishes on the table. Deadlines on my desk. Bills to pay. Groceries to buy.

That leak in the ceiling. Paint chips on the wall. Dust on the baseboards and juice in the carpet.

When can we build a new house? When can I afford a cleaning lady? Will my toddler ever ditch those Pull-Ups? How will I find time to bake cookies for the school picnic? And why are flights to Disney World so crazy expensive?

Is it summer yet?

That’s when I’ll be happy. When I have those things, carve that spare time, tie these loose ends and tidy this clutter. Then I’ll be content. Then I can rest.

Oh, really?

Sitting in my girls’ room in the twilight, I realized—I’ve got it all backwards.

Rest first.

Take a break from running and complaining. Breathe in, breathe out. Pray. Then I’ll open my eyes and discover—I’m already content.

A dear friend once told me she’s living her dream. Four kids crowd her house, the budget is tight, noise and mess are constant, and yet she reminds herself daily that this is what she wanted.

When did I forget? Fifteen years ago, floundering through our early post-college years, my friend and I both longed to be loved and settled. We wanted husbands, a mortgage, and our own laundry machines. We dreamed of ordinary family life, not because it’s glamorous, but because it’s meaningful.

And now I have it.

So what’s the problem?

Worry.

Distractions.

Coveting.

Complaints.

Infections, all of them. They inflame my perspective and steal my joy. But I’ve discovered a cure.

Stillness.

If I really sit quiet for a minute and take a look around, I can see with crystal clarity—I’m already living the life I always wanted. It might be messy, yes. Cluttered, hectic, and imperfect, absolutely.

But it’s beautiful. And it’s mine.

I don’t need to focus ahead to that elusive house upgrade or a Florida vacation. I’m in the center of God’s blessings right here, right now. Who knew they’d smell like peanut butter and leaky Pull-Ups? Sometimes I think we expect God to show up all shiny and clean. But the truth is he’s in the muck with us every day. We just have to focus our hearts to find him.

So will you join me? Let’s shut off our racing brains for a minute and take a look around. I hope you’ll see what I see.

We’re already blessed.


If this post encouraged you, please pass it on. You might also like If You Give a Mom a Minute, On Dreams, Contentment and Spaghetti, and What’s Better Than a Bed Full of Teddy Bears?

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Linking up with: The Better Mom, Playdates With God, The Mom Initiative, Momma Notes, Titus 2sdays, Grace at Home, Wedded Wednesday and Things I Can't Say.

Every Day Is Mother's Day

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Mommy.” My three-year-old looked up at me, smiling wide. “Oh!” her eyes popped, “No, I mean, Happy Muzzah’s Day!” She giggled, and my heart swelled.

“Thank you, sweetheart.” I crouched on my heels, cupped her chin and brushed my thumb across her cheek. Had this been May 12, her remarks would’ve been sweet enough. But Mother’s Day was still a week away, so I chuckled. 

Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day. . . eh, who’s counting? In my daughter’s mind, the sentiment was clear. Both holidays celebrate love.

And I am the first love of her life.

So Monday through Sunday last week—about twenty random times a day—my little one chirped, “Happy Muzzah’s Day!” or sometimes “Happy Valentine’s Day!” And her words puffed up my soul.

Because why shouldn’t every day be Mother’s Day? After all, parenting isn’t an isolated Hallmark event. It’s an everyday adventure.

It’s the laundry baskets overflowing with muddy socks and shirts. It’s the carpet caked with Play-Doh and Dora band-aids taped on knees.

It’s standing in line, tapping our feet, while the pharmacy mixes medicine. It’s chasing naked bottoms into bubbly tubs, and trotting two steps behind training wheels.

Parenting applauds the loudest at T-ball and ballet. It breaks up sibling squabbles. It clips coupons for Visine. It gives more than it takes, and it prays, prays, prays.

So when should a mother’s credit be due?

In the hour a wrinkled baby is born beautiful into this world.

And again the day that baby first sits tall in a kindergarten desk; crosses the stage in a cap and gown; laughs as she stuffs a satin skirt into her wedding limousine.

Someday when that baby holds her own sweet baby swaddled in her arms.

That is Mother’s Day.

It’s not something we do once a year. It’s a lifetime of who we are.

“Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: ‘Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all.’ Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised. Give her the reward she has earned, and let her works bring her praise at the city gate,” (Proverbs 31: 28–31).

