Taking Faithful Steps in the Uncertain

About four years ago, Tony and I sat down for a breakfast out together and made a list of life goals. On that list was a goal for me to pursue a masters in counseling. I was never really sure I would ever achieve it but I took one faithful step, then another, trying to trust God even when I felt uncertain. There were so many questions and challenges: the first step was choosing a school that worked with my schedule, then applying, then hey I got in!, then how will we pay for this?, then it was figuring out how to squeeze in attempting to take masters level courses while teaching and coaching full time... there were some days I was juggling practice and games and grading papers and writing my own papers and taking my own exams.... then we got pregnant and it was how do I do this while trying to be a loving and available mom... how do I do this with little sleep and energy... then it was how will I find someone to watch baby while I go to my counseling internship... and now here we are.... I am in my last internship semester (my last out of five total internship semesters) and about to take my Counselor Preparation Comprehensive Exam (CPCE) in March.

My internship experiences have been quite the ride from working with families of children who have autism to working with teen boys who have committed sexual crimes to my dream now of working with teen girls. I have learned SO many truths that have radically changed the way I view and think about myself and others. 

Two things I know are true:

1) I can do nothing apart from Christ. God has provided every single step of the way... that has been so, so clear to me and all I have is given to me by God to be used for Him. 

2) I can do nothing without my community. So many people have encouraged me when I wanted to give up and reminded me of my purpose and my goals. My community has been so gracious in watching Jemma (Auntie Holls, “Auntie” Lauries, Grammy, and so many others) so I can learn more and help others, in asking me how I am doing and checking on me, in allowing me to vent or explore or ask questions or share. I don’t know all the answers... I don’t know what it might look like to continue counseling others and have a family... I don’t know how all this will work... I never have. But I do know that God is good and trustworthy and that the more I learn, the more I love sharing what I am learning to help others. 

If you want to join me you can pray for 3 things:

1. that I will pass my CPCE exam in March

2. that I will have continued patience to finish my last semester strong to love on some teen girls in a group home (a lot of whom have some major abuse or trauma in their past and like to cuss or slam things or scream at me sometimes... but then sometimes we have incredible days that make it all worth it!). I love these girls and I know God has placed me with them and at this internship.

3. that God would get ALL the glory and the gospel would be made known and shared as I counsel others... God is who made all of this happen anyway and where all TRUTH comes from in the first place and I am so thankful.

Here is my encouragement to anyone reading: take those steps in the uncertain. I started off not knowing where pursuing this would lead me and I still don't. But I do know that through taking those steps in the uncertainty, I have learned so much and seen God provide.

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Choose the Better Thing

Lately I have been reflecting on how hard it is to be present, fully and completely in the moments God has for you. While pregnant and toting my babe around, I heard a lot of people say: "enjoy this, it goes by fast" more than any other phrase. My brother in law recently told me to enjoy even the hard moments, the moments where you are so tired all you want is for your kids to be in bed and time to yourself because before you know it they will be in bed and the day is over and your time with them is over. Those little moments make up each day that make up their life that make up the years of your lives. Man, how true that is. That really sunk in. So how do we choose to be present, how can we choose to be "enjoying" each season?

God recently put a phrase on my heart: "choose the better thing". Most of my days currently are made up of diapers and bottles and rocking and my part time work with younglife and my online class and internship for counseling. Sometimes in those few and far between moments where I have a quiet moment for "myself" I think how do I want to spend this time? I find myself often on Facebook or Instagram or Pinterest looking at others lives sometimes wishing things were different about mine. Or sometimes I plan my future life, like how I want some big amazing beautiful house to be when we could someday afford it. 

I love to dream but sometimes I find myself thinking that the future or life of someone else I am pining over is better, that somehow if I had what they had I would be happier, more fulfilled, complete. 

What a sad way to live. As I reflect on this, it becomes clear that if I live like this, I will spend most of my life thinking that some time in the future or thing or different situation will be the best part of my life. What if we lived as if the best part of our life was right now, each day, each second, minute, hour, day, year? I am realizing that each day is a gift of time, straight from the hand of God and no day is guaranteed. 

