Summertime Blues - an open letter to summer

 

Dear Summer,

You started off strong, with lemonade stands and trips to the zoo. You showed off your stuff with perfect temperatures, plenty of playdates and poolside popsicles. The kids all passed out early, drained from long, fun days.

Well done, Summer!  You. Owned. June.  

Then along came July, with your soaring temperatures… and my short fuse got lit right about the fourth of July.

What happened to this laid-back pool-side mama? What have you done to me? And why can’t I find anyone’s bathing suit bottoms and swim goggles? And why are the children fighting one another and why am I fighting everyone back? And “No you can’t have another popsicle!”

Dear, sweet, much anticipated Summer, you’ve got to know what happens to us when you turn it up past 100 degrees, with 98% humidity! The children wake up disgruntled, begging to watch “one more movie” before 8am. The kiddie pool pops from the heat. THE HEAT alone does it! And the house is in a constant state of awful.

[Tweet "Sometimes a messy hot house makes a hot mess out of a mom! #triggersbook http://amzn.to/29PA04M"]

And the slip-n-slide has all but killed our grass. My husband dragged it out to the garbage can last Wednesday, with a train of crying kids in his wake.

We’re halfway through the summer, but I’m singing The Summertime Blues because it’s only 11am here and they’re all begging for an indoor playground - what with the slip-n-slide in the trash. Honestly, I thought long and hard about the indoor playground idea, but that costs $50 for 90 minutes of air conditioned fun, and with juice boxes at $4 a pop there’s no way I can say yes! Except the sound of them whining at me and fighting each other makes me think taking out a second mortgage to pay for some chilly recycled air may be worth it after all!

So here I am, Summer, standing at the sink, trying to get myself motivated to tackle these breakfast dishes before the lunchtime rush, where every one of my miniature people calls for me like a short-order cook. What’s a mom to do, Summer, answer me that!

Just this morning I got a text from a mom-friend of mine who typed out her own summertime lament!

“It’s only July and I'm already twitchy. The boys got up this morning and emptied our entire cupboard of craft supplies onto the living room floor! Content, they colored there for approximately three and a half minutes, before leaving the wreckage behind with the promise they’d “be right back.” Of course they took their creativity out onto the apartment balcony to play with chalk. Needless to say, they covered the entire patio surface with one solid piece of chalk art, then traipsed chalk foot prints all the way to the bathroom, where they swam in the tub to wash it off - because some of them looked like Braveheart with chalk on their faces! Then when I thought I could escape to my own bathroom for a moment, I tripped over the art supplies they’d left on the floor and banged my knee something awful. I went for a bag of frozen peas to help with the swelling, when I heard them yelling over an itty-bitty lego.... one tiny 4x4 Lego! I'm one eye twitch away from the crazy house people.”

You hear that, Summer? Mamas get twitchy eyes and twitchy trigger fingers too! In the heat of the moment, in the heat of the day, moms tend to explode at their kids. Complaints about boredom, incessant cries for more screentime, and their dissatisfied eye rolls cause us to react in anger rather than respond - and the guilt we feel as we lecture our way home from the beach is what we hate most of all!

We don’t mean to be mean, if you know what I mean… we’re just hot and bothered.

We started the summer with a heartfelt Halleluiah, one short month ago, and we love these little people something fierce… but we’re out of ideas, out of money, and out of patience.

Sincerely,

One Hot Mess

Are you struggling to keep cool and keep calm this summer? Join me for a SUMMERTIME TRIGGERS parenting series! Over the course of the next week I'll post three Summertimes Triggers and what we can do to keep our cool when the temperatures rise... when our temperatures rise!

I'll share my biggest summertime triggers - the things they do that make me explode like a midsummer bottle rocket! Take the challenge - and take your summer back! Sign up here to get each new article delivered directly to your email inbox.

[Tweet "Summertime Boredom, Screen-time Battles, and a new way to view all the other Summertime Triggers!"]

“Sometimes I wonder what I’m-a-gonna-do… cause there ain’t no cure for the summertime blues.”

Triggers are the things our kids do that cause us to react in anger rather than respond Gently. Instead of focusing on getting our kids' behavior under control, our focus must first be on controlling our own behavior. Just because our kids behave wrong, we must keep on doing right! Order your copy of Triggers: Exchanging Parents' Angry Reactions for Gentle Biblical Responses today.