So although the calendar says Mother’s Day has come and gone, I know better. Because today, I get to do it all over again.

I get to be a mom.

And so do you.

Happy Muzzah’s Day!


If this post encouraged you, please pass it on. You might also like When You Wish They’d Stay Little Forever, On Dreams, Contentment and Spaghetti, and I Love You Lots and Cows.

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Linking up with: The Better Mom, Playdates With God, The Mom Initiative, Titus 2sdays, Grace at Home, Wedded Wednesday and Things I Can't Say.

When Your Oven Blows Up, Bake Cupcakes

Sometimes the best laid plans blow up in your face—literally.

Last weekend, I co-hosted a wedding shower for my future sister-in-law. My job was to bake the cupcakes. I’m talking from-scratch chocolate lime batter with homemade buttercream icing and sugar cookie toppers frosted to look like lime slices.

In other words, a two-day project.

For weeks leading up to the shower, I scoured Pinterest, browsed cake supply shops, and baked three test batches to tweak the recipes just right. So when Thursday (a.k.a. cookie baking day) finally arrived, I was as pumped as a contestant on Cupcake Wars. Let’s DO this thing!

Sugar cookie dough—mixed, chilled, rolled and cut—check! I popped the cookie sheet in the oven, dusted flour off my apron, and turned toward the sink to scrub mixing bowls.

But then. Zap! Bam! Bam! Zap!

I spun around and saw fireworks flying inside my oven. White and blue electric bombs flashed and sizzled behind the door glass. I sucked in my breath and watched, helpless and horrified, as the heating coil burst into flames.

Noooooo! This cannot be happening.

Three dozen cupcakes due Saturday morning—and my oven just blew up. Do you think God was trying to tell me something?

I wondered. Maybe I shouldn’t bake these cupcakes. What if God is protecting me from poisoning everyone! Even my co-hosts encouraged me to drop the spatula and call a bakery. Don’t stress yourself out, they said. Nobody will know the difference.

Nobody but me. I’d worked so hard and party-planned for so long, darn it, I wanted some spectacular baked goods to show for it. So I drove seven blocks to my husband’s grandfather’s kitchen and baked those crazy cookies anyway. The next day, I hijacked his oven again to bake the cupcakes. That evening, halfway through beating an enormous bowl of frosting, my handheld mixer burned out and spun wafts of electric smoke up my nostrils—but I chose to laugh instead of cry.

Call me stubborn.

Or call me faithful.

“For nothing is impossible with God,” (Luke 1:37).

Are you in a tough spot right now? Do the circumstances surrounding you look impossible to climb? Maybe they’re not a sign from God to quit, but rather an invitation from God to do great things.

Think about it.

Noah built an ark.

Moses walked across the dry sea floor.

Joshua demolished Jericho’s walls with trumpets and shouts.

Mary raised Jesus—God in the flesh—as her firstborn child.

What if they had said, forget it. Can’t do it. Too many obstacles, too much opposition.

What if they had looked only at their circumstances, and not at their God?

I know my cupcakes weren’t miracle material. But they did get me thinking about how easily we can give up and call it God’s will. Why shouldn’t we be inconvenienced, work a little harder, or pour our aching hearts into something that matters? Maybe the most worthwhile pursuits are the ones that require us to walk with God through the {kitchen} fire.

Saturday morning, I arrived at that wedding shower carrying three dozen labors of chocolate cupcake love. And they were limetastic. So the next time your proverbial oven blows up, remember this. God might not be telling you to quit. He’s simply teaching you to persevere.

If this post encouraged you, please pass it on. You might also like It Hurts Because I Love You, How Big Is God, Daddy Can Fix It, and When God Doesn’t Give You What You Ask For.

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Linking up with: The Better Mom, Playdates With God, The Mom Initiative, Titus 2sdays, Grace at Home, Wedded Wednesday and Things I Can't Say.

Why Some Shoulds Are Good for Us

As a mom, I’m full of words of wisdom. But sometimes even I don’t like to hear them.

“It’s time to brush your teeth.” I planted two fists on my hips and faced my six-year-old daughter. She lounged at the kitchen table gluing pink sequins into her Hello Kitty scrapbook. “This is the third time I’ve told you to put away your craft. Brush your teeth now, or we’ll be late for school.”

