Just A Mom from Ohio

Will I ever be able to hear that phrase "hindsight is 2020" and not shudder at the memory of 2020? As the year 2020 has recently come to a close, I want to pause. What has 2020 taught me? It seems like this year will go down as a whopper. What will we take from it as we start 2021?  January is over. Where did that month go? Time has a way of moving slow and fast all at the same time.  Today there is much uncertainty and much to overcome.  Sounds familiar if you look at history books. While each situation is truly unique, we can look back and pull both lessons and hope from the past?  History can be ugly. People can be quite wicked. And power and money can lead to greed and destruction.  Its hard to have hope at times.   BUT I do.  However my hope is not in the world. My hope is in Jesus.  Can you see the light and hope of Jesus shining in your community?  I was able to share a meal with a young lady who has a heart to ...

Layers. There are so many layers. We start out as a seed in our mothers womb, which was also a seed in her mothers womb, and on and on. We have been carried around for generations unbeknownst to ourselves. Have you ever heard of such a thing as generational trauma? For me and many others, it is real. September is suicide awareness month. If you have read my blogs or posts then you will know that I am unashamed about mental health and my journey with it. There is a history of suicide in my family. There are traumas woven throughout my heritage, as like many of yours. So what else can I do but face it. I sure as heck haven't been able to escape it or the effects of it, no matter how hard I have tried. Stuffing it, numbing it, talking through it, giving it to God, are all part of my journey. There doesn't seem to be a one size fits all answer.  painted rocks for suicide awareness from a friend and her group of amazing people Today, I'm writing about a simple yet p...

Wow, well 2019 flew by and I did not do my quarterly updates on my word of the year (#momlife). So today, in January of 2020, I will follow up about my focus word for last year, " content ".  In retrospect, I am honestly satisfied with how the year went. Granted a lot changed, but it could have been worse, right? Seriously though, I think it was a good year. Over the year, I was in the Word daily. I was going to church most weeks. I took my real estate pre-licensing classes and actually passed my test on the first try. We lived on our own for a full year.  My family blessed my kids majorly at Christmas even when I couldn't. My focus on my health and wellness improved significantly and I lost 15lbs and have been maintaining it with a daily commitment to exercise and improved eating. There has been a lot of progress and absolutely no perfection which in itself is awesome. I'm learning to live with less static and more intention. What did I learn about contentment? ...

Have you ever heard of a company called  Misfits Market ? It is a online grocery option for the unfavorable or ugly produce that doesn't meet the expectations of the grocery store. At church today the sermon was focused on the passage of Galatians 5:16-26 and the fruits of the Spirit. I ended up drawing a picture of an apple and thinking about the outside of an apple and the different perspectives on how it might be viewed. Thinking about how my own fruit would be viewed compared to how it really is... Heading into Thanksgiving this week and about to potentially be around lots of people, perhaps challenged emotionally, the pastor asked us to try to be the fruit of the Spirit that we struggle with the most. So....I started breaking down the fruits of the Spirit to figure out what I should focus on.  The fruits of the Spirit are: love joy peace patience kindness goodness faithfulness gentleness self-control While thinking of these I opened the Blu...

Since having my 2nd child, I have noticed people commenting that I have "a peace." What?!?  Shocked, I wondered if these people really were talking about me. In what may have been one of the most difficult and confusing times in my life, people could identify a peaceful quality in me? Some people knew me better than others and still were telling me this. I don't know for sure what specific way that I may have been demonstrating peace because I tend to feel so out of control and at a loss for how to handle so many of life's non-fixable obstacles. Tonight, I was catching up on my morning devotional First5 , and the verse in  Romans 8:6  struck me. Any peace that I have is directly from the Holy Spirit. I spent years and years wasting away, internally struggling because I was living for the flesh. But, now, I have been humbled and finally surrendered my will. My husband says that I have changed since we got married. Yes, I did. We got pregnant right a...