Tag: tribe

Spirituality

When God is in the Chicken Strips

modernministrymom

A photo exhibit byAria Owens

Don’t be sad, because sad backwards is das, and das not good.

I have to be totally open and say that I haven’t written anything lately because I felt like I didn’t have anything “happy” to say. In the spirit of being transparent, if life is made up of seasons, then I am in Hurricane season. And that’s ok. It means blue skies are around the corner, right!? This isn’t a post to complain! I hope it is a post that will encourage.

I have spent a lot of time in my hometown of Columbus, IN lately due to sickness in my family and recently the death of my precious grandmother. While I am thankful I have the ability as a stay at home mom, to travel on a whim and be with my family, obviously I could do without the reasoning behind the travel. One of the things that I love and get very excited about when I head to the Hoosier state is seeing my lifelong bestie, Nicci. I am blessed with an awesome girl tribe. I never thought I would say that. 1 or 2 good friends, sure! A whole slew? No way. I mostly stuck to guy friends as a teenager because lets be real. Teenage girls are 1 of the top 3 meanest things on the planet next to Russian mob members and the Mexican Cartel. Nicci knows EVERYTHING about me and she can look at my face and read me like a book. Needless to say, she took one look at my face a few weeks ago and decided it was a girls night. She is married to the best guy and he kept the kids while we went to Dairy Queen. I am also in a season of eating my feelings, so I ordered my usual Reece Blizzard with extra, extra Reece cups and a chicken strip backset with gravy. We got back to her house and parked in the driveway so we could eat and talk. In the middle of Nicci pouring out heartfelt love and advice, I lost it. It went a little like this…I completely cut her off and I am TICKED. I only have 3 of the 4 chicken strips I paid for!! I WANT ALL 4! Oh, wait. It’s there. It’s just hidden behind the gravy cup. Silly me. Now here is where it gets really interesting. I start laughing hysterically…which very quickly turns into sobbing. Poor Nicci just rubs my back and lets me cry. Like I said, best friend.

I know that y’all have a similar story. Life gets overwhelming, we keep it together because we are grown ups and life needs to be lived. Our kids need us, our husbands need us, there are bills, and your toddler’s screen time to monitor, but sometimes we just have to take a moment and cry! I deal with anything hard in life with sarcasm, jokes, and a fair dose of the ridiculous. It’s just who I am and whether that is appropriate in everyones eyes or not, I like to believe that God gets it and uses it in our relationship. Looking back on my meltdown later that same night, I realized that the overwhelming feeling I had about those chicken strips was that same way I had been feeling about life in general. It was like God was saying, “Don’t worry! I didn’t forget you…you just lost me behind the gravy!” It was so silly. The chicken strip was obviously bigger than the gravy but I still lost sight of it. Isn’t that just how our real life problems are? We know that God is bigger, badder, stronger than anything or any problem that we can encounter but we still let fear and anxiety control us.

…and yet, after all that life brings me, I know of only one thing that is certain and it is that God is still faithful.

If you are in a similar season, know that God hasn’t forgotten you. One of my favorite attributes of God is that he is faithful. He never, ever, ever, ever fails. Trust Him, lean on Him. It can be so hard to let go when we feel like we need to control every aspect of our lives, but that leap of faith is always rewarding when Jesus is the one catching us. There is peace in his arms. Perfect love that casts out all fear. It is impossible to hang on to anxiety when we are resting in peace that doesn’t even make sense or seem possible in the middle of our raging storms. So take a deep breath, cry over chicken strips if it helps, and give it to Him. He never fails.

Parenting, Spirituality

Chick-fil-a Mom’s Club

modernministrymom

Chick Fil A Moms Club

“I never know what to say when people ask me what my hobbies are…I mean I am a mom. I enjoy trips to the bathroom alone and silence.” -Unknown and Sheena East

Motherhood is like being part of a very special, secretive, confusing, girls only group where everyone is in competition to be President of Crazytown. If you are wondering, I am currently ahead in the polls. The last 2 years I have desperately and almost solely relied on Jesus, mom friends, Facebook groups, and YouTube to get me through motherhood. I declare this with zero shame and I wish I had it on a shirt.

Have any of y’all taken your kids to the chick-fil-a play place? It never fails that the group of mommas over by the play place window strike up conversations sharing stories, experiences, tactics, tips, tricks, you name it. Chick-fil-a isn’t just a place where you can get delicious chicken and holy nectar (chick-fil-a sauce), it’s also a plethora of mom knowledge! This past week I was there watching Bronx, listening to the conversations around me, throwing in my 2 cents every now and then and I felt this “thing”. It was an emotion I really felt like I could reach out and touch. These were my people. My extended tribe of sorts. They were desperate for validation. They wanted to be heard. They just wanted to laugh and chat with another adult. They were so like me. Moms, we NEED other moms. Women who aren’t moms, you need other women. We need them and they need us to say, “I’ve been there, done that, and we are all going to be ok!”

Find your tribe. Love them hard.

My plea to you all  is this: In the craziness of life and motherhood don’t neglect your friendships. My dear darling ladies, trust me. You need them. I have an excellent tribe of friends. I am blessed, lucky, fortunate…insert all the adjectives. These girls are vital to my life. I don’t see all of them or talk to all of them everyday or even every week but their friendships speak life and death over me. Life to my dreams, death to my insecurities, life to my roles as wife and mother, death to my fears.

A sweet friendship refreshes the soul -Proverbs 27:9

These 6 months after my sweet baby Knight have been hard to say the least. Yowza. Emotionally I have really struggled. I have been extremely anxious, overly temperamental, sensitive, tense, high strung, easily offended, anti-social. Y’all pray for Cliff. Seriously. He’s been living with a hormonal lunatic. God gave me grace when he gave me Knight. He is the best baby. I never knew an infant could be so low maintenance. Isn’t it great how He knows us and gives us what we can handle? I really just believe God knew where I would be and said, “I am gonna cut that girl some slack!”. The biggest thing I have learned the last 6 months is that good friendships heal you. These ladies, their struggles, their understanding, their encouragement, their prayers have carried me and I am slowly but surely coming back to myself. Their sweet friendship refreshes my soul.

As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend- Proverbs 27:17

Find iron. Ladies you can be yourself with, laugh until your side hurts with, go to war with, cry with, pray with, dream with. Find a friend who you can just sit and drink a good cup of something hot with and talk about nothing. Pay attention to the ladies in your circle. Send a note to someone who has gone missing. Throw a lifeline to that new mom. Grab lunch with someone you have been too busy to connect with. Find someone who needs you. Go join the Chick-fil-a Mom’s Club. You won’t regret it.