“Okaaaaaaay.” Sloth-like, she slid her bottom from the chair and sauntered to the bathroom. I scrambled to finish packing lunch, zipped little sister’s fleece, then stood by the door, waiting. My kindergartener reappeared with her jacket on and her backpack slung over her arm.

“Ready to go, Mom!”

My eyes zoomed to her feet. “Where are your shoes?”

“Oops! I forgot!” She padded back down the hall and returned with a pair of sneakers.

“We’re running late now.” I watched the clock tick while she looped rabbit ears at a tortoise pace. “This is really becoming a problem in our house, my love. From now on you’re not allowed to play with your scrapbook or anything else until you’re ready for school—and that means teeth brushed and shoes on.”

“But Mooooom! I want to work on my scrapbook! It’s more fun than getting ready for school!”

A deep sigh rose from my gut, and I replied without thinking. “Sweetheart, sometimes growing up means doing what you’re supposed to do, not what you want to do.”

Whoa. As soon as the words escaped my mouth, I regretted them. Not because they’re false. They’re not. They’re true.

But I’m not sure I want my kids to know yet.

Growing up isn’t always fun.

And it never ends. I’m still growing up. Aren’t you?

For me, relinquishing my “wants” has been the greatest ongoing challenge of motherhood. Call it sacrifice, obedience, or dying to self—the gist is that raising kids requires a lot of “supposed to” duties and fewer “want to” freedoms than I’d known before becoming a mom.

I love my kids. And I love my quiet. The two don’t coexist well.

I love rowdy family game nights. And I love private time with my husband. I get a lot of one and not much of the other.

I love being needed at home. And I love going where I want, when I want, whether it’s to a coffee shop or Home Depot or the bathroom, for goodness sake. But mom duty lassoes free rein.

So some days I trip through life in my stocking feet, whining. “But God, I want to work on my scrapbooks. It’s more fun than packing lunches and carpooling!”

“Then he said to them all: ‘If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me,’” (Luke 9:23).

My selfish heart needs to believe this: Denying myself is a good thing. Because learning to sacrifice and obey—to give up some “wants” in exchange for some “shoulds”—is ultimately the practice of becoming more like Jesus. And, last I checked, that was still a primary goal of the Christian life, yes?

I’ll tell you what the goal should NOT be. It’s not to bide my time until the kids are grown. As if I’m just dropping anchor until my girls are tucked away in college and I can become selfish again. I want to sail into my empty nest years a better person, wiser for the journey. Don’t you?

The right “shoulds” will help us get there. I teach this to my kids. I need to let God teach it to me, too.

“Mom, can I work on my scrapbook when I get home?” My daughter stepped into her car seat while I buckled her sister for the ride to school.

“Yes. That will be your reward for working hard at school today.”

And what’s my reward? For working hard at home today, tending to the job God gave me. I settled into the driver’s seat and caught a glimpse of two little girls in the rearview mirror. My heart swelled at the sight of those beautiful faces. There it is, Momma. There’s your reward.

Funny thing about “shoulds” versus “wants.” When we lean in close enough, they look a lot alike.


If this post encouraged you, please pass it on. You might also like When You Wake Up With a Foot in Your Face, If You Give a Mom a Minute, and When Sick Kids Cramp My Social Life.

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Linking up with: The Better Mom, Playdates With God, The Mom Initiative, Titus 2sdays, Grace at Home, Wedded Wednesday, Women Living Well and Things I Can't Say.

Teaching Kids to Handle Disappointment

If life is a book, then I’d like to rip out some pages. Spring break, for example.

It was supposed to be a fantastically fun-filled week. One of the big highlights was a dearly anticipated visit from my girls’ older cousins. The mere mention of their names spread goofy smiles across my kindergartener’s face.

So after coordinating calendars, planning a craft and baking projects and a super special lunch, all four kids were excited for Tuesday morning to arrive. Only problem was, it arrived a bit too early in our house—2 a.m.—when my three-year-old threw up in her bed.

Ugh! Stomach flu. It blindsides us every time. So I stripped sheets, grabbed our trusty bucket from the cupboard, and told my six-year-old to sleep in my bed for the rest of the night.

“Mom, does this mean my cousins can’t come to play?” Her voice raised an octave, and her bottom lip trembled. I paused in the doorway, frowning.

“Yes, lovey. I’m sorry. They can’t come when your sister is sick. We don’t want them to catch it.”

“But they were going to bring their American Girl dolls!”

