The Mother-hood!

The one job that never ends. I remember finding out I was pregnant for the first time. I was 20 years old and absolutely not ready to be a mother. My husband also wasn’t ready and was so scared he shut down and didn’t talk for three days. We eventually got over the initial shock and started the journey of pregnancy. We fought through the hormones and the doctors visits. We laughed and cried as outwardly I could not longer hide the fact that I was having a baby. Then we felt him move for the first time. It was the most incredible thing I ever experienced. It finally began to feel real to me. He was born and it wasn’t an easy delivery and I fought through 40 hours of intense labor and a few hiccups during the process made us unsure of what was happening. Again, the fear of the unknown.

The first day coming through the door of our home with a new little baby boy. What do I do with this crying, wiggly little bundle. The fear again, that would come and go in between bouts of extreme exhaustion from lack of sleep. Each time I felt my anxiety grow all it took was looking in those beautiful little eyes and knowing he needed me and the worry would dissipate. Fast forward about 18 months later as we were looking down at a store bought pregnancy test. This time, I was the one who was scared. Could I raise two at the same time, and would the delivery be as painful. As I looked at my husband there was a calm that wasn’t there with our first one. This comforted me.

The boys grew….dirt happened, scuffed knees, messy rooms, sibling rivalries, friends, and church all that comes with the Life of Raising boys. The third little bundle arrived and I was a pro by then. Or so I thought. Teenagers happened, school hurts, uncertainty, SPORTS and SPORTs and more sports. Did I say Laundry…Lots and Lots of Laundry. Then the fulltime job of keeping them full. They Ate soooooooo much. How could three boys eat so much? I went back to work to pay for the food bill. Busyness happened and all of a sudden we were Planning Graduation parties, prepping for college. TEARS would fall constantly for a few years. Then the baby of the family moved out of the house. For a small time I felt like I had misplaced my heart. Maybe he packed it in one of his boxes. They still called from time to time and needed me to help. Maybe it was because they still weren’t quite ready to be on their own yet and experiencing what I felt years before. MISSING THEM.

Depression, sadness, QUIET. It was so quiet. I hated hearing my thoughts. My husband and I were lost and to be quite honest I’m not sure if we are quite out of that stage but we are trying. The boys found careers, and found LOVES which even though I loved the thought of having some girls in our lives for once and wonderful additions to our family. I had to let go and It broke my heart. I was their first Love and I would always be but for a long time I didn’t want to give that part of them away to anyone else.

Where am I now….I wish I could say that Im over all the grieving of the empty nesting time. I am sure that will come easier in the next few years. Hopefully when I can shower a grandchild with all the Love that I have saved up for them. But for now I am grateful for the amazing Life of Being a Mother was to me. It was my greatest privilege and greatest challenge all wrapped into one. I didn’t know I could pray so hard for anyone in my life.

The MOTHER-HOOD has made me strong, resilient, more stubborn, more of a fighter, more grace filled, more patient, more accepting, more loving , more compassionate and MORE ME than anything else in my life.

THIS IS MY GIFT THIS MOTHER’S DAY. GOD CHOSE ME TO BE THEIR MOTHER. I WILL ALWAYS BE THANKFUL.

Johnny Appleseed

During one of my Director’s coaching sessions I was reminded about the seed we are planting as we do the calling God has placed in our hearts. I immediately found myself remembering the wonderful little Disney cartoon about the legend of Johnny Appleseed that my kids and I would watch when they were young. It started off by describing Johnny and it said things like “he was such a sawed off scrawny little fella and looking at him he didn’t look like he would ever be a pioneer.” But it always ended with ” that didn’t faze Johnny none he had his apple trees and work to do.” That little story showed a small man that everyone thought was nothing special and because of his Positive happy spirit and impeccable work ethic he was able to fulfill God’s purpose for him despite what everyone’s perspective of him was and he fed and helped so many people. Even people he will never even know he helped. He would always end up singing the little song my kids and I would sing all the time. “The Lord is good to me and so I thank the Lord for giving me the things I need the sun, the rain and the apple tree the Lords been good to me.” That cartoon taught myself and my children a lot. It showed them that you can make a difference in your world even if you aren’t the biggest or the strongest or the smartest. God chooses who he wants to fulfil his purposes and if he chose you he already knows you can do it.

So what did Johnny do….he planted seeds. Wherever he went he planted apple seeds and moved on and did it again. He did it while people pointed and gawked, laughed and sneered. I am sure he didn’t always stick around to see them produce fruit. In fact sometimes other people would reap the benefits of his labor. Yet, he did it anyway and before he left he had planted more than seeds he had planted his boundless faith, boundless courage and that gave so many people the hope to do what they had been called to do.

