Wow, thank you friends, for the flood of heartfelt words regarding irresponsibility and children, as well as our takeover day at @teachdiligently . (I will be posting the videos and info of our daily rhythm on my Story Highlights soon so it will be permanently available). .
It’s become clear, especially in light of the recent Golden Globes, that, “Children have become a calculated cost, a measurable investment weighed against the more alluring investments of entertainment, pleasure, money, and career. Increasingly, they are viewed as the lesser end of the bargain.” //Sarah Clarkson, Caught Up In a Story .
I remember God waking me up with it one morning many years ago, “Am I going to give you a child that I don’t want you to have?” I learned there is more to God opening and closing a womb than I gave Him credit for. While we were desperately begging Him for a 4th child, this house was a small 2 bedroom, 1 bath. Now, there have been many a pioneer woman to raise 12 in less space, but God knows what will break us, and I was often on the verge of breakdown as it was. It just so happened that Willow didn’t arrive until Dan was able to build on to our house, and just weeks after we were able to move into the new space. We had hoped to have more babies since, and this waiting can be excruciating, especially as Willow has obsessively talked about a baby sister for years, and confidently tells us, (since she was 2), that she is coming. My trust is growing in His timing and wisdom, and though at times it can feel like waiting on God’s timing is destroying me, it is actually growing me - just as the waiting doesn’t diminish a pregnant mama, but grows her. .
When we wait on God - when there’s that pain of letting go of our own ideas of what should be - God is birthing something new within us. We are enlarged in the waiting, and I’m convinced of this: He is there in the waiting with us - wildly loving us, infusing us with strength and courage and something fresh and new that He knows we need. . 📷: @marykaitlinartistry
Though I was blissfully in love with Gavin and my role as a new mama, there was a heavy weight I carried in those early years of parenting. We had been married for 6 months, and in the middle of college when I found out I was pregnant. Folks very close to us labeled us as irresponsible. I had always been a people-pleasing ‘good’ girl and now carried this weight of shame. I loved my role as wife and mama, but I let this weight choke my joy and I put off having another child for several years because of it, I’m sad to say. And after we had our 3rd child, Dan did the ‘responsible’ thing and got a vasectomy. Something stirred inside me and I cried for days. He was devastated. .
A year later Dan was able to get a reversal, but my fertility in my 30s was a different story than it was in my 20s. It was after years of longing and prayers that our precious Willow was born. .
Moms of many kids, or moms of a child who (heaven forbid) came before a degree or career, I want you to know this: you are not irresponsible. Saying yes to life is the most beautiful thing you can do. I know life may seem to be swirling around you with many littles underfoot, and you may feel dizzy at times, but it is for just a time and you will see the beauty of this life as they grow, if you can’t taste its sweetness already. .
Fertility is a gift, not to be ashamed of. Children are a gift, and as such come with the grace you need to raise each, and the provision. .
A path of no regret. As my favorite poem (by Christianna Reed Maas) states, you have yielded yourself to heaven and carry its dream. You, as a mother, are the opposition to death. You birth the freedom fighters, with the anointing to alter history. Heaven stands in honor of your mission. No one else can carry your call.
Join us today over at @teachdiligently in the Stories as I take you along on our ‘typical’ homeschool day! We have a daily rhythm that has worked well for several years. (I share details on the curriculum we use and how we tackle chores as well). There are days that we abandon the routine to chase after something that intrigues us or to play the day away outside when we need a change, but this rhythm is our default, and it’s been a life-giving one. . {also, does anyone else’s child go through multiple outfits a day, including swimsuits in winter?! Just curious.. } 😆 .
And, just a reminder that I’ll be speaking on keeping our children’s and teen’s hearts, as well as living an intentional life (creating your unique family culture) at the Rogers, Waco, and Denver conferences. Use the link in my profile to register and the code Brandi for $10 off.
I’ve seen a couple articles floating around on the importance of getting kids to church as much as possible. While I feel that it is important to have a church family, I think that we are misguided if we think this will be enough to disciple our children. Young adults who have grown up in the church are abandoning their faith left and right. There’s something missing. .
