You are not a victim, you're a mom

I sat beside her at the public swimming pool, her little ones in the shallow wearing water wings, mine canon-balling off the high dive. We were wading into the metaphorical deep-end ourselves, talking about the hard stuff, that chlorine scented afternoon. She was exasperated, worn out. Her frustrations bordered anger, and she felt great shame over her emotions - still they flooded.

Picking up a damp towel nearby, she wiped her face then said, "I think that I'm most upset that my children ruin my plans each day. And not just my plans for the day, but my plans of being a good mom. They ruin it no matter what I do. They ruin all of the meals I serve by hating what I've made and crying at the table. They ruin our trips to the park and our playdates with friends by throwing fits when it's time to go. I plan so much fun, and they ruin it all by demanding more or different. And I guess, if I'm honest, they ruin my dreams of what my family would be like. I had such good dreams. I've dreamt of being a mom for so long, now here I am and there aren't any peaceful, happy tuck-ins, no Bible reading at the breakfast table - not without more fits! Everyday I'm disappointed, frustrated, and angry. I feel abused! Some days I just want to throw in the towel." And she did throw down the tattered towel in her hands, with a pathetic little moan.

I smiled, leaned in, and hugged her. I hadn't thought of it that way before, but as she shared I believed she spoke the unspoken emotions of many moms in many homes today.

We feel like victims.

You are not a victim, you're a mom!

In the quite morning hours, when God's mercies are new, I know that I am not a victim, I'm simply a mom.

The same is true for my young friend, and the same is true for you.

Still, we find ourselves forgetting by mid-afternoon, hiding in the pantry with a handful of chocolate chips.

So, here's a question for you: Do you take everything personally? Maybe you don't mean too, but do you REACT as though you're the victim... all the time? And do you retreat behind your phone, in your pantry, in your anger, in this victim mentality each day?

Your husband comes home from work late... and you're the victim. Your children don't like what you cooked for dinner... and you're the victim. The kids can't find their shoes, their socks, their backpacks... and you're the victim. Your gifts weren't well received this Christmas... and you're the victim. You planed a cookie making afternoon with friends, and it's just a mess and the kids would rather tear up the toy room... and you're the victim.

It seems ridiculous when typed out like a confessional. But does this resonate at all?

Ladies, here in the stillness of this simple blog post, let me remind us both that we aren't victims... we're moms. Thwarted expectations are part and parcel when taking care of a family full of real live little people. It's hard, yes, but the majority of us are not abused.

Your children don't wake up in the middle of the night and gather round the baby's crib to plot ways to dash your dreams and destroy your day. They aren't contriving fevers, or purposing fits -though it does sometimes feel that way. They are simply being children, and they need you to simply keep on being mom.

Still, you're overwhelmed because you're feeling all the feelings. I know. So let me encourage you as I did this sweet mama with three kiddos under four, "Roll with the punches and go with the flow today, in the midst of the messy mundane. And on the big days too, when you've planned a trip to Disneyland and everyone's crying, keep putting one faithful foot in front of the other. Whatever your lot, choose to believe today what is noble and true, what is lovely and worthy of praise... and I'll be doing the same from my home with my children, as I whisper these words to myself, "You are not a victim, you're a mom."

The goal each day is faith, hope and love. And the greatest of these is love. And victims have a miserable time loving gently and lavishly.

We're not victims, we're moms.

Blessings upon us, every one,

Wen

ws-sidebar-triggers2

If you struggle with anger in your home from the sheer effort of it all, if you find yourself yelling at your little ones, feeling like a victim, then weighed down by shame, I encourage to order a copy of Triggers: Exchanging Parents' Angry Reactions for Gentle Biblical Responses today. There is also the Triggers Study Guide, purposed to take you deeper in God's transforming Word! Ladies, this book has been a game changer for moms like you and me.

I'll continue speaking to this issue of Mommy-Anger in the weeks ahead. If you would like to receive this series directly to your inbox, sign up here!

Here's more of our on-going series, You Are Not a Victim, You're a Mom:

For part 2 in our series, My Child's Discontentment Makes Me Discontent, click here.

For part 3, Pray First, Ask Questions Later, go here.

For part 4, Parenting with Compassion - Not Passion, link over here.

