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What’s your Constant?

What’s your Constant?

Hey, Mommas,

 

How are you holding up? Your life may be filled with so many emotions on a daily basis right now. Every day is a question mark. Will the kids be going to school today? Do they have everything they need for school? Do they have everything they need at home? Did they remember a mask? Will the computer ruin their eyes? Give them headaches? Will they be safe if I send them to the store? SO many questions. So many deeper questions.

 

So many we don’t have the answers to. Our lives have become fluid. We have to be flexible to be able to go through the waves of life. And sure, we can all do this for SOME time but after a while we want stability. We want something we can rely on, something constant.  

This was me, two years ago when my second daughter was born 3 months early.
As a NICU mom, I was scared for my child’s life on the daily. I never know when I would get the call that contained horrible news. I’ve seen her stop breathing too many times to count.

 

The life you knew and what we expected was now filled with eating out, driving to and from the hospital, learning new hospital lingo and machines,  scrubbing your hands and then using hand sanitizer, visiting your baby whom you may or may not be able to hold at the time, using hand sanitizer every time you go to touch your child, asking to hold your baby, having to pump every 3 hours, spending as much quality time with your older child, sleep, etc.   Your brain doesn’t have any room to think of anything else, just the information that is important.

Is your brain at that stage? Are you exhausted? Do you need a break?

 

When I read Matthew 6:34- “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” I hear God telling me, “Take a break. Don’t worry about the stress of the future. I have it in control. All you need to do is worry about today.”

Earlier in chapter 6 verse 26, he says, “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?”.  Sometimes we focus on the big picture that we have no control over and it weighs us down. We take the stress, place it on our shoulders and forget to see all of the blessings we have right in front of us: A house, food, clothes, children, family, health, life, fingernails, and socks. The last two may sound silly but if you didn’t have them, you probably would wish you did.When stressed, I read those verses.  It reminds me to take a step back and realize, this is how we are supposed to live. Not knowing or thinking about the worries of tomorrow. Yet, focusing on today and how we can live our life for God.

One day at a time.   

 

Before our NICU experience, I would imagine what kind of Mom I wanted to be. How I wanted to give my children bible lessons on a daily basis and raise them to memorize verses. Yet, as I would keep thinking about those goals, I wouldn’t take steps to reach them. They were always in the future.  The NICU event taught me to stop, slow down, and take action for today. 

 

Now, don’t get me wrong- I definitely think it is wonderful to have goals, but not to let them ONLY be goals. Try to focus on what we can do today to better the world, better our families, better ourselves. Put it into action.  As the sayings go, “It starts at home” and “be the change you want to see”. So hopefully, through all this chaos we can slow down and allow ourselves to be fluid, to take each event as it comes at us. See the unexpected as expected right now (don’t worry, all things do eventually settle down).

 

When we grieve the “normal”/safety net we once knew, we can make the mind shift to slow down and focus on today, to give God the glory.  We can see, that all we need, is God as our constant. He is the only one who can give us peace that surpasses ALL understanding.  

 

He is in control of our unknown.

 

 

I hope you found those verses as a stress reliever and it somehow makes being fluid a little easier because we KNOW our Rock NEVER changes. I pray you can take a moment with God today, refocus and gain some strength to get through another day. See the big picture and allow God to hold on to it for you.

Please share in the comments what steps you have started to take advantage of today.   Then, check out the FREE Daily Schedule PRINTABLE and VERSE card (this is the same one I memorized while in the midst of feeling overwhelmed) to help you refocus on what’s important, below!

Download your free printable

Here are two FREE printables for you to help refocus on today.  Hope you enjoy it and let me know in the comments if it helped!

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Meet Julia!

Julia is a wife to her high-school sweetheart, a mother to two beautiful girls and a follower of Christ.   She loves crafting, teaching and is forever grateful for a God who is in control of all unknowns and thankful we can have a peace that surpasses all understanding.

Fruit of the Spirit

Fruit of the Spirit

Fruit of the Spirit: Galatians 5:22-23: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  Against such things, there is no law.” 

My girls and I love talking about The Fruits. We wrote it on our chalkboard in our hallway.  We also love singing the song too. Whether we are eating a snack, taking a bath, on a walk, or getting ready for the day we can sing and talk about it.  If you are not familiar with the song you can click here: Fruit of the Spirit Song.

As a busy mom, it can be hard to be in the word daily.  When we can incorporate our children into our daily study we both can learn and grow together.