Children’s pastors and youth pastors were never meant to replace the powerful role that God intended for the parents. It’s vital that we, (honestly, humbly, and imperfectly) read the word of God in our homes and share about having a relationship with the Lord. How beautiful it is when our kids hear from us what God has done in our lives and is doing. It’s ok to share what we don’t know and what we’re still learning. An example of hunger and seeking God will influence them. .
It requires time and heart, but this changes everything and the results will echo into eternity. . 📷: @marykaitlinartistry
History reading out in the playhouse as the rain pours. 🌧. We love the thought of experiencing the storms as the pioneers would have, and so often are drawn out here. Now they’re swinging and dancing around in the rain, increasingly muddy and filthy and soaked and deliriously happy. .
This was the first week back to our regular school rhythm and oh, how I love this life. It’s messy, often exhausting, sometimes I desperately want more time to myself, and I’ve learned about the only way I can get Quinn to really focus on his math is to award him with a Wild Kratts show later that day, 😬 but to be the one to witness the pure joy of their childhood together - to see them in the rain now, to watch over their hearts, to encourage them when they’re down, to learn fascinating things alongside my kids, (did you know that Leonardo’s infamous painting of Jesus at the last supper was painted in a monks’ dining hall and created to look like they were right there with them? The table, dishes, and tablecloth matched the ones the monks had!), to share in books that inspire us to be all we were created to be, and to kiss and squeeze them anytime I want.. I’m deeply thankful I get to do this. .
I wish I could go back and assure my extremely anxious teenage heart that there was a reason I didn’t fit into any of the career molds. God had a different path, and it wouldn’t pay much or give me any trophies, but it would be a richer life than I could imagine.
Mama and I had a rocky relationship as I was growing up, but she told me she loved me and was proud of me often. She came from a cold, abusive background and did the best she knew how. I held on tight to those words.
It became a habit in my own parenting... one that often helped to soothe us both especially after I gave in to frustration. Influenced heavily by Sally Clarkson, it grew from there to more authentic spontaneity. . “Being your mama is my great joy.”
“I saw how you took the initiative to load the dishes and clean the kitchen. That helps us out tremendously. Thank you.”
“I know it was hard, but you bit your lip and controlled your frustration when your brother said that. You are growing in patience. I’m proud of you.” “There’s nothing you could do to make me love you less.”
“You are so much fun. I love hanging out with you.” .
There have been times (and still are) that I correct and direct a thousand times more than I speak encouragement or simply visit with them. But, as with all good habits, as we practice and lean into the Lord, it becomes a part of who we are. When I don’t know what to say, I ask God what He sees when He looks at my child. How special it is, to begin it by saying to one of them, “Do you know what God thinks when He sees you?” . 📷: @marykaitlinartistry
A little detour from my usual parenting/home educating thoughts, but I had to share some of our sunshine. Willow (4) is endless entertainment around here. Fiercely affectionate and oh so verbal. For example: . “Mom, can you braid my hair in English this time?”
She calls jean pockets, “bum buckets.”
Upon seeing a house that had burned down: “awww, that’s so sad that it was fired.”
After Dan shaved Quinn’s head, “Daddy mowed your hair!”
When Quinn threw up, she ran to me, crying because “Quinn blew up!”
She gave me a slap on the rear end, and then said, “Mom, when I wack your bottom I see God!”
