freeMOM

Moms who are free are the best kind of moms…

Don’t just survive, live in every messy moment! 

“You can be a carefree mom!  Freedom doesn’t mean everything is always fun and perfect in your household.  On the contrary, it simply means you understand life is bigger than what your head and two hands can manage.”

Dare to dream your dreams in the midst of the mess!

Come alive.

If there were just one thing our children really needed, it’s moms who are not tied-up inside, overworked, or overwhelmed with the monotonous tasks of mom-life...in other words, they need a mom who is free!  Living in the present moment.  All the time.


Whether she works at home or outside the home, there’s no doubt in my mind of the continuous striving of moms to maintain their sanity at some point in the journey, if not their entire lives!  


I’ve only been a mom for three and a half years now, although it feels like so much longer than that!  I left my lifelong dream of being a teacher to stay at home when my first child was 11 months-old.  I didn't really choose that, we kind of just let it happen.  It's proved to be an eye-opener.  Today, I have two children, three and one.  Being a mom has forever changed me.  Being a great mom has become my new passion!  And what a wondrous challenge it is, with both its charming moments and colorless days.  Probably the most important lesson I’ve come to realize, and continue to fully learn and practice, is the art of freedom.  Or you could say, being ever-present with your children, with yourself, with God.  Children so desperately need this alive in their moms.  I ache to share this important lesson I’m learning with other moms on this journey.  

When so much of what we do goes unseen day-to-day, it is so easy to feel unappreciated.  For such a valuable role in life, it is a pity it goes unrecognized so much of the time.  Not only do we sometimes feel unappreciated, but also purposeless.  We don’t feel like wiping bottoms and noses is enough in this society and culture of wealth and fame.  If we stay at home, we are bombarded with guilty thoughts, as if we weren’t working because we’re not “contributing.”  What a shame!  Finally, I’m discovering how many moms, including myself, are driven by guilt.  There are so many demands and expectations placed on us by ourselves and by others, mostly unrealistic.  Demands to be a good cook, a perfect housekeeper, resourceful, creative, organized.  Expectations to home-school, to work, to stay home, to make clothes, to cook meals every night of the week, to keep kids acting perfectly in public and meet every expectation of our own.  We have too many lists to live by.  My biggest one is the one that measures what's "not enough" in me and my life.  Not only are moms ridden with guilt over not measuring up, but they also feel guilt if they want more than the “stay-at-home” life, even guilt if they want to stay at home. 

All of these feelings are enough to overwhelm moms with anxiety or drive them to depression.  As a result, they form methods of escape: coffee addictions, tv watching, planning the next vacation, novels, spending money, filling the calendar, crafting, whatever.  I dare to suggest there is another way.  


Rather than escape, find TRUE FREEDOM in your identity in Christ.  Through a real relationship with Him, find that being a mom is a part of our design, and yet it does not have to squelch our souls from truly living the life to which God calls us.    

Come up with me to a higher place than the survival mode to which so many women are driven.   It begins with a relationship with Jesus, the Author of Freedom.  He set the captives free over 2000 years ago, and He is still setting people free today.  Through the last few years, I’ve discovered that sometimes the captive can be as real as an overworked, overlooked, anxious and depressed mom feeling tied down or stuck in the never-ending cycles of her unglamorous life: dishes, laundry, carpooling, grooming, cleaning, feeding, shopping, etc.  This life can be just as much imprisoning as the villain behind bars.  That may sound extreme, but it quite possibly explains why moms are in such need these days, driven to divorce, enticed to run away, compelled to thrive with safe and legal drug addiction.  Find your purpose in the One who made you.  Keep dreaming.  Don't give up on the goals and aspirations planted in your heart.  I believe God wants to breathe this refreshment and freedom into the hearts of moms everywhere.  I said earlier that what kids need the most is not a made-up bed, perfectly-matched clothes, a tidied closet of toys, or even the recommended daily amount of veggies each and every day.  What they need is a mom who is free inside, just as they are free.  

A child needs her mom to feel free to drop the load of laundry she is desperate to finish in order to play chase around the trees outside.  A child also needs a mom who can set her son in front of a movie with his favorite snack in order to make an important phone call to a friend, guilt-free.  What?!  That’s right, children need their moms to be free and unrestricted by demands, unrealistic expectations, and false accusations we place on ourselves or put there by others.  They don’t need a perfect mom, they need a free mom who lives in the moment, not by a set of rules.  The more I talk with other moms, the more I see that the reality of this freedom in motherhood is very much dying out in this generation, while others are learning and flourishing in it.  Moms are driven to do, do, do, and give, give, give for their children.  The media gives us unrealistic generalities for moms to live by.  I want to be the voice shouting from the rooftops saying, “Just be!”  I realize that this comes easier to some than others, by nature.  But I also believe that there is power available to those who are seeking new life.  It first starts with a reconciliation with your Living Father, Yahweh.  An acceptance of salvation through faith in Jesus.  And an invitation to the Holy Spirit for His guidance and comfort.  The next step is surrounding yourself with others who are willing to get real on the path of motherhood.  This, to me, doesn’t mean coming together and incessantly complaining about temper tantrums or disconnected husbands at a neighborhood playgroup.  And it doesn’t mean getting together with your girlfriends one night while you laugh about all the ways you escape from your life you dread going back to.  No!  Freedom comes to mothers who are willing to press in to the Lord and ask for wisdom and strength.  It comes to those who share their lives with others who are in similar patterns and aren't afraid to be truthful about their lives, honest to God, honest with themselves, open and vulnerable with others.  It is found in the daily embracing of the mundane tasks that nobody is around to see, finding worth in the eyes of a Papa who sees the glory and weight of the small and insignificant.  It is found in the letting go of expectations and perfected routines of life.  And it is NOT found in giving every last ounce of yourself in unselfish devotion to your children, thus losing your identity and creativity.  So, can you let yourself off the HOOK?     


I leave you with these words, more lasting and centered than mine...

Romans 8:21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

2 Cor. 3:17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

Gal. 5:1  For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

1 Pet. 2:16  Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants1 of God.

Is. 49:9  to say to the captives, 'Come out,' and to those in darkness, 'Be free!'

Is. 61:1  The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners

Matt. 6: 25-34 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.