For part 5, TRIGGERS, head here.

For part 6, Mommy time out, click here.

For part 7, Authoritarian Parenting, go here.

For part 8, Fast and Pray, Sweet Mom, head here.

Part 9, Whatever is true, is here.

Part 10, When Mom Needs a Good Cry, Cry Out, click here.

Part 11, What Does Parenting Have to Do With The Gospel? Read this one.

TRIGGERS: Exchanging Parents' Angry Reactions For Gentle Biblical Responses, was co-authored by Wendy Speake and Amber Lia.

disciple before you discipline

When my first-born was a toddler, and his baby brother napped in a bassinet nearby, we would draw together, talk together, read together, be together. We memorized Scripture songs and prayed for our loved ones, filled sticker books, laid out the tracks for Thomas the Tank Engine, made cookies for neighbors, and often walked the mile to our local church. And everywhere we went, every time we sat down, each nap-time as we laid down and rose up again, I discipled my child.  

“Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” Deuteronomy 6:4-9

There’s a holy order to growing up in Christ, and there’s an order to our children growing up, too. It’s not as elusive as it seems on most long parenting days. It’s actually quite simple.

First we disciple them, then we layer in discipline, and finally we pull back our need to discipline as they grow in self-discipline.

DISCIPLE

DISCIPLINE

SELF-DISCIPLINE

Read more about each important step today at The MOB Society.

Because we all end up bowed down, low to the ground, eventually

My posture these days is running, standing, and going. My posture is muscular and active -  throwing people and priorities out of the way and out of my day because the school bell is set to ring. There's very little slowing down and kneeling down and falling down prostrate on the floor in quiet surrender because... well... Life.  

There is no time to fill up our souls with God's beauty before the sun rises - before my sons rise - and so we rush into life lacking beauty. Beauty within and beauty flowing out into the lives of our little people. We throw make-up on our faces at stoplights, but we can't cake it on thick enough that it eeks it's way down through our pores and into our souls. True beauty doesn't work that way. It's got to start deep within, and work it's way up and out. But we're living lives that are much too busy for such things.

Hurried, harried, and horrible: they go together. But hurried and holy rarely co-exist.

Holy and hallowed and hushed, now those are true companions.

They meet together in the morning hours before the sun steals past the beauty of dawn. We need to join them there.

We need to fellowship with the Holy One - slowing down, sitting down, and coming down off our cram-packed agendas to seek Him on the floor.

On the floor.

Because that's where every person is going to end up, eventually. Either on purpose, prostrating oneself in worship, intentionally in the morning hours; or at night in a tearful puddle; or, and this is a frightening thought, they're going to find themselves on the ground like the discarded branch that's not bearing fruit - cut off and cast down.

Live in me, and I will live in you. A branch cannot produce any fruit by itself. It has to stay attached to the vine. In the same way, you cannot produce fruit unless you live in me. "I am the vine. You are the branches. Those who live in me while I live in them will produce a lot of fruit. But you can't produce anything without me. Whoever doesn't live in me is thrown away like a branch and dries up. Branches like this are gathered, thrown into a fire, and burned. (John 15:4-6)

Thrown away, cast aside, thrown down...

We're going to end up on the ground, on our knees, on our bellies, forehead indented by dusty carpet strands or pressed against cool linoleum floors. Prostrate.

Eventually.

And the choice of how we get there is what we call freewill.

Starting with Him each day, it's what we want. Seems to me it ought to be easier, but... life.

Life.

Somehow that word is always our excuse.

But a beautiful faith-filled, honey-dripping life is what we're after, and it is found at dawn.

When we rush past the quiet morning moments and into demanding days, we are not the only ones to suffer.

The precious people in our lives bear the stretch marks of our stretched out hectic days. Hollering isn't Holy. But what else can we expect if we're not abiding, remaining, living in Him? We throw retroactive prayers up after unholy mornings that whirl past us in a haze. "Lord, forgive me. Lord, don't let me screw this family up. Lord, transform me!

But we forget that transformation isn't a retroactive wave of a magic wand - transformation takes place preemptively and prostrate. First place and foremost. Transformation into a thing of beauty starts with this sort of proactive surrender. It takes humility, on our knees and on the floor and on the offense... daily before dawn.