I want to live a life where I believe each day is the best it can be, that there is no "better" that will make me happier. I want to choose the better things which are the eternal things. I know the truth that no different circumstance or house or job or material thing will complete me. Only Christ can do that. I want to spend my time dwelling on the eternal things: how to parent my kids towards Christ, how to get into God's Word, how to serve and love others around me. I don't want my thoughts to be about things I don't have or material things I want or how my life could be different. The truth is that God has given me an abundance of blessing if I have the eyes to see it. I don't need the next newest thing at target or someone to come and do the show fixer upper at my house or my kids or I to have brand name clothes. What I need is to allow Christ to clean up and around my heart. My soul is eternal but the circumstances and material things of this life are not. I want to "choose the better thing": Time spent learning how to love and parent my kids well, time in scripture, time with my husband and thinking of how to love him well versus time spent staring at pictures of others on social media or dwelling on homes or things I wish I had. 

I know from reading the Old Testament that one of the biggest lessons that God wanted the Israelites to learn was to remember, remember what He has done. God said hey write it on your doorpost, write it on your forehead if you need to, but just stop forgetting what I have done. (My rephrasing). 

^"Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates." Deuteronomy 6: 4-9

 

But the Israelites didn't. They constantly forgot what God did and didn't trust him. At this point, I could go on a tangent about how important it is to trust God and remember how He has gotten you through hard times in the past and will in the future. But mostly I bring up this verse because I think sometimes the lessons I learn need to be visualized, put in a place where I can be reminded of God and His goodness. My husband and I heard once about an "ebenezer" where up on the mantel or a visual place in the house, a family put things up that would help remind them of what God had done in their life. For example, they once had both cars broken and someone let them borrow a car for a long time until they could afford to fix theirs. Or maybe a child was sick and the hospital bracelet is up on the mantel to remind them of God seeing them through. Maybe you aren't sure how God is working through pain in your life but you know He is good. 

Anyway, I love this idea. I don't know what this looks like in my life but I do know that I want to remember that God is good, that each day is a gift, and that I want to choose the eternal things, which are the better things to reflect on each day. Maybe I need to freaking tattoo it on my forehead. Maybe I just need to silently choose it. Maybe I need to paint a big sign for my house with that message. But mostly I want to choose, to actively choose the better things and to truly believe and know that they are the better things. Thank you Lord for the better things. And thank you for your grace when I forget that that they are indeed better.

“Come, all you who are thirsty,
    come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
    come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
    without money and without cost.

Why spend money on what is not bread,
    and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
    and you will delight in the richest of fare.

Give ear and come to me;
    listen, that you may live.
I will make an everlasting covenant with you,
    my faithful love promised to David.

See, I have made him a witness to the peoples,
    a ruler and commander of the peoples.

Surely you will summon nations you know not,
    and nations you do not know will come running to you,
because of the Lord your God,
    the Holy One of Israel,
    for he has endowed you with splendor.” 

Isaiah 55:1-5 

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To all moms, future moms, or anyone trying to make sense of what’s important in a world full of big opinions

It’s been awhile since I have updated the blog. Since I have last written, Tony and I welcomed our little girl, Jemma Ruth Luiken. Needless to say, a LOT and I mean A LOT A LOT has gone down in my heart and learning since I last wrote (almost six months ago!).

Is parenting hard? Yes. Is it worth it? A thousand times yes. I think the number one thing parenting has taught me is my selfishness. Before I had Jemma, I thought that giving up my time/ agenda/ priorities would be easy. I think I thought oh my gosh how can moms who stay at home complain they have all this time on their hands. But man does a baby take up so much more time than I realized. And it always seems like the times I want to be the most productive are the times little girl has other ideas in mind. God is teaching me to let go of my to do list and cherish these times with my girl. Hold her, love her. Let go of my need to check off the boxes for my day and just smell her baby smell and sit and snuggle. I heard the other day that your work as a parent is eternal work but your jobs/ to do list/ clean or not house will come and go. So true. I want my girl to know how much I love her and that she is forever more important to me than any task I could accomplish.

