THE AWKWARD MOM

because uncomfortable conversations are the ones worth having

Month: August 2016

Honestly: A push for more truthful parenting

Reading Time: 4 minutes

I was fascinated—no, dismayed—recently by a manners advice columnist in a popular magazine. The columnist ruminated,

The question is: When should kids be inducted into the White Lie society that they will inevitably join?…The white lie, used judiciously and with compassion, can be a form of social grace.

Really? read more

12 Ways to Pray for Your Child’s Teachers (FREE printables!)

Reading Time: 3 minutes

12 ways to pray text

In celebration of the new school year–and since many of you are new to this blog in the last year–I’m reposting these specific prayers for these individuals who powerfully influence our kids, families, and communities day after day.  Download this list free here as a pdf–great for Bible studies, personal use, or this format for church bulletin inserts. I’m hoping it’s a great way to kick off loving on the teachers in our lives and cheering them on throughout the year. Please share if you find this useful!   -Janel

Just Right: Perfectionism vs. the Pursuit of Excellence

Reading Time: 3 minutes

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(Okay, those of you who know me personally: thou shalt not laugh.)

I used to think I was a perfectionist.

Guest post: What satisfies you?

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Moment of truth: When I was a young mom, a baby on my hip and three toddlers/preschoolers welded around my knees, rising early for a quiet time simply did not happen. Part of it was that Mommy-radar kids possess—the one that somehow senses She Has Awakened, and it is now time for the pitter-patter of little feet to commence. Part of it was sheer exhaustion, nursing through the night or pregnant for literally five years; a REM cycle is simply too key to being a happy mommy. So I would fold open my Bible at night, after the last drink of water/trip to the bathroom/I found an owie on my toe routine. And just before my eyelids fell in exhaustion.

But now that I have passed that precious and grueling season of survival, there is something magnetic about curling in the quiet with my God, as the gray light turns softly pink, and before my now-taller children shuffle out for breakfast. It has become my “me” time. It is my time to be embraced, much as I seek to envelop my kids in their bedheads and still-warm PJ’s as they emerge. The Psalmist writes it succinctly: atisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.

And this prayer, whether my quiet time works out as planned or not—this begging of God to satisfy me—has become a vital element of my day.  I’m thinking about this on Barbara Rainey’s Ever Thine Home blog again today. Hop on over and check it out!

31 Anything-but-Vanilla Methods to Bring Fresh Flavor to Times with God

Reading Time: 6 minutes

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Victories of a different color: The Olympic Refugee Team

Reading Time: 3 minutes
It’s a bold team, considering the climate of politics this year. Well. It’s a bold team, considering the brash confrontation of reality required for these athletes to simply step onto the stadium’s spongy track there in Rio. After all, beneath whose flag would they walk? And who would fund their sportswear, their tickets? Something says their uniforms weren’t designed by Ralph Lauren. No, this group is stitched together by something else entirely. Perhaps it’s hope.

Not the way I saw it going in my head: On second-guessing decisions

Reading Time: 4 minutes

I think perhaps a reader phrased it best a few weeks ago:

[My husband] and I have wrestled with our “calling” to adopt years ago. We clearly felt it, and we have second guessed it almost every day since then, wondering what were we thinking? Did God really call us to this or were we just emotionally carried away, or as [this post] put it, is it an act of worship? I think in my naïveté, I assume that if I obey what I think God is clearly placing on my heart, he will “reward” me somehow with happiness and not trouble. My very wise husband points out that this is very bad theology!

Give us this day: On bread and other minor miracles

Reading Time: 3 minutes

The landscapes of my childhood are so different from those I view through my artfully barred windows. Instead of the lush, rolling hills carpeted with banana trees—Lake Victoria a slice of silver peeking from the top—our farmhouse rested in the center of miles of Midwestern fields, flat as a sheet of green construction paper. Though spread with a dull gray in winter, I can still hear the rustling of summer’s emerald cornstalks when I close my eyes.

One similarity I love about life in Uganda and life in central Illinois is the proximity to life cycles. From my mom’s garden with its rhubarb and asparagus and frothy heads of broccoli, to the ten chickens I presently have slaughtered about every six weeks for our family’s sustenance, there is something simple and good—something sobering—about seasons. About not simply grabbing my bag of chicken breasts from the price club freezer, but making a few portions smaller. Because actually, something else will need to die when our little family requires—requests?—more.

And this is what I have been thinking lately: That “give us our daily bread” is perhaps more evident when I am not merely sliding the cellophane off a perfectly shaped loaf from the store, which I picked up and gently tossed on that little shelf in my cart. read more

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