Because life... life is full of fragile beauty, cased in the soft skin of relationships. Our love relationship with the vine, and our love relationship with our people. We need to prostrate ourselves in the hushed and hallowed hallways of our predawn homes, or we will end up flat on the floor in tearful confession for lacking beauty come nighttime.

[Tweet "We need to prostrate ourselves in the hushed and hallowed hallways of our predawn homes, or we will end up flat on the floor in tearful confession for lacking beauty come nighttime."]

We try everything else first, don't we? Staying calm in our own strength. Arm-wrestling our way to patience and self-control. We are well-intentioned Christian Women. But the truth is simply this: Good intentions won't do a thing without Holy Spirit power backing them up. We can't push ourselves through to transformation unless we hit the floor and hit our knees first thing everyday.

Because we're going to end up there, don't you know it? On the floor. One way or another.

Don't you get tired of turning to God retroactively?

I don't want to confess my sins at the end of another long and losing mothering day. Not anymore! I'm tired of the sameness of defeat.

Shouldn't we rather start with Him? Confessing our need from the beginning, rather than ending with tear stained confessions?

You see how that works? Because either way we are going to confess Him! Either way we're Hitting the floor and either way we're confessing our need for Him. So which will it be? Proactively? Or retroactively, at the end of another defeated day?

Let's confess our need for His strength upfront, as to avoid confessing our need for forgiveness on the backside of each hard day.

I want to learn to worship God on the floor before the sunrise, before my sons rise. Because I'm going to hit the hardwood at some point today.

"...at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:10-11)

Bowed down, good and low, before the glory of God the Father.

Over-Stimulated Children - Over-Stimulated Mom

I walked into the sterile room with florescent lights, and draped an extra blanket over the top of my sleeping baby's stroller. Only four weeks old, he slept most of every day (thoughtfully preserving his strength for our midnight bonding sessions). We waited so long for the pediatrician I eventually fell asleep in the exam room's plastic blue chair, slumped over like a worn rag doll. When the doctor walked in I startled awake and smiled awkwardly. He nodded like I wasn't the first new mom to doze off waiting on him.  

Over the next ten minutes he asked me a litany of questions about how the baby was sleeping and feeding and pooping. He worked his way through a clip-board list of details and when he finished his questions (but before rousing my baby to count his fingers and toes) he asked me two surprising questions. First, he asked me if I'd yet had a date with my husband since the birth. I said no, of course, the child was only one month old after all. So he wrote me a prescription for a date night and placed it in my hand. "Take one of these a month, once a week is even better, but in the very least once a month. I'll check in on you at your son's three month check up. This is for your health. It's just one of the thing that you and your husband need to do to have a healthy marriage... therefore it's what your son needs too. And I'm his Doctor."

[Tweet "Children need their parents to date."]

Then came the Doctor's second question. "Did you hang a mobile over your baby's crib?"

"Of course."

"Does is have bright colors, flashing lights and a happy melody?" He prodded deeper, writing down my answers.

"Yes," I proudly nodded.

He then jotted down another note upon his prescription pad and handed it to me.

"Take down the mobile until your child is 9 months old."

I read it then laughed aloud, surprised.

My baby's doctor laughed with me because he was a jovial man with a loud tie, and crumbs on his mustache, then fell quiet. "Your child has had nothing exciting him for nine long months. Nothing but warm, quiet, rest. Just the right environment for a baby to grow in, don't you agree? Then suddenly their born into the bright lights of this big world and we immediately want to stimulate and entertain them constantly. But they have their whole lives ahead of them for that. How about, instead, you just give this little guy nine more peaceful months? Just nine more months of dim lights without bells and whistles? Doesn't that sound relaxing?"

Exhausted, I couldn't help but agree.

A year or two later, when my first-born was still very young and his little brother was the newborn, I read an article about the benefits and dangers of TV watching for young children. The one point that stuck with me most built upon the advice of my children's pediatrician. It spoke of over-stimulating our children's minds.  Most television shows (and gaming devices too) can over-stimulate a child because of how quick and constant the visual images change. Quick edits back and forth between scenes, color and sound flashing and popping, zooming in and zooming out, then cutting over to another exciting close-up followed by a whole new song and dance… a toddler’s eyes and brain bounce around so fast their little beings get all shook up!