When she sneezed and tooted, “I blessed and I tooted.” Upon running outside and quickly running back in, “It’s colder than legs out there!” {a big thanks to Ellie for taking the initiative to record all of these} 😂
One of our teens recently brought it to our attention that they were disappointed that we hadn’t been pursuing their hearts lately, taking one-on-one time to be with them. It’s easy to believe that when we’re all spending so much time together doing all the holiday things, that it’s enough. It hurt my heart to hear it, but then came gratitude. Gratitude that though it’s common today for peers to replace parents as those who matter most, it does not have to be that way. We can create a family culture with boundaries and rhythms in place that strengthen the parent/child or teen bond. Good friends are a part of their lives, but not their lives. ✨
There is a knock-down-drag-out battle going on for our children’s hearts, and yes, it takes us putting away distractions and taking time and energy to pursue each of them - loving and hearing them - and this is so hard for me sometimes, but we’ll look back on it as the wisest thing we ever did. ✨
This book. Truly an eye-opening must read. “ The relationship between child and parent is sacred. Faced with the challenge of the peer culture, we need to keep our children’s attachments to us strong and to make these attachments last for as long as our children need to be parented. But how to achieve it? No matter what problem or issue we face in parenting, our relationship with our children should be the highest priority. Children do not experience our intentions, no matter how heartfelt. They experience what we manifest in tone and behavior. We cannot assume that children will know what our priorities are: We must live our priorities.” Gordon Neufeld/Hold On to Your Kids
{and I never ask this, but please tag any friends in the comments so they too can read this book) 😘
One last discussion by the light of the tree, then it’s bonfire time! Today we’re celebrating the answered prayers and open doors of 2019, hard lessons learned, and what areas we each want to grow in this year. ✨
We all agreed we want to lean in closer - for our heart to be trained to listen better as God speaks. And we discussed the importance of growing in humility, (how we all need this) so that our default is not to criticize or place blame, but rather compassion, and an awareness of our own spiritual need. ✨
Happy New Year, friends! 🎊 I’m so very thankful for each of you. May you feel God’s infinite love for you in a fresh way this year, and live with contagious joy. {and check out my stories for a glimpse into the kids movie-making 😍🎥 }
How good it is to pay attention to when you’re depleted and plan accordingly. These slow and savory days between Christmas and New Year’s Day may be my favorite. I’m in no hurry to make grand plans for the new year or pack away Christmas; we’re still basking in the glow of the lights and reminiscing over our celebrations. After days of hosting Christmas and the kids’ heavy involvement in our church’s Christmas production, I’ve come to see it as a time to rest and recover, to give myself the permission to exhale (not natural for me)!, and my kids as well. ✨
We stay home with no agenda, continue feasting on Christmas leftovers (no cooking 🙌), keep the fire and candles burning, the kids enjoy their new things and make silly films, we catch up on a few shows, I cuddle with my Willow, take more time to read, and listen in on their play (Quinn, Ellie, and Willow played together with her Calico Critters schoolhouse and camper for days). 😍 Gavin edited a film project, but emerged frequently to get his Willow fix and update us on his progress.
I honestly walk around in a bit of a daze, but it’s a healing, restoring sort of daze. 😆 ✨
What about you? Do you need time to relax as well after Christmas or do you conquer the Christmas clean up right away and get on with your New Year’s goals?
Thank you so much sweet friends, for the flood of encouragement and support regarding my speaking engagements coming up at the Teach Them Diligently conferences. I’ve been scribbling away all that’s on my heart as I prepare to teach two workshops. One teaching is on the key factors to keeping our children’s hearts (there’s so much to be said on this, but I’m increasingly convinced that one on one time is vital), and the other workshop is about creating an intentional family culture - free from hurry. ✨
If you’re interested in the Waco or Rogers, Arkansas conferences, grab your tickets before the price increase New Year’s Day! I appreciate you using the link in my profile as this helps cover costs. Keep in mind these conferences are open to fathers and mothers, and there are even classes for kids if you want to bring the whole family!
I’m also speaking at the Denver conference at the end of May. Would love to see y’all there! . 📷: @marykaitlinartistry
I felt the pull to share our Christmas online as it was happening, but sometimes the greatest gift is our fully alive presence - free from distractions.