Your Teenager Is Not Crazy - but they may trigger you something awful!

I usually invite my guests to sit with me (figuratively) on that comfy orange couch in my living room, but today's friend agreed to join me (literally) at a conference, and I was so blessed by her wisdom and fellowship I wanted to bring you into our conversation. Last week, Jerusha Clark and I shared a booth at The Great Homeschool Convention with my book, Triggers: Exchanging Parents' Angry Reactions for Gentle Biblical Responses rubbing shoulders with her most recent release, Your Teenager Is Not Crazy: Understanding Your Teen's Brain Can Make You a Better Parent.

What I learned, as we conversed with moms both separately and together, is that teenagers can be a trigger in their very own category! However, like every trigger that Amber Lia and I address in our book, the more you know about your triggers, the less likely you are to be triggered by them. Same is true for the teen who's pushing boundaries, talking back, and looking for their growing sense of autonomy and independence there in your home.

The more you understand their developing brain, the more grace and help you can offer them as they grow.

Welcome, Jerusha!

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The Biological Trigger Most Parents Don’t Even Know Exists…

by Jerusha Clark

Ever heard of mirror neurons?

Neither had I, until I started trying to understand the teenagers living in my house, that is.  Turns out, these tiny brain cells play a major role in parenting anyone from 11-25 years of age.  Yeah, they’re kind of a big deal.

God created mirror neurons to help your kids (and you!) learn by example.  They’re also crucial in developing empathy.  When you watch someone laugh hysterically, drink a cup of steaming coffee, or burst into tears, the mirror neurons in your brain fire.  Your senses vicariously participate in what you observe.  This explains, in part, why women like me cry at sappy commercials (C’mon; I know I’m not the only one!)  It also helps explain why, when your teen wigs out, you feel like wigging out, too (and vice versa.)  

While scientists are still learning about these amazing brain cells, studies suggest that when mirror neurons activate, imitation of both positive and negative behaviors occurs. In other words, your teen’s brain is constantly watching, evaluating, and reproducing your emotions and actions. Talk about evidence that parents need to model appropriate behavior! Next time you feel like blowing your top at your angry teen, take a moment to let your mirror neurons calm down (more on this later)!

My husband and I have spent several years exploring scientific research and biblical wisdom about parenting adolescents.  It’s been absolutely fascinating to witness how neuroscience is just now catching up with and proving the timeless wisdom of Scripture.  Consider this well known verse in light of what you just learned about mirror neurons:

“A gentle answer deflects anger, but harsh words make tempers flare” (Proverbs 15:1). 

God not only gives us “good advice” in the Bible; He actually designed our bodies and brains in concert with His truth.  Mirror neurons are at play when you respond to your tweens and teens. It’s wonderful and wild, isn’t it?!

I know it’s tough raising adolescents.  I’m right in the thick of it!  But I’ve got good news for all of us: we don't have to throw our hands up in defeat.  I’d love to share two practical tips for anyone who wants to move beyond “getting through” their kids’ tween and teenage years and actually thrive during this season.

• Don’t be a diversion. When you lose emotional control, adolescents divert energy to evaluating your behavior rather than their own. You don’t want this. Instead, keeping your cool forces your teenager’s feelings and the heart motives behind them to the surface. In a fascinating series of studies, researchers determined that when adolescents fixate on someone else’s emotions, their ability to process other information weakens. In other words, your angry expression and tone of voice dulls your teenager’s capacity to hear the content of your message (those powerful mirror neurons are going crazy!) If you want to have an effective conversation with your adolescent, don’t allow your emotion to distract him from what you’re communicating.