And then we ask them to stay still in our laps as we read them a quiet story, sit still at the dinner table for a calm meal, remain by our side as we walk to the park, and look us in the eye when they answer our questions… but they’re still bouncing!

And we can too.

Just the way that funny old man gave me a prescription for my own health before he wrote one out for my child, I want to encourage you to protect your own body and mind from over-stimulation during this exhausting season.

[Tweet "A mom must guard her own quiet heart before she can tend to her over-stimulated children."]

Do you ever feel like your children are constantly pushing your buttons until the sirens go off and you start hollering? Their wrong behavior, constant crying, hitting, complaining, needing snacks, mess making, nap fighting… is your undoing. However, what if they’re not really trying to push your buttons at all? What if your buttons are just all stressed out because you’re over-stimulated and over-tired? Maybe your buttons are super-sensitive because they need more dark hours every day. Maybe you need some more time in a less-stimulating environment so that you can stay calm and kind and respond the right way. Maybe you’re just over-stimulated.

  Some days I bounce between my never ending to-do list – dropping older children off at school, running to the library with the littles for story-hour, then to the grocery store before naps, then home to change out another load of laundry before getting lunch and tucking the baby into bed. Coming downstairs, tripping over Legos, the preschoolers and I dive into making homemade bubbles, then we trace letters together, followed by a show so I can prep dinner and fold some clothes and make a call and wake the baby to go get the big kids from school. Then off to soccer practice, and doling out snacks for the little ones while the big ones play. Hurrying home for dinner making, with the sound of the television in the background. Dinner and devotionals at the table, but everyone’s bouncing and talking and complaining and so I get angry! Exhausted physically and emotionally. But more than anything else… I'm simply over-stimulated.

So what can be done when children need to get to school and soccer practice and you have preschoolers wanting to play and a baby needing a nap and another trip to the grocery store that must be made? How do we keep ourselves resting in quiet spaces, when there aren't any? No quiet. No space? We must make some, carve out and protect it.

Three ways to cultivate quiet hearts in the over-stimulating season of motherhood

Sound -- Keep the music and the tvs turned off for most the day. That constant background hum isn't white noise, lulling us to sleep, but a static buzz crossing our signals and keeping us agitated. Want to listen to music in the car? Go for it! Want a movie with your husband after the kids go down? Enjoy it! But don't let the noise fill every crevice all day long. I'm exhausted just thinking of it.

Devices -- Our eyes and minds can bounce and grow weary just like our children's. Close your laptop and set down your phone. Try not to look at a screen in the first 30 minutes of waking, or for at least 30 minutes before you close your eyes for the night. The images flash and stimulate your brain... But you need deep sleep so that you can be ready to love your people again fresh tomorrow. So power off and sleep well.

Quiet Time with the Lord -- Just as our children need a break from fast-paced images, the constant going, sights and sounds, entertainment and consumption, and learn to simply rest in the quiet of their rooms for a little while each day… so do we. The opposite of over-stimulated is resting. Rest. Be still and know the Prince of Peace. Peace is where a soul can grow into maturity. Therefore, daily, purposefully find time and space to meet with Him, talk with Him, and hear from Him. He brings us down, swaddles us tight, and removes the mobile from our ever moving lives.

When our children get over-stimulated they can be little terrors, no doubt. But when we are over-stimulated, agitated on the inside, we can be the most terrible of all. Therefore, we must learn to find balance in the quiet places of our faith lives, though our family lives are busy. We must learn to cultivate quiet spaces in our daily routines without the constant buzz of podcasts and Pandora. We must turn off the stimulating mobiles, ever spinning over our heads and hyping us up. Without the peace and quiet we simply continue to bounce and explode. Like bullets ricocheted between two over-stimulated toddlers. But we're the adults, and our toddlers need us calm.

Let us learn with our children to turn off the background music, the devices, and the car… and be home… and be still… and be calm.

---

This blog post is part of a series written for moms who struggle with anger in their homes, with their young children. We're currently talking our way through the most common TRIGGERS that set us off. Join the conversation on the private Facebook page, "No More Angry MOB".

Noise and Boys and Noisy Boys... and boys who make noise

Just the other day I snapped this picture of my eldest son in our family room, and remembered how I had planned to decorate that wall this summer. But the time got away somehow, and I'm still left with all that white space.

