And A Mommy In A Pear Tree

Here’s a look at the first post from this journal, which captures what this thing is meant to be.

THE FIRST ONE

Lately I have been on a hard, beautiful, rewarding, and frustrating journey to find out who I am and how to balance my life as a musician, minister, pastor, traveler, major party-thrower and people lover with being a mommy of two little girls.

Last December my husband and I played a house concert at a home in Loveland.  I was pregnant with Emma (now 5 months), and I had just finished putting Ellie to bed in the pack n’ play in the host’s master bedroom.  I was exhausted from a day of traveling and from trying to contain my 18-month-old beauty at our host’s home for dinner.  The room was already filling up for the concert, and as I ran into the bathroom to change my shirt and slap some make-up on my face, I said to the Father, “Okay, now I’m going to try to remember the lyrics of songs and try to hear you for these folks and try not to rush through this thing.”  And so kindly, the Father told me this: that I don’t have to let go of my momminess when I’m “working,” and I don’t have to let go of my non-mommy self when I’m “mommy-ing.”  “You’re the gift,” he said so clearly in my head.  He said that what I had to give people–as little as that felt at the moment–was exactly what they needed from me that night.

So the hope for this little journal is that you moms–especially you moms who are in the midst of figuring out how the “you” you’ve always known fits into your life as a mommy–will find it, read it, and hear that same thing: you are the gift.  You have inside you everything you need to be the woman God created you to be, no matter how chaotic and tiring this season of life is.  My hope is that you will get some family love and encouragement from the things the Father has been telling me and the other women here.

As we go on, I hope you’ll comment and make yourselves known so we can be in it together.