“So were wasting time let’s get a going , get those apple seeds a growing there’s a lot of work out here to do. There’s a lot of work to do.” I’m sitting in my office humming this little ditty to myself. So when I get discouraged that I don’t see the the fruit of my labor or if the time or the season has not yet come yet in the Plan that God has called me. I just remember I am planting seeds and there is a lot of work out there to do.

Be Blessed

Renee’

Shhhhh…Let God Drive.

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I am sitting in my office listening to furniture being put together for our new Woman’s clinic we are opening. Last year at this time I would tell you there were times I thought that I would never see this day happen. Yet, with God’s help here we are. It has been one of the bumpiest adventures I have ever experienced. I often say to people who ask me how it’s going that I probably should have been a circus performer because of all the hoops I have had to jump through.

I love looking back and saying I don’t know how we got here but GOD you Did it. It is so easy to forget that God is on our side. He truly chose us and called us so why would he not be for us. The Children of Israel felt like this as they were trudging through desert on their way to the promise land. Many times you hear them bickering and complaining because the way wasn’t easy and sometimes unpleasant. Yet, God provided for them in everyway possible and never stopped walking with them through it all. I can almost see him rolling his eyes at times saying “HELLO IM RIGHT HERE!”

Psalm 78:40-42
How often they provoked Him in the wilderness,
And grieved Him in the desert!
Yes, again and again they tempted God,
And limited the Holy One of Israel.
They did not remember His power:
The day when He redeemed them from the enemy,

There has been so many times when I forgot all the times he had gotten me through hard times. It seems like we conveniently forget that we have gotten through every bumpy path or slippery slope that came our way. He has always been by our side. I think we start to take matters into our own hands and that is when things begin to fall apart.

I remember riding in the backseat of the car as a little girl as we would travel. I immediately would fall asleep. I knew my Dad was driving and he would get us to where we were going. There was no need for me to worry or fret. Now days it isn’t as easy for me to fall asleep. I think I have become less trusting of people driving as I have gotten older. I miss feeling that peace of knowing my Dad had control over the vehicle. I think my life is much like this. I really am much more peaceful when I allow my Father God to take the wheel of my life and of all the adventures he has laid before me. When I drive I am notoriously lost. My kids and husband will sometimes make fun of me and say “Mom you could get lost in our own back yard.” Yet, when I have my GPS on I never worry about finding my way. I am thankful for God my GPS and Driver of my life.

Yet, how many times do we get ourselves in a bind and start complaining and conveniently forget that God sometimes we have to leave our comfort zones to actually reach our destination. The Israelites didn’t find out until they had wandered in the wilderness for 40 years.

Be careful to follow every command I am giving you today, so that you may live and increase and may enter and possess the land the Lord promised on oath to your ancestors. Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna… to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years. Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the Lord your God disciplines you. Deuteronomy 8:1-5 (NIV,

God didn’t abandon them during their wilderness experience he protected and provided for them during it. Yet, while we are experiencing difficult we forget all the things he has done for us along the way. If he just gave us everything we asked for we would be weak people. We would not be able to handle the thing that we asked for in the first place. God will always give us the best way to go but it won’t always be the easiest.

So as I look at this new Woman’s clinic about to open. I am humbled and grateful for the hoops I had to jump. The mountains we had to climb because they have made us prepared for the road ahead of us. What he called us to isn’t going to be easy but the lives it will help and give hope to.

Be encouraged today and sit back and Let God Drive.

Renee’

Covenant vs Consumer

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So as we often do I was taking inventory of relationships in my life. Am I being a good wife,mother,leader,employee,friend and so on.

I had begun to realize that we have two kind of relationships.

1.CONSUMER RELATIONSHIPS: What can I do for them or what can they do for me. This is a transactional relationship.

2. COVENANT RELATIONSHIPS: I will do what I can for this person. Regardless of time or place or convenience. This is a transformational relationship.

I am looking for more covenant relationships in 2023. Jesus modeled this throughout the bible so many times. The woman at the well was one of the stories that brought this to life to me. John 4: 1-42 tells us this story. The woman had a consumer mindset in all of her interactions. She struggled with people walking in and out of her life once they had gotten what they needed from her. When she met Jesus she was introduced to someone who lived out Covenant relationships. This was something she found unusual and was probably something she didn’t realize could ever be lived out. She had to Trust that Jesus was who he said he was and that he was offering her a real relationship that wasn’t based on something she could offer him but what he could give her. Trusting would be difficult and opening up herself even harder. This covenant relationship was transformational as it offered her living water (Salvation) and connected with her Physically, emotionally, spiritually and socially.