• Take ninety seconds. Social neurobiologists study how brain chemistry impacts relationships. Their research shows that emotions follow a predictable ninety-second arc. This means that any emotion you or your adolescent feels will rise and fall within ninety seconds if proverbial fuel isn’t added to the fire. Here’s the practical application: If you know your feelings aren’t under control, remove yourself from the situation. Excuse yourself to get a glass of water, go into the bathroom (even if all you do in there is silently scream), or flat-out say, “Look, I need to take ninety seconds here.” Some of you may be thinking, “That may work for others, but I’ve tried the whole counting to ten thing, and my kid just pushes and pushes.” Fair enough. This may happen, and it may happen often. Remember, however: you are the adult. Despite what a teen does, you can communicate, “I am trying to get my emotions under control, so I’m not going to talk again for two minutes.” Chances are, the first few times you say something like this, your teen or tween may be annoyed or angered. Hold your ground. After seeing you take ninety seconds a few times, your kids may start to experience the same calming sensation that comes from riding out the neurological rise and fall. In a non-combative moment, explain the biology behind your ninety-second discipline. You may be surprised at your adolescent’s reaction. Flipping out doesn’t feel good. Unbridled anger and bitterness are poisonous emotions that leave us feeling worse than when we started. Your teen or tween may see the benefit in taking time to allow the heat of emotion to pass. Ninety seconds doesn’t solve the situation, but it puts out some of the emotional flames and lays the groundwork for healthier communication.

I invite you to learn more about your adolescent’s brain, because understanding it can make you a better, gentler parent!  If you’re ready to forego those knee-jerk reactions when your teenager is acting like a teenager, check out Your Teenager Is Not Crazy, available from Baker Books at bookstores and online.

Jerusha Clark co-authored four books with her husband Jeramy, including three bestsellers, prior to launching her own writing and speaking ministry, focused on helping others glorify and enjoy God, one thought at a time.

On quiet days, you can find Jerusha body-boarding, reading, or singing around a bonfire at the beach, her absolute favorite place. Jeramy and Jerusha have two amazing teenage daughters and love ministering together at churches, retreats, schools, and conferences.

Let's talk backtalk

When your children were young, you spoke words of life into their little beings. They cooed and you cooed back. You whispered blessings over them as they slept and told them “you are SO BIG” when they were so tiny. You had no intention of ever berating your babies. Even if you yourself were raised in a home full of heated arguments, explosive and loud, you never intended to pass that legacy down. And so you sang Scripture promises and memorized the golden rule. You were proactive in using tender words and shared the old adage, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” And through it all you held great hope that your family would build each other up with lips dripping honey. But before long, the honey grew rancid, and began tasting more like vinegar on your tongue. Within only a few short years, your toddler proved defiant, difficult, and demanding—as is their job at two. And you grew angry.

Since the start of those “terrible twos,” a battle of words has raged between you and them; amongst siblings in backseats, and teenagers with backtalk. It started with simple “No, Mommy, no…” when changing diapers or serving peas, but before long, toddler lips pursed in negative words grew into loud yelling matches. And you’re plain worn out from the warring and the shame. You want to retreat, but their constant bantering sets you off faster than anything else. It’s your trigger —Kaboom! You bring out the big guns and end the skirmish with a few choice words, because your voice is the loudest.

The problem with this battle strategy is that when we attempt to discipline them with our own aggressive voices, we usurp the teachable moments. In other words, we steal the show with our own fit throwing. Think of it this way: When our children do wrong and we stay calm and controlled, they know that they’ve done wrong. They do! They know it down to their convicted little cores! There is power when we bend down, touch their shoulders, and look them in the eyes. “That wasn’t a nice thing to say; can you try again?” However, when we exchange angry words for angry words, nasty face for nasty face, slamming door for slamming door, and tear them down with our words because they tore us down with theirs, they will never feel remorse for their own actions. We have hijacked that teachable moment. It’s simple, but it’s true!

I think this is what God means in Romans 2:4: “God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance.” When we learn to parent like God parents us, out of a calm and stable sense of our own authority, our children have the holy opportunity to experience true repentance. They feel a healthy heartache over it and take ownership of their sin in the quiet spaces that we don’t demolish with our loud and constant nagging. What a gift we give them when we stay in control. What a gift they forfeit when we blow up and talk back to their backtalk.

Everyone enjoys a fitting reply; it is wonderful to say the right thing at the right time! (Proverbs 15:23 NLT)

Yelling back at them when they yell is never the right thing at the right time. And so today we are slowing down in the quiet of these words to make a plan, that we might see the moments when they backtalk not as invitations to fight, but as opportunities to lead them kindly to repentance.

Before you react, consider the right response.

I have chosen, in moments void of conflict, a few phrases to use when their words are full of venom. Words like, “Son, I know that you don’t want to fight with me. When you are ready to talk, I am ready to listen.” Of course, this doesn’t immediately quench their anger, so often I firmly tell them, “I need you to spend some time in your room so that you don’t hurt our relationship with your words. Please stay there until I come to you. Then you will have a chance to tell me what’s on your mind in a kind way.”