When I pick up a home decorating magazine in the checkout line, or scroll through Instagram, I suddenly feel this overwhelming urge to frame pictures and buy mirrors, hanging them all together in some eclectic pattern that compliments our LOUD orange couch and ragamuffin boys.

Only... all that white space feels calming in a home full of rough and tumble sons rolling pell-mell out of bed and straight into conflict and loud happy sounds each day. So much noise. Noise and boys and noisy boys assail my sensibilities from Son up til Son down. And smack dab in the middle of the cacophony I can't bring myself to decorate those white walls - because I need space to breath.

Do you know what all that empty space says about me? I need a lot of white space. A LOT of white space! Quiet lovely white spaces that feel like white noise... when there isn't any of that. Walls without tons of color and countertops without tons of clutter.

Which is why all the noise that comes with boys feels like stress on each and every nerve. Because I experience beauty and comfort in the empty spaces. Always have - I can see that looking back now. How I couldn't have a roommate in college because I needed long stretches of quiet. But that's not possible today, because these little roommates are my children! Though I function best in the quiet, and love clutter free places... I have boys.

I'm sure there are hundreds of lists compiled by hundreds of boymoms about where to go to refresh in sweet quiet, as to cope with all that boy-noise. But today I'm curious what God's Word would have me do. Though we admonish one another to get-away and find some peace, today I want to know where His Word would send me to find it. What Scriptures would best guide me through the labyrinth of LOUD? What passages can lead me amidst the constant rowdy soundtrack of my days in search of peace?

And so, if your trigger to feeling overwhelmed in this mothering life is the ceaseless noise there in your home and in your car, at Target, on the way to church, and everywhere you go when they come too... When what you lack is quiet, causing you to explode, then let's consider together where God tells us our peace can best be found... "For He Himself is our peace..." (Ephesians 2:14a)

In Him.

"Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me." And the fruit that we desperately desire when we feel chaos pressing in through our ears, in through our feminine pores, from all the rambunctious boy sounds is peace. "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. (Galatians 5:22-23)

In Him.

Abiding in Him is the only white space that can ever truly bring our blood pressure down and still the quaking in our overwhelmed souls. Though a mani/pedi sounds divine, "Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you." (John 14:27) "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."(John 16:33)

In Him.

I'm stringing these verses together believing they just might be the answer for some of us. For those of us who can't seem to cope with all the noise that just won't stop.

In Him.

And so instead of a list of where to go, let's consider together when to go... to Him... for He is the peace in our days... the space when space is tight... the quiet Spirit to our loud life. Consider with me when and how to run to Him, abide in Him, find our stabilizing peace in Him, during the crazy making days raising boys who make noise, raising noisy boys.

In the morning - come to Him.

Open up His Word - sanctified in Him.

Over your coffee - turn to Him.

Cuddling close during naps - speak of Him.

Over snacks - thanking Him.

Making dinner - praising Him.

Correcting loud conflicts - even then, with Him.

Oh I pray this feels practical and not elusive, because He is real and ready to hold you when you start to shake within and without. And the more often you turn to Him in your explosive moments, the more His peace will become you so that those moments don't happen near so much. What I'm saying is... turn to Him so often, that you end up looking at Him all the time!

Remain all day "In Him" - and He will remain all day "In you" and you will bear this fruit of peace, though the mountains seem to rattle and shake beneath your feet and your heart grows wearier than you think you can bear. Remain. In. Him. Press into Him. Refuse to leave Him. And then, having done everything, to stand firm. Keep standing... In Him.

In Him.

---

This post was inspired by a group of over 8,000 women who meet together for encouragement on a private facebook page each day. Women who struggle with mom-rage. Some of them learned it from generations of angry women before them, while others are surprised by this sin-tendency and have no one to blame but themselves - though many blame their children.

Currently, my dear friend Amber Lia and I are leading them from a series addressing 43 common triggers that threaten to send moms off the deep end. Our encouragement has very little to do with addressing the child's behavior, focusing instead on a mother's right biblical response. We'd love to have you join us. The Facebook page is hosted by The MOB Society (MOB = Mothers of boys) and is called "No More Angry MOB", and you are welcome there.