Moms, love yourself like your kids do!

Dear Moms,

 

Love yourself like your kids love You. Unconditionally. Without reserve, without hesitation for how your hair looks, if You have last nights make up on or if You are still in your pjs because today is hard.  Love yourself from all angles too, not just the Instagram perfect angle with the filter but the naked in front of the mirror natural truth of how You look. It’s important to accept ourselves for how we look now, accept that there are somethings we just can’t change, our height, bone structure etc, but there are some things we can change. I believe a large part that needs to change is our attitude towards ourselves. I have a daughter who I want to grow up with a positive self esteem and that starts with me. What does she see when I’m getting ready, a mom who is critical of her body or a mom who is being complementary towards herself?

 

It may not be in actual words that she hears me but my actions. Do I often look like I don’t care how I look? Do I take time to do my hair, even if all I can do is wash it and brush it. Does she see me put on my make up not to hide flaws but to highlight the beauty that God created me to be? I have to be honest, body image issues has never really been “my thing”, weird I know! I grew up with a Mom who was confident in who she was.  I grew up to know my beauty wasn’t found in how I look, but how I treat others. This doesn’t mean that if You grew with the same type of atmosphere that you too wont have issues but for me, that’s how it was. I also grew up with a physical deformity, You can call it, where in my early 20s I had to have reconstructive surgery to fix the abnormality. So I’m sure that helped me to get over my body image issues.

Now, like I said body image issues havn’t been a big deal in my life until recently.  Why Now God?! I thought that as I got older I would become even more confident not go backwards. So much so, that I was getting ready for Church the other day, I texted a good friend. It wrote something like,  I have my 1st shift in a new ministry and I cant stand how my clothes look on me! She was so kind to say You’re stunning and I am sure You look amazing! If only that made all my yucky feels about myself go away.

 

I left the house feeling like I wanted to hide, that everything was way too tight and I looked awful. How can they be OK with me looking this way, to be a greeter as people come into Church, I mean have they seen how I look?! I choose to walk in the confidence of who God says I am, instead of how I was feeling. I am fearfully and wonderfully made, even though I wasn’t “feeling” like that. I just love how God brings people along in Your life to let You know He hears You. As I was getting ready and beating myself up mentally I thought…”Sarah” hasn’t said a thing to me lately about how I look but when I was loosing weight (I put on 10 lbs of the 30 I lost) it was weekly and now I haven’t heard a thing in months. Well doesn’t “Sarah” pass me, say Hi, and goes on her way. Only to circle back a few minutes later, hugs me as if she knew what I was thinking and says You look fantastic tonight! I wanted to cry!!! Not cause she made me feel amazing but because God cares even about my bad moment of body image issues. He loves to go above and beyond cause I had 3 other people complement me that night. That night highlighted a few things to me. (1) I depend on people’s complements to determine how I feel about myself more then I thought. (2) Clearly I have some self love that I need to work on. (3) Contentment needs to be found in the process, cause that’s what I am in, a process. A process of learning and unlearning things. A process of going from not caring to caring and a process of accepting my mistakes and loving myself like my kids do. My husband DAILY, many times a day, tells me how beautiful I am. I should be walking around with a big head lol. It shows that it goes deeper then just hearing it, You have to believe it about yourself first.

 

As moms we have enough coming at us where we can feel like we are not good enough, that our kids don’t behave well enough, that I’m not Martha Steward, or Jamie Oliver blah blah blah. We need to take a point of view from our kids who say Mama your beautiful, even from the angle of a 6 year old, not the Instagram “perfect” filter, angle, lighting, hair and make up world that we can get caught up in. So Mom’s today, love yourself a bit more like your kids do, and change how You talk to yourself cause You are fearfully and wonderfully made!

The view my 6 year old sees.  My 10 year old’s view and well, make up and filters and just the right light and angle.

 

Until next time,

 

Jen

 

 

When a dream comes true!!! Part 2 of reminders

If you are new to following me, welcome!!! I want to share a post that I put out in April 2015, because it all ties back to now. You can read it here…. 

 

So as you can tell by that one, a dream is coming true. In May I get to go to…….PARIS, FRANCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have had time to process this, but my excitement has not wavered. It has been a dream for as long as I can remember. Even now to talk about it just seems crazy and unreal. It likely won’t be until I am on the airplane that it will hit me, I”M GOING TO PARIS. I imagine it will be like when I was 30 and went to Disney World for the 1st time. Tears and disbelief that I was actually there, and not watching a movie or dreaming in any way. One of the best parts is, I get to go with one of my best friends. That’s right a girls trip to Paris, good thing we don’t drink because that sounds like a trailer for a chick flick gone bad where we end up in jail.

I remember not that long ago sitting in my living room staring at a metal Eiffel tower (that sits on my coffee table to this day) and her and I talking about how we would one day go to Paris. How we would create fun memories there and just enjoy our time taking in the sites and sounds of the city. How we wouldn’t rush but rather take time and just be present. Not to live the trip behind a lens of a camera or be super strict with a schedule. Rather sit on the lawn of the Parc du Champ de Mars with cheese, baguette and journals and just take it all in. Now don’t get me wrong we will see things, lots of things like Monet’s garden, the Louvre, the Eiffel tower both day and night and Notre Dame.