[Tweet "Figure out what you mean to say before you say something mean. #triggersbook"]

Of course, because they’re all amped up and ready for a fight, they often push through our gentle firewall with more back-talking reasons why they won’t go to their room. Or they go and come immediately out with equally loud reasons why they are right and I’m an ogre! But I’ve made a commitment to The Lord, to myself, and to my family to not engage in the battle any more. So I walk them back to their room and repeat myself, “I will not fight you. I will talk with you in a little bit. Please wait for me.”

In the quiet that follows, I remind myself that my children are allowed to make wrong choices; God calls this freewill. It is not my job to strangle them into submission. I am responsible to navigate my own free choices, not control theirs. I can only hold captive my own tongue, leading by example, training them to do likewise, but I cannot badger them into repentance. Lord knows I’ve tried!

Which leads me to prayer. Only the Holy Spirit can meet my children in these quiet times, convicting their hearts, and in His kindness lead them to repentance and lasting change. Moms and dads, we have the awesome privilege to pray for our children. Pray for their hearts and their words.

I have received letters from exasperated moms, confessing to actually cussing at their young children and teenagers. They are shocked by their anger and the ease with which curse words and shaming blows flow out of their hearts. Parents are desperate for change—more desperate to change their own hearts than to change their children.

Do we want to see our children obey? Of course! Are we prayerful that their words will be gentle and honoring? Absolutely. But we can’t force peace to well up within them and spill out over their lips. That’s not our job. We can only control our own tongues, as we yield to the power of the Holy Spirit at work in us.

Today’s post is an except from the new book Triggers: Exchanging Parent’s Angry Reactions for Gentle Biblical Responses. If you struggle with anger in your home from the sheer effort of it all, if you find yourself yelling at your children, I want you to know you're not alone. There's a whole army of moms and dads pursuing better, more Christlike ways to respond to their children. Join us.

When will they ever change?

A few months ago Amber Lia and I released a book entitled Triggers: Exchanging Parents' Angry Reactions for Gentle Biblical Responses. To accompany the book's launch I've been speaking at MOPS groups all over Southern California, and what I've found is that no matter what Trigger I focus on, we always come back to this main point...

The following is an except from chapter 15 of Triggers, "When will they ever change?"

Why do marriage and motherhood have to be so hard? When we got engaged, our eyes were fixed on happily ever after. Even though we vowed “in sickness and health,” the dream was health and happiness. Though we swore to love one another “for better or for worse,” we naively expected a whole lot more “better” than “worse.” The same is true when we wanted babies. Whether conceiving was as easy as your wedding night, or as difficult as a long barren season followed by a trip across the ocean to an orphanage, the idea was happiness and the completion of a dream. And the dream was good. But many women I know would describe their reality today more like a nightmare with unruly kids who simply won’t change.

Long days with three children under the age of five, with nobody taking naps; complaining about what’s been served for dinner; throwing fits at home and having meltdowns in public; and their daddy works long hours and comes home late and tired, with very little left over to contribute emotionally. You do your best to be consistent when it comes to love and discipline, believing whole-heartedly that in due season, you will reap if you do not grow weary and lose heart. And yet your heart is quivering right along with your bottom lip, because there’s still no fruit. When will they ever change?

You see other children who walk with their mother through the grocery store without begging and crying, hitting a sibling, or begging for a phone. You have friends whose children are actually pleasant to be around and can carry on a mature conversation, while yours are interrupting and whining to go home. Why were you given a loud and impulsive son, an argumentative teenager who acts like a victim, multiple children with special needs, a daughter whose fits absolutely wear you out? “Is it ever going to change? Are they ever going to change?”

Here we are, focusing on the things our children do that trigger our anger, and I just want to ask the Lord what He might have purposed and planned for our maturity in light of their childish behavior.

[Tweet "WHILE WE FOCUS ON OUR CHILDREN’S LACK OF MATURITY, GOD IS EVER FOCUSED ON MATURING US!"]

