3 Truths About Christian Community

The desire to connect with others consumed my thoughts as I played with my toddler at our apartment’s playground late one summer afternoon. My prayers had consisted of pleas for God to provide community in a big city where I had no family or friends. I was desperate for meaningful relationships and to be known.

A mother pushing a stroller stopped in front of the fence and interrupted my musing. Her brown hair was pulled up in a loose bun. The bags under her eyes revealed she was a parent of a newborn.

“Hi! Do you live in this apartment?” the woman asked. I nodded. “That’s great. I live across the street.”

And within minutes, I met one of my closest Christian friends for the next four years in that city. Together we connected with other Christian moms in the neighborhood. Though we all had varying denominational backgrounds, we formed a weekly small group. God provided what I had longed for in a new place––a circle of women who truly knew me in the trenches of parenting little ones.

But sometimes community involves struggle. Having moved more than I care to admit, I’ve experienced times when Christian friendships were a battle to build. Sometimes community looked nothing like I had imagined, but was worth the effort. Here are three truths I’ve learned about Christian community over the years.

Read the rest of the article on Christian Parenting.

God's Nearness in Pain

The international church service was vibrant with voices lifted up in songs of praise. Many clapped their hands and some even danced before God. But I wanted to be invisible. Joy felt like a land depicted in a fairy tale. I had returned from the hospital yesterday—a surgery to remove the baby who had died in my womb. Watching this church buzz with happiness unearthed my fragileness.

I slouched in my chair and closed my eyes. Tears trickled down my freckled face. My mind knew that God was in control, but my heart ached as yet another thing I had hoped for dried up like an autumn leaf.

God it hurts so much. I can’t stand up and sing.

My Savior’s words were a balm to my heart: Oh dear one, I’m not asking you to shout for joy. But taste my goodness even in your sorrow.

The Lord wasn’t ignoring my pain, but pointing toward his steadfast goodness even when I didn’t have the capacity to vocalize praise.

As silent tears adorned my cheeks, I rested in his presence—even when I couldn’t make sense of the pain.

I cry out to God Most High, to God who fulfills his purpose for me. (Psalm 57:2)

I clung to Jesus as my grief raged like a blizzard in the Midwest. The pain was relentless, leaving me in a dark place at times. But I wasn’t abandoned. When bitterness and sorrow filled my cup, I sipped God’s goodness in his faithful presence. He never left me, but held me close as I mourned.

Read the rest of this article on Her View From Home.

3 Simple Goals During the Baby Years

I’m jolted awake to the sound of my newborn crying. How can something that seems so natural—sleep—be so complicated for this little one? And yet I find myself on an endless two and a half hour cycle—breastfeed, burp, change a diaper, sleep. Repeat. Again. And again.

I’ve never done well without proper rest. Even in college I was the one who preferred good sleep over staying up into the wee hours of the morning. And yet here I was. Sleep-deprived and unsure how I would survive this newborn phase. With exhaustion as my constant companion and an infant in my arms at any hour of the day, how on earth would I find any sense of normalcy?

Stepping into motherhood is a daunting endeavor. And while nothing can prepare us for the transition, knowing many mothers just like us have blazed the parenting trail ahead can spur hope that one day we will sleep a full night again.

As I navigated the new terrain as a mom, I was forced to reconfigure how I did everything. If this baby I cradled in my arms couldn’t survive without me, then I had to adapt my former life rhythms to this new season of life. I needed to revise what I defined as a productive day while I cared for an infant. Because, for now, gone were the days where I possessed ample energy to tackle whatever long to-do list I’d crafted for that particular day.

REDEFINING DAILY GOALS WHILE RAISING A BABY

What I needed to stay healthy during this intense, yet beautiful season of sustaining and nurturing the life of a little one boiled down to three priorities for me.

First, spending time with God was essential. Even though it no longer looked like what it used to and I could barely focus as I read Scripture, I would fight for these intentional moments with Jesus. And God met me in my exhaustion and refreshed my weary soul. I didn’t need an hour of silence but a commitment to get focused time on Scripture—even if it was while breastfeeding.

Second, once my body had healed from delivery and my doctor gave her stamp of approval, I started to work out again. I could no longer find time to work out for extended time periods, but I could exercise for 20 minutes during an afternoon nap. And so I did. Sometimes that didn’t pan out but sometimes it did.