In my Career I work as the Executive Director of a Pregnancy Resource center. I have realized that in order to complete the calling God has given me. I have to have that covenant mindset with all the women that come through the doors of my center. We are called to be a transformational ministry where people can see the love of Jesus and know that Life Choices will stick by their side regardless of anything that happened in their past. Loving as Jesus loves is the only way to have a Covenant mindset in our interactions with our clients.

In my life with everyone I come in contact with I wish to be more like Jesus in this area of relationships in my life. How is your mindset ? Are your relationships consumer or covenant?

I hope you use this as a motivation to do inventory on the relationships in your life in 2023.

Be Blessed!!

Renee’

Do it scared

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I don’t know if you have ever done something for the first time. Here are some examples. Do you remember during swim lessons as a child standing on the end of the diving board looking at the water below? We know that our instructor is standing right there waiting to dive in to save us. But for some reason we feel like this jump could be our last. What about speaking in front of a group. The minutes before we walk up to to speak our heart feels like it is ready to jump out of our throat. We know that we won’t die from this experience but at the time it sure feels that way.

1Peter 5:7  Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. When we feel that unbearable anxiety how do we handle it? Does it paralyze us and keep us from our God given purpose? Can we use it as a way to do whatever he has called us to do even if we have to do it scared?

Moses was terrified to talk to Pharaoh even though he was his adopted brother. God literally talked to Moses and told him what to do by speaking to him through a burning bush. Don’t we wish God would audibly speak his plan to us today? Trusting God will be with us while we do what he is asking us is hard even when you hear directly from him as we see in Exodus. Moses had to face his fears. He couldn’t get around it or wiggle his way out of it. Everything God asked him to do challenged him to step out and face his fears. I’m sure he second guessed what he was doing and whether or not he heard from God. I’m sure at times he questioned his purpose and his direction. At some point, Moses had to make a decision to follow God no matter what. He had to make a commitment from within. He had to obey God despite how he felt inside. He had to keep pushing forward until his fears subsided and no longer controlled him.
F.E.A.R is really False Evidence Appearing Real. Don’t shut God out because you are convinced He can’t use you. Make a decision today to surrender your fears to God and let Him challenge you to new heights.

He is asking us to obey even when we are scared. Doing hard things with God is still scary but can you imagine doing something without God? I think of the time I went to the circus with my parents and saw the tight rope walker for the first time. I couldn’t believe he was doing something so frightening. But then I saw the net below him. God never leaves us and continues to be our safety net even if we forget at times that he is there.

God wants us to obey him. He needs us to put action behind our faith as well. If we believe and don’t move and do what he says our faith means nothing. Let’s do it scared. We need to take one step at a time even if we can’t see the top of the staircase. God has something amazing in store if we will only trust and obey.

Keep moving Forward.

Renee’

Don’t forget to look out the window.

So just a week ago the Non profit I work for finished up it’s annual fundraising Gala. It felt like months of planning and preparation consumed my mind every day before the actual night. I even woke up in the middle of the night to write down things I remembered I needed to do the next day.

Then the actual day of the event arrived and I stood and watched the volunteers, the musicians, the photographers, caterers and everyone that had a part of the evening do their parts with such grace and precision. I was amazed at how well everything fell into place.

Then the day after the even and the few days that followed I began to feel little off. Like I was experiencing a let down of sorts. I begin to think about the months before and all God did for us during the planning. I had forgotten to enjoy the journey and remember the process as a gift from God.

One of the verses in the bible that solidifies this for me is Genesis 28:15 What’s more, I am with you, and will protect you wherever you go, and I will bring you back safely to this land; I will be with you constantly until I have finished giving you all I am promising. The Children of Israel had forgotten to watch out the window on their journey and they begin to let the stress of everything weigh heavily on their minds. Sometimes we forget to see the beauty in all we are doing and all that God is doing around us in the midst of our journey. Sometimes everything we are doing can seem insignificant and like in the scheme of things it may not matter but God is the one that makes our paths straight and allows us the strength to finish what we started.

In Job 34:32 there is a verse that touches my heart every time I read it. It says this. Teach me to see what I still don’t see. As we work and strive to do his will sometimes we don’t see the fruits of our labor for sometime. But God is teaching me that everything he is doing is connected together and is part of his grand plan. Even the most difficult parts.