After a long day with two toddlers and a newborn babe, I drifted between waking and sleeping. The infant child at my breast was pulling slowly and I knew his swallows couldn't be rushed. In the quiet of the midnight hours I wondered when it would get easier. These words flooded my mind: “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” (James 1:2-4)

This was the Bible verse I had memorized as a child—the one I never truly understood until my own personal trials hit me hard. When I was young and spiritually immature, I knew these verses had something to do with the Refiner’s fire, perfecting us in the hot places of perseverance, but I didn’t understand why God would choose such a painful method when He could simply make it all better: fix what’s broken, heal what’s sick, cure our disease, and eradicate our problems.

In my naiveté, I wanted God to grow me up in my comfortable life, through happy little Bible studies, and in my familiar pew at church on Sunday mornings. But as I rocked and nursed, it occurred to me that God uses rough sandpaper to make His creations lovely and smooth. And I knew, after a day where I had exploded over my little one’s immaturity, that God was using their rough edges to smooth me out and soften my heart. God planned the lion’s share of my spiritual growth to be done in the fiery furnace of family life.

When I was just a newly-wed, I read the book Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas. The question he posed from the tagline on the cover was, “What if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy?”4 It was a clever question, but didn’t resonate with me at the time, as I was still euphoric in the honeymoon phase of our love affair. However, within a few short years, we had moved across the country, had three strong-willed little boys, and were both overwhelmed by the challenges of our blessed life together. There, a variation of the words from the cover of that book came back to me: What if God designed motherhood to make me holy rather than to make me happy? What a thought!

Gary Thomas went on in his book to suggest that family life was designed by God to be the laboratory where our holiness is cultivated.

Back at the beginning of my marriage, when all the young couples around us started having their first children, I would write James 1:17 on the inside of each baby shower card. “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights.” (James 1:17, NASB) It was a lovely sentiment, though I didn’t know a thing about the Lord’s precious little gifts at the time.

I do now.

12 years into this parenting marathon, I understand this Scripture a little better than I did back then. I have come to read the word “perfect” as an active verb, not a decorative adjective describing a noun. When we are pregnant, we imagine that the gift God is giving us is the child within our womb. But it turns out that that precious soul, and your marriage too, is simply a tool by which our perfecting happens. And that is the gift that The Father of lights intended from the beginning: To make us holy. That perfect gift, swaddled, is the perfecting tool that will bring us to maturity.

Our little gifts are darling little babes, complete with a sin nature and personality that tend to rub us wrong at times. God uses them like sandpaper in His tender hands. Back and forth against our spiritual lives, He rubs them purposefully, to smooth out our own sin tangles, to even out the selfish bumps, to smooth away our anger as we lean into God’s rhythmic, loving refining.

Our children are not perfect, but they are perfectly designed to perfect us into the image of Christ. Isn’t that amazing, and doesn’t it shift our single-minded focus off of their foolishness and onto our own? We need to let go of this idea of ‘perfect.’ We don’t have perfect children, perfect marriages, or perfect homes. But we do have a good and loving God who is passionate about the process of His perfecting plan in our homes. Doesn’t that give you courage to press on and endure? Knowing that He is not a hands-off God? These painful trials have not slipped through His fingers and into our lives by accident—they’ve been purposefully placed there by the King over heaven and earth. Your trials and your children were not just allowed—they were anointed. Therefore, we are blessed.

“Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.” James 1:12

Moms and dads, husbands and wives, persevere under your present trials. Surrender this maddening pursuit of perfect children, and seek how the Lord wants to perfect you in the midst of the challenges today. When will they ever change? They will change, as will you, one perfecting day at a time.

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If you struggle with feeling powerless in your anger,  desperate for God’s strength to carry you through those long, emotionally taxing mothering days, I encourage you to order a copy of Triggers.

Sometimes a messy home makes a mess out of a mom

“Without oxen a stable stays clean, but you need a strong ox for a large harvest.” (Proverbs 14:4, NIV)

Some of you married farmers. Most of us did not. Still, the imagery here is full of application for every mother in every messy home: You want a fruitful family? Then you’re going to have a messy house! You want your little people and their friends and neighborhood kids all dropping by? You want to host home group with your church friends? You want children who have the freedom to finger paint at an easel and play in backyard dirt? Then you’re going to have to deal with muddy shoes, sticky fingerprints, and careless spills.