Third, taking a shower pressed the reset button for me. While my days often blurred together during the tired baby phase, taking a shower signaled a new, fresh beginning—even if this transpired well beyond morning hours. Maybe I wouldn’t step outside the doors of my apartment that day—or maybe I would—but either way, I was taking care of a basic need. Sometimes tears mingled with water from the shower, but somehow those showers helped recharge me for the day ahead after a long night of caring for an infant.

Each day I strived to meet these three goals: connect with God, get physical exercise, and take a shower. And while these felt like odd new standards to adapt to, they served as tangible targets to guide my daily rhythms and help keep me healthy physically and spiritually. 

Motherhood is messy yet wonderful. When we keep our goals realistic and focused on what we need each day, we can meet the days ahead knowing we are prioritizing what was necessary to keep caring for our little bundles of joy.

As our babies grow, so can our goals. But matching realistic goals with the current season we find ourselves in can be useful so we didn’t overextend ourselves. Raising a child is not for the faint of heart. But as C.S. Lewis says, "Children are not a distraction from more important work. They are the most important work."

THROUGH LOSS: PREGNANCY AND INFANT LOSS AWARENESS MONTH

Some moments remain forever etched in our memories.

No matter how much time passes, I can slip back into a significant event in my life in a split-second—even if I'm sitting in the driver's seat of my car on the way home from the kids' soccer games. Seven years of distance failed to erase the clarity of the tragic moment that rose to the surface on that day.

I was still living overseas at the time, expecting our second child. Everything was sailing along smoothly when I showed up for my 13-week OBGYN appointment. This was the first time my husband hadn’t come along for the appointment, but we had no reason to expect bad news.

Everything about the visit felt normal. But in a blink of an eye, before my OBGYN could utter the words, I knew something was wrong. Her body tensed. Silence filled the room as she moved the ultrasound transducer over my stomach. She looked down at the floor.

I propped myself up on an elbow. “What’s wrong?” My heart pounded as panic seized control.

When she lifted her brown eyes, sadness greeted me.

How could anything be wrong? I felt fine. There was no bleeding.

“Jenny,” my doctor began, “there’s no heartbeat.”

My mind raced to decipher her words. No heartbeat? Why wouldn’t there be a heartbeat? And then the weight of her words plummeted into my heart. I no longer carried a living baby.

“It’s called a missed miscarriage,” she explained. “I’m so sorry.”

The room whirled around me. Sobs crested in my chest before crashing out audibly into the sterile room. The coolness of the silver exam table on my skin. The glint of the fluorescent lights on the medical tools. The white gown I donned. This was not a place designed to comfort—the irony augmented my confusion and pain. And in those disorientating moments of grief, one thought drifted through my mind: God, why did you let me be alone to face this news?

My doctor led me to a private room to stay in as long as I needed. But the shame of my secret was written across my tear-stained face as I exited the exam room. Twenty minutes earlier I had entered that same door pregnant. But now, as I stumbled out, was not.

Women—strangers—in the waiting area likely heard my sobs and knew precisely what news I was told before I could tell one person who knew and loved me. God, why this way? I felt so alone. And I couldn’t stop weeping.

THROUGH LOSS

One out of five women will experience a miscarriage in their second trimester (this number increases to one in four if widened to include miscarriage at any point during pregnancy). This means when a group of 15 women meet up for a weekly moms group, at least three women will have walked through miscarriage.

In American culture, some women wait to share their pregnancy news until the second trimester. When hardly anyone knows about the loss, women can feel isolated and alone as they walk through intense sorrow.

Discussing miscarriage has been a slightly taboo conversation within the church. While a positive trend to change this is in motion, it still can feel as though miscarriage is meant to be kept private. And this can augment the pain and isolation of hurting women.

The month of October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month. It’s a time for women to share their experiences as they navigate the loss of a child. In openly talking about their journey, women help bring discussion about miscarriage from the back burner to the front. This road of healing from pregnancy and infant loss is not meant to be traveled alone—and October is a chance to vocalize this truth.

CLINGING TO JESUS

As I waded through the tides of my pain and sorrow after the news of my missed miscarriage, numbness encased my heart like frost. I didn’t know how to make the pain stop. But I knew whose arms I could run into. Jesus embraced me as darkness enveloped me, and He extended a candle to help me along the shadowy path of grief.

In Psalm 62, God met me in the depths of my sorrow and offered healing. He melted the frost away slowly—just as you need to do for frostbite. More damage can occur if you try to warm your hands too swiftly after frostbite. And so it was with my heart as I grieved.