“I know, sweetheart. It’s so disappointing.”

She burst into tearful sputters, and my heart lurched. “Hey, now,” I soothed. “God knew this was going to happen. He must have some good reason why your cousins can’t come over like we’d planned.”

She sobbed harder, then wiped her nose on her sleeve and sniffled. “But I really wanted them to come.”

I know. I did, too. How can I help her understand disappointment when I don’t understand it myself?

I can’t.

Because understanding isn’t the goal. Trusting is.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight,” (Proverbs 3:5–6).

I might not be able to wipe away the hurt. But I can equip my daughter to accept it. If day after day I teach her to take little disappointments in stride, by pointing to God and his smarter plan—then maybe someday when the big disappointments come, she’ll know from years of practice how to trust God.

When she doesn’t make the varsity team.

When a boyfriend breaks her heart.

When she loses a job, a baby, her dad and me.

Yes, she will grieve. But I pray from the roots of my soul that she will trust God’s sovereignty—and even thank him for it.

Because life is full of disappointments. But one thing will never let her down.

“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us,” (Romans 5: 1–5, emphasis mine).

Not every disappointment will be redeemed this side of heaven. But I’m happy to report God cut us some slack. It just so happened the cousins were available to make up our date the following Friday. So we scrubbed the house with Lysol and enjoyed those crafts and baking projects after all. And as I stood in the kitchen surrounded by four happy kids, three American Girl dolls, and two dozen open cans of Play-Doh, I thanked God for the chance to teach my daughter one of life’s hard lessons.

Disappointments will come. But they’re never the end of the story.


If this post encouraged you, please pass it on. You might also like When God Doesn’t Give You What You Ask For, It Hurts Because I Love You, and What’s Better Than a Bed Full of Teddy Bears.

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Linking up with: The Better Mom, Playdates With God, The Mom Initiative, Titus 2sdays, Grace at Home, Wedded Wednesday, Women Living Well and Things I Can't Say.

When the Grass Is Greener Elsewhere

Rain pummeled the roof at midnight. Thunder rumbled angry and proud, startling my six-year-old from peaceful slumber. She crawled under the covers beside me.

April showers, I thought, as I drifted back to sleep. How lovely.

But then.

We woke at sunrise to discover the world had frozen overnight. Sometime in the wee hours, a cold front seized our portion of the state and crystallized every tree branch and power line for miles around. Birches and oaks transformed to chandeliers, glistening with teeth-chattering layers of rain. And all our hopes for budding leaves and tulips and hopscotch games—they froze, too.

Dang ice storm.

Welcome to Wisconsin.

The dairy state is my home sweet home. But on days like these, it feels more like a cage—oppressive and merciless. Everywhere on the city streets, glossy spears hurled to the ground, threatening trepid cars at random. I watched from my living room window while ice chunks dislodged from burdened branches and pelted our frozen lawn. Down the block, a neighbor’s chainsaw whirred, severing a cracked and once-mighty willow.

Where oh where is spring? In other parts of the country, I imagine children run barefoot in the yard, chasing butterflies and dusting sidewalk chalk off their knees. Here we can only dream of that kind of liberty while we scrape car windows and salt the driveway for the hundredth time since fall. Somewhere else, people are free. Somewhere else, people aren’t suffering like me.

I think about motherhood that way sometimes.

When I’m frustrated by too much noise and not enough quiet.

When I’m bogged down by endless nose-wiping, laundry sorting, and bare-bottom chasing—and not enough sleeping or writing or grown-up conversation.

When kids bicker and cry, pasta boils over, permission slips go missing, and floors collect dirt and stray socks and Lego shrapnel day after day after ever-loving day.

In those hours when all I want to do is plop my grumpy self in a chair with a bowl of popcorn and a Lark Rise DVD, but the TV is stuck on Bubble Guppies.

That’s when my house starts to feel like a cage. And my eyes wander to the window, where I’m convinced other women on the outside are living free.

As if I’m not supposed to be here, frozen in this perpetual mom thing.

Oh, please. How easily I neglect the obvious.

“Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made,” (John 1:3).

Do you want proof that you’re in the right place? Just look at your kids.

Only God creates people. My children are his design, given to me by him and him alone. Sure, I decided to get pregnant. I decided to pursue family life. Just like I decided to buy a house in the Wisconsin tundra, so suck it up, right?