You can wrap your mind around that concept, can’t you? And yet, the reality feels overwhelming in your day-in and day-out lives as dishes and laundry pile up. Your husband is working out of town again this week, so the load falls squarely on your shoulders. You set a plan in place, how you’re going to get it done after you tuck your children in bed for the night. All eleven loads of laundry are piled in a wrinkled mound upon your bed, and you have vowed to get every last piece of it folded and put away before you hit the sack! Except the youngest keeps coming out crying about “scary thoughts,” and the oldest has leg cramps, and your husband texts, asking you to send him the phone number he scribbled on a scrap of paper three weeks ago that he’s sure is on the back, right-hand corner of his desk. So you snap!

Messy homes are many women’s triggers. And the problem is that as soon as we soothe our twitchy tendency by getting the place cleaned up, it’s shot to pieces all over again—along with our nerves!

Does a messy home make a mess out of you?

Here’s how it looks in our family: Our weekly routine is that the children all lend a hand and get their bedrooms and the family room picked up on Sunday nights, so that we’re ready for a new week. Then it’s off to bed and out the door in a hurry come morning. Needless to say, Monday is my happy, peaceful day. Except, within 18 seconds of getting home from school that afternoon, every Lego set we own, and every superhero ever made, carpets the floor once again. And...they’re hungry! How DARE they be hungry when my stainless steal sink is so shiny and sparkly, without even a water spot? But in they come, like a herd of elephants, ripping through the pantry and grabbing granola bars, tearing off wrappers, sending pieces of their crumbly snack flying across the ground. And as I holler, “Grab a plate and eat that at the table...” another child pulls a juice box from the fridge, punches a hole in it with their straw, sending a sticky stream of kiwi-strawberry down the front of my cabinets...and I come undone. Again.

(insert screaming)

This is one of those triggers that I feel great shame over, because it’s so predictable. I ought to have figured this out...conquered it by now. The confusing problem is, this isn’t really about my house at all... my need for order in the home goes much deeper than a woman’s affection for a freshly swept floor and Windexed windows. What I’m learning about my need for a clean home is that uncluttered countertops are a tangible way to rank the control I have over my life. When I can’t control my husband’s work schedule, my children’s volume, their behavior at dinner or in their beds at night...I want to have just one aspect of my life in order. Just one. That’s all I ask!

[Tweet "WE CAN SURRENDER BIG TEARS AND BIG ANGST WHEN WE BELIEVE THAT A BIG GOD IS IN CONTROL"]

“In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind.” (Job 12:10)

Women, the application is simple. Hard, but simple. God is holding your every day in the expansive palm His hand. We are held in that hollow place beside every other thing under His sovereign control. The weight of eternity, the wars that rage around the globe, and our loved ones battling cancer. God is holding your life today, your family home today, your anxious heart today. We can surrender big tears and big angst when we believe that a big God is in control.

He is the one who has ordered your footsteps, His is the light that illuminates your path, His breath fills your being, and His Holy Spirit invites you to “be still and know” that He alone is God...even in the chaos.

Would your house be cleaner without your darling little mess makers? Would the wood floors stay shiny longer than the span of time it takes for them to dry? Would you only need to run the dishwasher (or the washing machine, for that matter) a time or two a week, rather than multiple times each day? Would your countertops and windows be free of peanut butter smudges and maple syrup fingerprints? Would you ever step again on a stray Lego in the middle of the night? Would your proverbial stable be so clean you could eat off of the floor?

Very likely.

The thing is, my dear friends with twitchy little trigger fingers, we don’t have empty stalls. Our homes are full of strong little people with strong personalities, dirty socks, and toothpaste-crusted bathroom sinks.

The farmer and the mother are both keenly aware that the harvest can only be brought in from the fields with the help of strong animals. And God knew that much of our fruitful mothering lives happen in busy, bustling homes. Our children are part of the harvest themselves, our refinement is part of the harvest, and neighborhood and school friends may be part of the harvest as well, if we are willing to swing wide the stable doors. Embrace the harvest in your home, and thank God for the strong little creatures who are with you in the field each and every day.

It’s all perspective!

This post is an except from the book, "Triggers: Exchanging Parents Angry Reactions for Gentle Biblical Responses" by Wendy Speake and Amber Lia.

If you struggle with feeling powerless in your mothering, and are desperate for God’s strength to carry you through those long, emotionally taxing, mothering days, I encourage you to dive into Triggers. Co-authored by Wendy Speake and  Amber Lia and published by BRU Press, a division of The MOB Society. Order your copy of Triggers here.