Each day as we sit down to eat breakfast we talk about one of the fruits for the day.   Sometimes we repeat the same one over the next few days to get more practice and a deeper understanding.  Some questions I would ask:  

Love

  • What is love?
  • How can we show love?
  • Who can we show love to today?
  • Who displayed the greatest love for us?
  • Did you know daddy and mommy love you very much (grandparents, etc)?
  • This is what we do to show you we love you…,
  • How will you show your sister you love her?
  • What does God say about love?

Actions may be: with our words, writing a card, drawing a picture, cleaning up after ourselves, or helping someone else clean up, the list goes on.  

Joy

  • What is joy?
  • Who tells us to have joy?
  • How can we show joy?
  • What does God say about joy?  

Peace

  • What is peace?
  • How can we show peace in our home, at school, work?
  • What does God say about peace?

Continue the questions for each one.  As the weeks and months go on, and you see one of these traits demonstrated by your child or anyone in your family, state it aloud!  Let everyone know that 5 years old, Johnny showed love by checking in on his little sister who just fell down and then is helping her up.  Or 1 year old, Mary displayed self-control when she really wanted to dump her crackers on the floor but chose to pick them up out of the box one by one and eat them instead.  Or when the lines are really long at a local drive-through you say, “We ALL had to practice our patience today while waiting for our food, it got hard but we did it!”. It’s good for them to hear actual current events and how they are relevant in their lives.

It’s also good to hear when we, ourselves did not succeed in portraying these characteristics.  We too, as adults are not perfect but we keep trying.  As I have far too many real-life examples, there is one I wanted to share with you.  The other night I was making dinner in the kitchen and my husband had to step outside for a minute.  I thought, “my girls are playing so nicely in the living room- they should be fine”. 

Of course, those are the times, when you let your guard down the children feel the freedom and test their surroundings.  My 2 year old decided to climb and up on my desk to get to the floating shelf.   She got into sharpies, markers, and my lavender essential oil all within a couple of minutes.  She’s tiny and this is a huge feat for her, although not at all surprising.  She’s a very determined little girl.   Can you relate?    

After those few minutes, she tried to get down and fell.  That’s when I ran in and got upset that I wasn’t there to watch her. Side note- I think my frustration of her getting hurt goes deeper than just not being there.  She’s a preemie and we had a rough NICU journey, but that is a story for another day.  I reacted loud and frustrated.  As I picked her up I pushed toys out of my path so I wouldn’t trip, but I definitely lacked finesse.  I needed to calm down.  I needed to apologize to my 4-year-old.  So, after I checked my toddler, I apologized. “Mommy had a hard time displaying peace and self-control when sister got hurt.  Please forgive me. I am going to try to take a deep breath before I respond next time”.

The next day my 4-year-old got frustrated, and you know what she did?  She pushed a toy that lacked finesse.  We talked about her frustrations, we talked about how she reacted and how one can respond differently.  Mainly we talked about my actions and how I shouldn’t have pushed the toys like that the day before.  I apologized again. We decided to be each other’s helpers in calming down when we get frustrated.  

Children are mirrors.  They are a reality check to our own behaviors and what a blessing it is to have that self-check. If we are modeling and striving to have the fruits of the Spirit then they will learn how to also embody the fruits.  Our trees will grow and produce fruit when we are planted by the living water and our roots are in the word. 

Now that we put them into real-life situations for the children, let’s hit the sensory fulfillment.

  • Books 
  • Puppets
  • Storytelling- This could be one you made up yourself or a story from the Bible.
  • Acting out- Create a skit for showing fruit of the Spirit.  Act out a scenario where someone did not show self-control and how they learned to change their behavior.
  • Sensory bins- These can be filled with rice, beans, shredded or tissue paper, beads, water, ice, etc.  That may contain a heart for love, smile for joy, peace sign for peace, picture of someone with their hand up saying “wait”.  Be creative, have fun!
  • Fruit of the Spirit Necklace- free printable below!

Have you had any mirror situations? Do you talk with your children about the fruits of the Spirit? Or do you have a climber story too?  Please leave them in the comment section below. We’d love to hear from you!

Download your free printable

Fruit of the Spirit Necklace

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Meet Julia!

Julia is a wife to her high-school sweetheart, a mother to two beautiful girls and a follower of Christ.   She loves crafting, teaching and is forever grateful for a God who is in control of all unknowns and thankful we can have a peace that surpasses all understanding.