Something else I am learning through parenting? Man the comparison game hits you hard. I thought I would handle all the opinions because I like to think of myself as a person who is not afraid to share what I think. But as soon as you get pregnant, it’s like everyone feels like they need to share everything they ever learned about parenting. It gets worse when you get bigger pregnant because you become a visual conversation piece. I would walk into a room and people would see that I was pregnant and they would just start sharing labor and delivery stories and breastfeeding stories, etc, etc.

When I would drink coffee while pregnant, people felt the need to share they didn’t think that was best (even if I was drinking decaf). People would ask about whether I was  going to deliver natural or epidural, was I going to breastfeed or formula feed, what kind of toys/ gadgets would I get. The mom game is full of questions like sound machine or no sound machine, vaccines or no vaccines, day care or stay at home, co sleeping or separate crib, pacifier or no pacifier and man the list just goes on. And I know it doesn’t get any easier because then your kids get older and you start worrying about how they are doing compared to other kiddos developmentally and how they are eating solids and what time to put them to bed (and man things like who they are going to marry, their career, oh boy!).

Recently, I have been podcasting and it has been SO GOOD. I highly recommend the podcast Risen Motherhood for all mamas. It has been rocking my world and reminding me of the gospel BIG TIME through all this madness. Podcasting has been a huge blessing as a mom of a little because you can listen to it while you are feeding, cleaning bottles, cleaning dishes, changing diapers, walking with the stroller. You can get little tidbits of truth and nuggets for conversations. I used to try to watch TV while feeding and I quickly found that it left me feeling empty. I am loving the podcasts that are full of the rich depth of the gospel and help center my heart on the Lord.

Anyway, back to the comparison game. The biggest truth I have been learning is just that the best thing we can focus on and teach our kiddos about is Christ. If all we think about/ worry about/ talk about during the day is our gluten free diet or why we like vaccines or why breastfeeding is better or why the sound machine is better, then we have MISSED the big stuff. We should be focusing on pointing our kids to Christ. Letting our hearts and our minds rest in the truth of God’s Word and letting our kids see that we care most about the eternal things. We can ask ourselves: “Am I constantly talking about ________? Do I try to convince others to do ___________? Do I judge others who don’t do _________ or do __________?" If so, I probably have the sin of pride and arrogance going on in my heart. Those things are probably idols in our hearts. Anything that we are allowing our hearts and minds to continually dwell on that is NOT Christ is an idol. We can ask ourselves: What do we value? One way to recognize this is to see how we react when something is taken away. What happens when the sound machine doesn’t work, how do we react when someone accidently feeds our child a food not on our diet or how do I react when I don’t get the time I wanted during nap time? Do I melt down and have a fit? If so, these are things I probably need to give to the Lord.

All of the above are just examples. The point is there is no one way that is better. I am learning to give the moms around me grace. To love the difference moms have and embrace them for who they are. And I can ABSOLUTELY tell you that came from the Lord. Before the Lord worked on that in my heart, I can tell you that I definitely had an opinion about how I thought parenting should go. I had this idea of how it all should go down and I felt very self righteous about my opinions. But now, I still have the ideas I have about what I think is best but I am flexible. I am open. I listen. I recognize that it is OKAY if a mom has a different opinion than me and there is no need for me to convince her that my way is right. I am understanding to other moms and I do my best to not judge them. I remind myself that the best mom is not the one who uses a sound machine or breastfeeds or stays at home or whatever you fill in the blank. The best mom we can be is a mom who recognizes that she is not perfect and points her kiddos to the one who is (Christ!). And the best friend to moms I can be is one who doesn’t judge another mom but instead listens, encourages, and points other moms back to Christ. And that is what this post is for. Just to say, hey if you are a mom, what a gift!! Use that gift for the Lord. Point that baby (no matter how old) to the Lord. Remind yourself that it is good for your kids to see that you are not perfect because that teaches them about the gospel which is that we aren’t perfect but are in need of a savior! This truth is rocking my world lately. I am continually finding myself pointing my thoughts back to this truth, trying to dwell on it. And maybe I can encourage whoever is reading to dwell on it too.  

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