Recent Inspirations

It’s a crazy world out there. Amongst the materialism and the temptations of the flesh, these things have been the more recent fuel that kept alive my passions for God, marriage, motherhood and philanthropy…

This song (Trust in You by Lauren Daigle), especially the chorus.

“Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from him.” Psalm 127:3. A reward. Kind of changes the way I view diaper changes and stepping on Legos.

Pretty much the entire audiobook of Looking for Lovely while I do dishes. Annie F Downs is a new favorite of mine. =]

“To give a successful apology, you must learn to speak the apology language of your spouse.” –The 30 Day Love Language Minute Devotional by Gary Chapman
You guys. For real. I had never even heard of this concept before.  My apology language is “I’m sorry” or, if you messed up real bad, “I’m so sorry.” For years I have felt like people these days just don’t apologize. It turns out pretty much everyone apologizes, just not in a way that I recognized. I never thought “I wish I hadn’t ____” or “I should never have ____” were apologies until I read this passage in a daily devotional. I almost didn’t share this for fear I’d look silly but so far everyone I’ve talked to about it has been surprised to hear that apology doesn’t necessarily look the same to all of us. Just interesting.

This blog post offering a perfect reminder of how motherhood just takes practice 

All of the beautiful, unique, brilliantly inspirational birth stories going into my upcoming book, a collection of birth stories showing the way God speaks to, inspires, encourages, and holds up women during birth. I am so, so excited about this project, y’all.

“Love has won infinitely more converts than theology. The first believers were drawn to Christ’s mercy long before they understood His divinity.” –Interrupted by Jen Hatmaker

Ryan was for whatever reason explaining to our son that lots of kids in the world don’t have all the things he has. He really perfectly explained in a three-year-old’s language that some kids don’t get food even if their bellies are hungry, some kids don’t have clean clothes that fit them, some kids don’t have shoes, some kids don’t have mommies or daddies to hug them and love them.
“I know! Maybe we could hepp them! We could give them food and clothes and hugs!”
I thought for a moment, if only it were that easy. And then I realized it is that easy.
Before I could even say anything Ryan said, “Yes! We can! That’s our job. That’s why God made us.”

There is no person on the planet I’d rather parent these babies with. <3

“It takes a full twenty minutes after your stomach is full for your brain to register satiation. How long does it take your soul to realize that your life is full? The slower the living, the greater the sense of fullness and satisfaction.” –OneThousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp

So I have this belief that God will not let me fail at helping others. That’s our job, you know? These people are strangers to us but they are His babies and I think He would straight up move mountains for me if that was what I needed to do to help His children.
One of the ways we’re doing that right now is Operation Christmas Child. We do a box or two every year but this year we’re committed to a whopping 15 boxes we simply cannot afford. We’ve had all kinds of random things pop up and within a month we’re already almost done with five. That’s already inspiring enough in itself. We have a cardboard box in the other room we’re filling up with OCC items as they come to us. A few prizes from the summer reading program that are a bit too old for our own kids, a few cloth dolls I thought were cute at the dollar store, travel-sized toothpaste tubes on sale for $.25, a free Chick Fil A kids meal book my mother-in-law sent the kids that we already had, things like that. My son was putting stickers on a freshly colored letter and I asked him if I could have one of the sheets for the box. He smiled and gave me three. Three sheets of his beloved stickers when he could have just said no to the one.

May I always be as generous as my (amazing) boy.

My friend Steffani sent me a nice little camping post from a new-to-me blog and I fell in love with their cabin story (though not the actual cabin… I LOVED the raw wood photos but then they painted it white and it made me kind of sad!) Any ways, this quote: “There’s something of a jewel found in a small box, a place where there’s room only for that most treasured and nothing more.” from this post