I thought of it often this week as our house was full of family; the kids won’t likely remember many of the gifts we gave them, but they’ll remember how we gathered around the table for feasts and silly games, the often hysterical BINGO prizes Granny collected from Goodwill, how excited Poppy always is to skeet shoot, and *hopefully* the traditions that add meaning to it all. ✨ {the girls served us mistletoe salad in the playhouse and swipe to see how Ellie has become quite the gingerbread decorating competitor} 🍭
Moviemaking days with dear friends 🎥❤️ Now Willow is old enough to cooperate and act in their films, and the footage is priceless to me. 😍😁 As I’ve been observing them work together on these projects, I’ve been thinking of how important it is that our kids are being trained with the strength of inner flexibility, with the ability to listen and work well with others, to wait, to put others first, and to be assertive when necessary. What a beautiful thing to see, and a strong foundation for life. ✨ “Many parents have bought into the belief that if we give our young children a lot of freedom and myriad choices they will develop strength of character and willpower. Many are even wary of presenting themselves as authority figures within their own family: They worry they will squash the will of their child by introducing boundaries and providing direction. However, there is a significant difference between a malevolent dictator, who forcefully bends others to his or her will and a benevolent governor, who acts out of caring to bring safety and come to the family state. .
Limits and boundaries instill feelings of safety, trust, and, above all, orientation in your child. Compliance to parent’s direction further solidifies your child’s orientation. The compliance I refer to here is very different from the “blind obedience” many children experienced growing up in the fifties and sixties. Your child must not be forced to accept an edict from a rigid, overpowering authority. Soulful disciplinary compliance is firm yet loving. Furthermore, it is vital to a child’s social and emotional health. In learning to comply, a child accepts his or her parents’ warm but unwavering direction and develops inner flexibility.” //Kim John Payne, The Soul of Discipline
Sitting down with my precious ones over a slow breakfast, with bed head and blurry eyes and scripture reading and times of sibling ugliness and heart training and encouragement and laughter. It’s been the start of my days for most of 18 years, and I feel it almost daily as I drowsily sit at the head of the table with coffee and Bible - I’m deeply grateful we get to do this. .
The question I’ve received the most lately is from mamas who are interested in home education, and are asking about curriculum. But I think there’s a danger in starting there. If you first educate yourself on how children learn, and ways to nurture a life-giving education, you will prevent much frustration and the temptation to constantly jump from one curriculum to the next. Though it is a help, a curriculum doesn’t contain all the answers and direction you need. .
Books like A Charlotte Mason Companion, Teaching From Rest, The Life Giving Home, Simplicity Parenting and The Soul of Discipline (because homeschooling is as much about parenting as it is educating) lay a strong foundation that will then give you confidence in choosing and in using curriculum, and help you keep the focus where it should be - on the parent/child connection. ✨ .
Much grace is needed as you navigate this new way of life. It took me a few years before I really had a grasp on what I was doing, but I look back and see that God was providing just what my kids and I needed each step of the way. I just kept showing up. He takes our faithful little and makes it enough. {I’m working on a letter to new homeschooling mamas that I’ll post to the blog; this is a snippet} ☺️
Dan gently and humbly loves and guides. My biggest inspiration. An overcomer if there ever was one. He grew up in poverty and had no support or encouragement in the way of school or becoming. God was not invited into their home. His dad was rarely there, and was rarely present when he was. .
Though the school system pushed Dan on, he stopped trying in 3rd grade. Officially dropped out when he was 16. Moved out. Hung out with others who lacked hope. .
At 19, after a friend’s suicide, Dan wholeheartedly gave his life to Christ. For the first time, he had hope of a future. My first memory of Dan is of him boldly sharing his heart, his testimony on the streets of Northern Ireland. He was 21. I was 18. The first time I looked into those big brown eyes I saw a purity, humility, and zeal I had never seen before. I knew then that my life would never be the same. .
Though he had little more than a 3rd grade education, he courageously attended college. I held his hand through that first semester, but he was a quick, confident learner and required little help after that. He worked hard, juggling a wife, jobs, and college, but graduated with his bachelor’s, and even went on to graduate studies. .
He had no example of a loving, devoted husband or father, but clung to God, and as God healed deep wounds, Dan grew into a loving, devoted husband and father, if there ever was one. .
A new story is written among the generations. .
There is hope for the hopeless. We have a God who loves nothing more than to take us by the hand, meeting us just as we are. He changes the script. Gives us a new story, one written just for us.