So I encourage you today, if you are on a journey that is long and sometimes difficult. Take some time to look out the window and enjoy the beauty along the way. See the little things God has brought you through and how he will continue this until he finishes what he started. Philippians 1:6 Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

Be Blessed,

Renee’

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Don’t let the heat out!!!!

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So my kids got me a new Kitchen aid mixer for Mother’s day this year. I was so excited. I have wanted one forever. I had all these plans on making bread from scratch. Now that I had the tools I could get down to business. So if anyone has made bread before you know there are some trick to this and it isn’t something that just goes as planned right from the beginning. It definitely takes practice. So I am going to share some of this craziness with you.

1. Mix the ingredient. So you have to do this in a order I found out. You can’t just throw it all together. You have to do the dry first then add the wet. Some of your ingredients will react if you just mix them in without being orderly.
2. Rest and Hydrate. I found out you can’t just start kneading without letting the mixture rest and hydrate. If you don’t do this your dough will not knead correctly and be dry and will not rise. We have to do this in our own lives as well. Most of us skip this process and we become hard and not pliable. Take the time we need to rest in our lives.
3. Kneading. So when you knead the dough you can’t just beat the heck out of it. This process is done so all of the ingredients are distributed evenly and so we can start the activation process but a lot of us just are way too hard on ourselves before we can start to rise. Be slow and intentional with ourselves. This process stretches us. It can sometimes be tedious and hard. But we need to be gentle with ourselves and kind during this process.
4. Proofing. This is where it gets tricky. This is the first process of rising. Yet, it takes just the right environment. If it’s too hot it will rise too quickly, if its too cold it will rise to slow. Both of those things can dry out the dough and make it hard. Also, it is important to cover your dough and protect it so the air doesn’t dry out the top and allow outside influences from corrupting the dough. Protect your life from outside impurities.
5. Shaping. So you remove the cover on this beautifully raised bowl of dough and what is the first thing you do. You punch it down again. This makes no sense as we took all that time to raise it. But if we don’t do this we can look all puffed up but the inside of the dough can be just a bunch of air. We need to feed the yeast again. Then we shape it into our loafs. This process can be painful. Yet, if we skip it our bread will just be nothing but a pretty looking loaf of air without any substance. I don’t want to be that. So Push me down and pound the air out of me.
6. Rising #2. So after we have been deflated and shaped it’s time to be built back up again. This time we will have the elasticity to hold our integrity during the baking process.
7. Scoring. This part has always been the part I didn’t understand until one day I felt like I had an aha moment. This is the part that makes us different. It makes us special. Also, after we have shaped it and allowed it to strengthen we also need to give it space to expand. Scoring it gives it the ability to grow.
8. Baking. This is the fun part but it also can be tricky as well. We need to keep the temperature hot enough to bake our bread all the way through but also it can’t be too hot that we bake to fast and dry out and get tough. As we smell the aroma of fresh baked bread it can be so very hard to resist opening the oven door. It is so important to not let the cool air creep in because sometimes if we do that it can deflate us. Stay in the heat until we are complete. Don’t come out too early. Only God knows when we are finished with the process. His timing is imperative.

LAMENTATIONS 3:25 SAYS…. The Lord is wonderfully good to those who wait for him, to those who seek for him.

God help us wait on your timing and know it may not look like ours but help us to trust in you for Your perfect plans.

Be Blessed, Renee’

Somehow the idea that our lives look like Van Gogh’s swirls of craziness competes with the Monet’s that we thought life should be. BOTH ARE BEAUTIFUL!!!!!

We all start out in life with a picture of what we believe our lives will look like someday. It starts when we are young girls dreaming about our Weddings and our white picket fences. Or as a little boy dreaming of his NFL career. Then one day we wake up and realize that our perfectly dreamed life isn’t at all like we dreamed it would be. It is messy and hard and no matter how young or old we get we can’t shake the guilt that we could have done something different or we are flawed and have failed and are not worthy of having the life we dreamed.

I don’t think any of us will escape this. Even if our lives are great we always will look for better. Some of us have had devastating things happen to us that may have taken us on a journey we weren’t prepared for.

As I was studying and thinking about this I came across the story of Monet He went through a devastating time for any artist as he struggled with his eyesight. He had rejected surgery many times before. In 1923 he finally agreed to the surgery and over time he saw much better and was seeing colors so vividly and described them like nothing he had seen before. Because he saw these colors so differently he began to repaint over some of his paintings as what he painted before didn’t match what he was seeing now.

Isn’t this true in our lives. Sometimes we can live so clouded by our own perceptions that when we begin to take in truth our eyes become open and we begin to see life differently. The bible talks about this….

