THE AWKWARD MOM

because uncomfortable conversations are the ones worth having

Tag: difficulty (page 2 of 3)

Guest post: How to see your spouse with new eyes

September 9, 2016 / / 0 Comments
Reading Time: < 1 minute

Remember the ’99 Julia Roberts flick, Runaway Bride?

Roberts’ character has a bad reputation for landing at the altar and, well, taking off. (Spoiler alert, here–) Turns out she’s been a chameleon of sorts, being “supportive” to the point of wholly adopting her not-so-future mate’s preferences, hobbies, and lifestyle: She likes her eggs the same way. She dons a large (fake) tattoo. She prepares to climb Everest for one of her (not-gonna-happen) honeymoons.

The fiancés are left clueless and bewildered as she turns from each of them, minutes from matrimony. I adored her! And yet, apparently none understood how little they’d actually sought out her soul, or cherished her uniqueness apart from what she contributed to their own interests.

When God answers prayer* (*…then you regret asking)

September 7, 2016 / / 2 Comments
Reading Time: 4 minutes

Has God ever given you what you asked for—and then you wonder if you asked for the right thing in the first place? Have you ever felt punished…by prayer?

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

August 9, 2016 / / 4 Comments
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!

Hope in the slums: Finding God in Namuwongo

July 19, 2016 / / 0 Comments
Reading Time: 4 minutes

Sometimes it’s hard for me to locate the goodness of God in poverty.

A project with a Ugandan friend of mine, completing her counseling internship, had trailed me into the slums after her. In some ways the dry season made it more tolerable than I’d anticipated. The unnaturally-colored, stagnant water clotted with trash would soon rise bearing cholera, typhoid, and worse.

My heart and my senses were constantly scuffed to a raw alertness. The ten women our project was seeking to assist earned about 1500 shillings per day; about 50 cents. We ducked in their darkened huts, my rudimentary Luganda tripping over my tongue like my tennis shoes over the jutting paths outside.

Turn here: Roadsigns for a Grateful Happiness

May 24, 2016 / / 1 Comment
Reading Time: 4 minutes

A friend of mine who eventually lost his wife, and the mother of his four children, to Lou Gehrig’s disease once recalled to me a profound moment with God. While he still cared for her as her body spiraled downward, he had lain on his bed, overcome by loss.

But God seemed to be pointing him toward thanks. Not able to immediately turn to full-on gratitude, my friend simply started small. He thanked God for the ability to breathe; for the bed he wept on; for the air conditioning. From there, his gratitude snowballed, steering him into praise.

My friend’s attitude has revolutionized my approach to my bad days; to my pain.

With African eyes

May 17, 2016 / / 2 Comments
Reading Time: 3 minutes

It was one of those weeks when the phrase from the Morton salt box from my childhood had to occasionally be batted from my mind: When it rains, it pours.

It started on the way to the airport, where my husband would fly to Kenya for two weeks. (Perhaps you’re already seeing the writing on the wall with me.) That was when neither of our ATM cards were working; problematic in a nation nearly entirely functioning on cash. Of course, it wasn’t until paying for my parking that I realized I didn’t even have the eighty cents to make it out of the parking lot. (“Kids! Start looking under all the car mats! In the cupholders!” We were still about forty cents shy.)

Friday quotables #1: For the day when you’re beyond your capacity

March 11, 2016 / / 0 Comments
Reading Time: < 1 minute

friday quotables

“[The disciples in the storm in Mark 5:45-52] are in a situation that seems impossible, exhausting, frustrating, and potentially dangerous. They are far beyond their strength and ability. As you read the passage, you have to ask yourself why Jesus would ever want his disciples in this kind of difficulty. It’s clear that they’re not in this mess because they’ve been disobedient, arrogant or unwise, but because they have obeyed Jesus….

“[Jesus] takes the walk [on water] because He is not after the difficulty. He is after the men in the middle of the difficulty. He is working to change everything they think about themselves and about their lives…he says: ‘it is I’…He is actually taking one of the names of God. He is saying the ‘I AM’ is with them, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the One on whom all the covenant promises rest. It is impossible for them to be alone…. read more

Guest posting: Betrayal

January 12, 2016 / / 0 Comments
Reading Time: < 1 minute

Guest-posting with Bobi Ann Allen today on her excellent post, Betrayal: 18 Ministry Experts Weigh In. (And yes, I am as surprised as you are that I would be termed or included in a group of “ministry experts”!) Good stuff in there.

Calling the “embassy”

December 4, 2015 / / 1 Comment
Reading Time: 4 minutes

What’s better than having the embassy in your cell phone?

Citizenship to a greater city—with an even more powerful “passport” than my remarkable little navy one (uh, and its awkward little photo).

Don’t waste the waiting

November 27, 2015 / / 0 Comments
Reading Time: 4 minutes

It was two years ago that our family received unsettling news that began an extended holding pattern for us, news which wouldn't be resolved for another eleven months. That period of gray, unsettled twilight will stand out in my life as one where I became well-acquainted--more than I would have wished, for sure--with the chisel of God that is waiting.

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