Not quite. When it comes to parenting, my choices can only go so far. Ultimately, motherhood wasn’t really my decision. God chose for me. He chose to bless my hopes for children. He chose to make me a mom.

And God never makes mistakes.

Parenting is what I am supposed to do. It might not be all I’m supposed to do—the balance is different for everyone. And yes, there might even be greener, blessedly unfrozen grass somewhere else on the planet. But it’s not for me. It’s not for you. If we have children, we have an assignment from God, written specifically for us. Nobody else’s life, nobody else’s kids, and nobody else’s thawed back yard is better.

Wisconsin has its merits. I love our summers. Just like I love the laughter and hugs and ice cream runs of family life. They paint over the gloomy days and remind me that this life—this beautiful, ordinary life—is more than worthwhile. It’s exactly where I’m supposed to be.

God says so. And I believe him. Do you?


If this post encouraged you, please pass it on. You might also like When You Want What They Have, On Dreams, Contentment, and Spaghetti, and When You Don’t Feel Like Doing Your Job.

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Linking up with: The Better Mom, Playdates With God, The Mom Initiative, Titus 2sdays, Grace at Home, Wedded Wednesday, What He's Done Wednesday and Things I Can't Say.

If You Think You're Somebody Special

“Mommy, do you like my picture?” My three-year-old held up a wrinkled sheet of paper displaying two carefully scribbled circles, one purple, one green. Her smile glowed wide. “I made it for you!”

I took the drawing from her hands and studied it with proud momma eyes. “Sweetheart, I love this picture. Did you choose these colors just for me?”

“Yep! I did!” Her curly pigtails bobbed as she nodded.

“You are getting really good at drawing circles.”

“I know I am!” She hopped around the kitchen, and I giggled at her joyful confidence.

“I’m proud of you. Thank you for making me such a lovely picture.” I ran my fingertips over her spongy cheek and kissed her forehead.

“You’re welcome, Mom!” Then she dashed away to assemble Duplo blocks while I gazed a little longer at the drawing. To anyone else, those scribbles were juvenile and ordinary. Scrap for the recycling bin. But I saw a masterpiece.

And it occurred to me.

God looks at us that way, too.

We’re all artists of some variety. Whether we draw or sing or write, dance or sew or cook, teach or code software or scuba dive, for goodness sake, whatever it might be—whatever you love, whatever God designed you to do—when we use the tools God gave us to create an offering, we’re raising beauty from dust. That’s art. That’s worship.

But trouble comes when we start thinking our art is too important.

A couple weekends ago, I sang a solo at church. It was one of the biggest services of the year, so the sanctuary breathed heavy with expectation. Nerves jostled my stomach, and I fretted I might forget words or choke the high notes. God must be glorified, I thought, if only I don’t mess up.

But then, backstage, one of my wise mentor moms intervened. “I’ve been studying Ecclesiastes 3,” she said. “I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere him,” (Ecclesiastes 3:14).

Nothing can be added, and nothing taken. Huh. In other words, my singing—my offering—won’t make or break the kingdom. Nobody’s will. Then my friend pointed out that compared to God’s infinite artistry, even our grandest ideas are essentially nothing more than crayon circles on scrap paper. Sweet, yes, but far less powerful than we imagine.

So what if we mess up? So what if we don’t? Either way, the universe does not hinge on our performance. I let this truth sink in while I stood in the choir room with nearly a thousand people waiting to worship behind the wall, and my nerves melted away. God didn’t need me to nail that solo. In fact, he doesn’t need me at all.

He wants me.

Like I wanted my daughter’s scribbled drawing. Not because it’s brilliant, but because it’s hers.

I love how he loves us. Don’t you?

So go create something—sing a song, write a story, snap some photographs, try a new recipe—and quit doubting yourself. God will see the offering. He’ll grasp it with his hands, tack it on his refrigerator, and smile every time he opens the door. Because in the Father’s proud eyes, we are his masterpiece.

Say it with me now—I know I am.


“The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing,” (Zephaniah 3:17).


If this post encouraged you, please pass it on. You might also like I Love You Lots and Cows, I Should (Not) Do That, and What’s Better Than a Bed Full of Teddy Bears.

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Linking up with: The Better Mom, Playdates With God, The Mom Initiative, Titus 2sdays, Grace at Home, Wedded Wednesday, What He's Done Wednesday and Things I Can't Say.