Isaiah 55:8-9New International Version

⁸ “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
    neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.
⁹ “As the heavens are higher than the earth,
    so are my ways higher than your ways
    and my thoughts than your thoughts.

We must measure our vision on the way God see’s us. Anything less than is a counterfeit art piece. Let our Creator let his vision shine through us and let’s not get clouded by our own judgements or opinions of others. Our Artist has his purpose and vision for our lives and it is genius and will never compare to what our finite minds can comprehend.

Be Blessed Renee’

Cutting away to make something even more beautiful!

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Have you ever been in a season where it feels like things are being taken away from you? Maybe you didn’t get the promotion or job you were wanting. Or perhaps a relationship you thought you would be in forever didn’t work out or fell apart. Maybe you just feel lost or unsure of how to spend your time or there isn’t enough time and you’re overwhelmed and overworked and not understanding when things will get better. If this all sounds familiar this might be a season of pruning. Sometimes we hear that word and think of punishment. We hear cutting away and our minds go to the fact that God isn’t good. How could be if He is taking things away from me?

So how do we associate God’s goodness with things being cut from our lives? John 14:1-2 says… I am the vine and My Father is the vine dresser. Every Branch that doesn’t not bear fruit, He takes away and every branch that bears fruit he prunes that it may bear more fruit.

I went to a winery a while back with my husband and I remember seeing grape vines that were 6ft long full of grapes and then there were 6 more feet of vines with just leaves and then about 20 ft of bare sticks. It was explained to me that the nature of the vine is that it will overextend itself to the point that it no longer can bear fruit. So you have to cut it back to the place where it bore fruit and it will put more energy into growing grapes again instead of just making a stick.

This resonated with me and over the years I have seen this happen in my life. In fact I have had a few things cut away again recently. This is a great example in our own lives. If we overextend ourselves beyond our personal calling and don’t prune or quit activities that are fruitless, we will use all our capacity and energy on things that don’t really matter. The consequences of this is that you don’t end up making anything of value in the end. We spin our wheels and waste precious time from our lives. This can even derail our destiny. The point of being pruned is not a punishment but is actually good for you. Yes, at times some of the pruning may feel like it hurts and how can hurting be good? But in the end if we trust the vine dresser, he will cut away the dead sticks and we will see new growth and see fruit like we cannot even imagine. God is going to make something beautiful out of us.

So at our Mighty Mom’s group this week the girls were asked to take a Tshirt and make it into something new and all they could use was a scissors. It ended up making a great illustration as I watched them cut pieces away of their shirts. In the end they all had something different but uniquely beautiful. I asked them to take mental notes and ask themselves if there was something in their lives that was inhibiting their growth that needed to be cut away. I am going to ask this of you as well. Take some time to ask yourself what is draining your energy and keeping you from being all you could be.

Let’s see what happens when we put a little effort and energy into making something more beautiful out of our lives by cutting away the activities or things that our holding us back from all we can be. Trust the Vine Dresser.

Be Blessed, Renee

Staying in my Lane

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So 2022 has brought so many changes in my life. Mostly in my career. I had been working for a small non-profit as the executive director part-time until this last January when I excepted a full-time position. I had been praying for this for so long and when it came to pass I was almost shocked. It has been so exciting and challenging at the same time. I have big dreams for this ministry and sometimes waiting on God’s timing is just so hard. His timing is not our timing this I know for sure. I have found dreaming big can bring disappointments and heartaches. Especially if we do what we think is right before he tells us to. Sometimes it is about wanting His will for your life and ministry and trusting Him and growing your faith at the same time.

Other times it is about GOING FOR IT. Sometimes doing this can require even more faith. I know that sometimes this year I have found myself feeling like I am on a highway and I am behind a car that is just not as motivated as I am to get to their destination. It can be frustrating to say the least. But, getting out of our lane and going around this vehicle before our time can be dangerous. I Know that there is a perfect timing for GOING FOR IT. Sometimes we can stay behind this slower vehicle the whole trip which is what a lot of us do. It is safe. But, we may be take much much longer than we had expected. This will cause us to be angry and maybe even just complacent. I have been in this spot many times. This year God said it was time to step on the gas and move out of our safe lane and move into what God had for us. He has blessed us. Yes the trip isn’t over and we find this same scenario happens again and again. Yet if we follow our GPS (GOD) we will be happy with the trip and will get to our destination in a timely manner and safe without rerouting too many times. When he says Go may we have the courage to step on that gas.

God help us to trust your timing and stay in our lane until you say GO!

Enjoy your Day!

Renee’