Hi, friend! I am so glad you have stopped by my little corner of the internet. I hope you’ll take some time to look around and join our wonderful community of moms here as we learn to be better moms together!
If there's anything moms have in common, it’s that we worry.
We worry about our kids. We worry for our kids. We worry we aren’t enough. We worry we aren’t doing enough. We worry we’re doing too much.
We long for peace. But we live in worry.
And not worry so much.
To be unshaken by my present circumstances and undaunted by today's challenges.
And yet here I find myself troubled in spirit and unsettled in my soul.
So you might not know that we care for my mother-in-law and that she and Dad have lived with us for the past 17 years.
And how I love her.
And how she suffers from Alzheimer's and hardly recognizes who we are anymore.
I sat in the front seat, unmoving. Goosebumps covered my body, yet I was dripping with sweat. My heart was racing and my head spinning as if I had gotten up too fast. I willed my breathing to be slow and steady. In through the nose, 2, 3, out through the mouth, 2, 3. Despite my best efforts the breaths were shaky and thin. I knew what was happening. I also knew it just had to run it's course. I was having a panic attack.
This is an in between kind of week isn't it? We're beyond the bustle of Christmas and after weeks of advent. . . all the anticipation and waiting has passed and we are looking ahead toward a new year- a fresh start. For many of us the lull brings us a chance to pause, to dream to set goals. I'm pulling out pencils and paper, journals and planners and making lists and praying about what this new year might hold.
When I'm setting new goals for the year, my heart is in it, and I begin with gusto! But as the months wear on, I often find that what I set out to accomplish is stalling, my motivation is lacking and I forget why my goals were so important in the first place.
There are two sources of inspiration for this post, and I must give credit where credit is due. The first is Ann Voskamp's post about her birthday, when she does an act of kindness for every year she's lived. Oh, that post was good.
The second inspiration is my mom, who looked at me, when I was knee-deep in anxious, no-hope living, and said, "Jessica, you are holding a mirror to your face. You're miserable, because all you see is yourself."
See, both these wise women (Ann and my mom) know the secret.