 

All this to say, YES dreams do come true! I can’t lie and say I didn’t cry when I was told that a dream I have had since I was a teen was coming to pass. Because for me there have been many dreams that have YET to be realized that I have held onto, and this was a big one. I am so thankful for the God I love and serve because He is able to go above and beyond what I could of imagined would happen. Ephesians 3:20 mentions this when Paul writes “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us…” This is just the beginning of what is to come, I can feel it. Some of those other dreams, well the Phantom of the Opera is one, its coming to Toronto in June, who knows what God has up his sleeves to make that one happen! I also have a dream to go to South Africa on a missions trip. I dream to see my Husband and I travel full time as our jobs in a ministry setting. Not every dream is just handed to you to fulfill, there is work involved. Saving money, prayer and speaking about those dreams to people who will encourage you in them and yes sometimes they are handed to you to just enjoy. So many dreams and a big God who can make it all happen. Now sometimes we have dreams and we let them die, well I say, resurrect them, bring them to a place where you can see what your dreaming about. Put reminders as encouragement and motivation around your place. That friend that I’m going with, Her and I would sit around and talk about the smell of the fresh bakery in the morning and the look of the Eiffel tower at night, get the idea? We spoke as those it already was happening, when in reality it looked like it wouldn’t for at least 20 years. Don’t ever let your dreams die because they where placed there for a reason by a God who loves you intimately, even before you know Him.

Until next time,

 

Jen

 

Reminders…Part 1

I wanted to repost this blog cause there will be a follow up to this post that originally was written and published in 2015. Cant wait to fill you in!!!!!

 

I’m a big fan of dreaming!!! I dream one day where we won’t have to save for a simple thing but just have the money. I dream big dreams, like going to Paris France. I have other big dreams of places but if I had to only choose one, Paris is what I dream of. I have figured out how much it will cost to go, I have reminders in my house and a Pintrest board. These reminders keep my dream alive and fresh.

James 1:6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind.

You may say what does a trip have to do with that scripture?! Well the truth is that I without a doubt know God is going to provide the trip. I don’t know how, or when but I believe. It may come in the way of a friend saying come along I have paid for you (I dream of my reaction, my excitement and the adventure we would have). Maybe an inheritance that causes us to afford it or maybe just maybe God has other plans as to how I will get there. I believe, just like having scripture around the house speaks to your spirit, having visual reminders around also speaks to your spirit. Mine leaps when I see reminders all around.

There is one other picture we keep around our house. That little boy in a candy shop reminds us that God is faithful and loves to give great gifts. So I go boldly before God and say, however you wish it to come I shall receive. God loves to love on us and bless us when we are faithful to Him.

This picture hangs in our living room.

Psalms 37:4 NLT
Take delight in the lord , and he will give you your heart’s desires.

This hangs on our fridge.

What are the reminders you keep around about a dream you have??

A gift that keeps on giving this year.

This holiday season was extra special or many reasons but one of the big reasons was my husband didn’t have to work on Christmas day!!! It was only the 2nd time in 6 years, Hospital life! This year I decided to go out of my comfort zone and make a gift. I had seen it on many Pintrest pins, the 365 Jar. I thought at first it would be a challenge to make but I had lots of time before Christmas so it should be a breeze, hahahahhahahaha, famous last words! So if you don’t know what a 365 Jar is, it is a Jar ( duh) that you fill with 365 different papers. You have 5 different colours which each represent a topic. So I did white for Bible scriptures, blue for memories, teal for words of encouragement, pink for quotes about love and yellow was things I love about him. Doesn’t sound so bad does it?, until you do the math. Each colour topic has to have 73 papers with it. SO 73 things I love about him, 73 memories etc. It was hard towards the end cause I felt like I was running out of memories or like I was repeating love quotes. Thankfully there are over 100 scriptures about love!

My love language is gifts, so I find it super fun and easy to buy gifts for others. (If you haven’t heard of the 5 Love Languages Google it, they also have one for kids) My husband on the other hand is physical affection and words of encouragement. So I knew this gift would just hit him in the emotions, and it did! I got the reaction I was expecting, tears! I know, how mean of me to expect tears but sometimes that’s how I measure how “good” a gift is. So for Mark to have his own jar I knew would mean a lot to him. A whole year of words that mean something to him. Each day it’s super fun to see what one gets pulled out of the jar. Some we share with the kids and others not so much because those memories are better kept just between us. I tried to make it as much of “me” as possible by throwing in some funny things and just as much of him by putting in super mushy things.

I had to dig deep to make sure this project got completed. When it came to memories it was super fun to go and look at old photos, Facebook posts and memories from our times together. 14 years is a lot of memories to try and record. It was fun to relive in my memory some of the old memories such as our 1st house. How excited I was to sleep in our 1st house that we bought together that I insisted we sleep on our hardwood floors the night before we moved all our furniture into the house. It wasn’t a great sleep but its a special memory we have. Telling him 73 reasons why I love him, such as, now this is very me…kills bugs!!!! Scriptures to encourage him like Lamentations 3:22-26 and my favorite love quotes. This one I laughed at and he felt the need to share with a close friend who is sensitive like him. “I might not be your 1st kiss, 1st love or 1st date but I want to be your last everything”. Thanks to Pintrest for that one! I just laugh when he reads it but it truly warms his heart. Its funny thought, cause I love Nicholas Sparks films, the girly of the girly films but to live it out, not so much.

 

I am so happy that I choose to take on this challenge because it’s easy to buy a gift, but one that is made especially from such a big project I feel speaks way more to the receiver. This gift I know will be something that He will treasure for years to come. It is a type of gift that our kids will remember in years to come. It is a type of gift that on hard days it will be a light in the darkness. The type of gift that goes beyond this year.  So with the start of a New Year, Birthdays come up and we all know how quickly Christmas can creep up, start thinking about a gift that goes beyond a store and dig a little deeper. I’m already thinking of this years gift!

That’s what 365 papers all written out look like. I seen 3 am, 2 days in a row to make sure it got completed. It was a photo finish!

 

Until next time,

 

Jen