Hope with wings. . 📷: @marykaitlinartistry
{screen time, from my kids’ point of view}. We’ve had Christmas cousin camp over here this week, with hours of movie making, outside play, and cookie decorating. ❤️🎄 My 3 big kids were discussing it this morning, how different their lives would have been - all that they would have missed out on - if hours of screen time had been part of their daily life. If instead of using their iPads to create films, they had used it for hours of daily entertainment. .
Now I’m as fond of Wild Kratts as the next mom, and I love a good pizza-family-movie night or a family Mariokart night, and yes I believe there are certain seasons in which more screen time may be a lifeline, but when kids are weaned off the dependency on it, their focus and their ties deepen, and a world of possibilities opens up. .
Using screens as an occasional event that brings us together, rather than a common event that separates us, is, according to the kids, one of the best decisions Dan and I ever made. .
Gavin (18) is our tech support, as well as our neighbor’s and relatives’ tech support, and he admitted that increased screen time would have actually hindered his drive to learn more about all things tech related, as well as his drive to excel at the guitar, run in Spartan races, and backpack through the wilderness.
Ellie and Gavin both shared that they wouldn’t be near as close as siblings without all the play and adventures they’ve had together. Ellie said she wouldn’t have written the book for Willow (of the story of us before her birth and how we prayed for her), nor would she have been a penpal to friends as far as N Ireland.
Quinn admitted, “my ukulele would be dusty!” We all absorbed this for a minute, thinking of how much he loves to play, and what a loss it would be.
Isn’t it freeing to grasp the fact that no matter how others are living around us, we truly can create our own family culture? We don’t have to throw our hands up in surrender and despair, but can courageously and purposely live into God’s unique design for each of us. I hope you feel free and empowered to do so, friends. xoxo
Exciting news, friends! The folks leading the Teach Them Diligently homeschool conventions have invited me to be one of their speakers. 😳😁 These Christ-centered conferences focus not only on education, but on parenting, marriage, and discipleship. I will be leading 2 one hour workshops in Rogers, AR; Waco, TX; and Denver, CO next Spring.
The link to register is in my profile. I would just love to see you there! .
You can bring your entire family, or make it a getaway for just you and your spouse, or round up your girlfriends for an uplifting girls’ getaway! There’s something for everyone, even grandparents! .
I appreciate your prayers as I prepare for this, that God would give me wisdom and courage regarding everything I share, that it would be heartfelt, refreshing, practical, and life-giving. Thanks so much friends. Your encouragement and support here through the years have meant more than words can convey. . 📷 : @marykaitlinartistry
These December days. ✨ While Gavin studies for college finals, and Ellie and Quinn work through Christmas word finds and word scrambles that I printed off, my faithful little helper grabbed her apron, shoved her sleeves back, and climbed on the island to bake alongside me as she always has. (2nd photo was 2 years ago) 😍 .
The mess is multiplied, but as the years go by it grows easier to treasure her curious ways and time connecting over convenience.
If you have little ones and need motivation in this department, I highly recommend the book, Heaven On Earth. It inspired me to say yes more to the mess and nurture the wonder of childhood. “Three factors in the early learning environment were required to produce competency in adulthood. First, a rich sensory environment was necessary, both indoors and out; second, free exploratory movement was vital; and third, a parent was available for interaction when questions arose.” Sharifa Oppenheimer
{announcement coming this evening} 😊
Lately I’ve been tempted to lock myself away so I can write all day. I don’t have all the answers, but I deeply long for the burned out mamas who feel powerless, who believe that peace, honor, and connection (not perfection) in their homes is out of reach to know the truth. ✨
Their kids are NOT naturally more difficult than everyone else’s. ✨
Healthy, firm, and consistent boundaries don’t severe connection, but actually aid in and nurture it. ✨
They are far more capable to love deeply and lead wisely than they believe. ✨
If they’re simply parenting based on how they feel, they are most likely merely parenting according to the latest cultural trend. ✨
Gleaning wisdom from wholehearted mamas who have gone before, educating themselves in the Word and in wholesome parenting books little by little, and leaning on the Holy Spirit will be a game-changing lifeline. ✨ {My girl. Willow’s fiercely affectionate kisses and ways are a highlight of my days.} 💛 📷: @marykaitlinartistry