While I carried a dead child in my womb, I recalled how “He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken” (v. 2). As I waited for my body to expel the fetus, I mulled over how for “God alone my soul waits in silence” (v. 1). When I underwent a dilation and curettage, knowing that “God is a refuge for [me]” (v. 8) was a balm for my aching heart. When I was wheeled past the hospital room I held my first son in, I clung to the truth that “my hope is from Him” (v. 5).

But the verse I meditated upon the most was v. 8:

“Trust in Him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us.”

And so I poured my heart out before Him. Tears spilled onto journal pages of prayers. Hours spent listening to worship music met me in my sorrow as I couldn’t find words to utter. I could only envision myself running into a tall stone tower, slamming the heavy wooden door behind me, and crouching on the ground—for this tower was God my refuge.

As my soul waited on God, He illuminated the path forward after my miscarriage. The pain never really goes away. But I’ve learned to live with it. And the tenderness of the Lord’s love continues to sustain and remind me that I was never once alone—even in that doctor’s room so many years ago. God was there to comfort me. He knew I needed more space than I could have known to grieve. I can see it now. He carried me through that dark season because only He could bring the healing my heart and soul needed.

Women everywhere—in our neighborhoods, at our churches, and around the world—experience pregnancy and infant loss and still bear the scars of their unseen grief. As the days of October pass, we can pause this month to remember these women and pray for their hurting hearts today.

Lord, please help women experiencing pregnancy and infant loss to trust you even in pain. Bring healing to their aching hearts and souls as they pour out their hearts to you. Please help these women to cry out to you and know you are with them. Be their refuge and comfort as they walk this difficult path (Psalm 62:8). Amen.

Two Truths and a Lie About Moving

Tears stung my eyes as I stepped into our Chicago apartment. The worn hardwood floors groaned underneath my feet as I explored the empty rooms. Despite the sunny July day outside, the inside felt gloomy because neighboring buildings blocked most of the light from windows.

We had committed—sight unseen—to renting this affordable family apartment from the university for the first year of my husband’s medical school. With no air conditioning or ceiling fans, I swiped sweat from my forehead and wondered how challenging street parking would be with a toddler—whenever we bought a car.

I quieted the inner voices of family and friends who broadcasted the high crime rates of Chicago—while statistics are useful, they can also paint a one-dimensional view of complex dynamics. Everything was unfamiliar in this large Midwest city. I felt as out of place as a flower growing between the cracks on a sidewalk.

Doubt seized the moment and whispered, “How could this be God’s provision?”

Truth: God places us in our geographic locations for a purpose.

I haven’t lived anywhere for more than three years—and the past two decades have been especially full of transition. But with each international or domestic move, I marvel at how God orchestrates my location like a grand master strategically moving chess pieces. And the same is true for all of us. God has “determined allotted periods and the boundaries of [our] dwelling place” (Acts 17:26)—with all the positives and negatives each spot holds.

He moves us where he desires for whatever time period he deems right. Whether it’s pursuing a graduate degree in a sprawling city, relocating our job to a rural town, staying rooted in our hometown, or wandering around the globe—God uses it all for his purposes because he is the one who allowed it to be so.

We can trust God knows where he planted us and lean into how he wants to utilize us there for his glory. Sometimes discerning this purpose feels like summiting a mountain. Other times, it’s as natural as watching the sun rise. But wherever we land on this spectrum, God knows how many days we’ll spend in a place and the ways he will grow us into his likeness.

Read the rest of my article on Risen Motherhood.

Fostering Your Relationship with Jesus While Caring for a Newborn

I remember the day I walked out of the hospital with my first newborn son. My heart fluttered as fast as a hummingbird’s wings when I passed the nurses’ station carrying my swaddled child. My eyes darted around the hallway expecting someone to shout, “Stop right there!”

Stepping outside the walls of the hospital as a first-time mom, I was now fully responsible for this little one’s life—a  baby who could not survive without me.  I hadn’t cared for an infant before. I wasn’t sure how to be a mother—I had only become one 48 hours prior.

But no one stopped me. And like every new mom, I was thrust into a world of midnight feedings, baby burping, sink baths, and teaching an infant to do something I thought should have come naturally—sleep.

Caring for a newborn while also fostering my relationship with God were steep learning curves; being a new mother introduced me to a new season of connecting with God.

Leaning Into a New Season

In my first weeks of motherhood, I was faced with my insufficiency and weakness. The physical exhaustion from delivering a baby, the fog of not sleeping more than two hours at time, and the weight of caring for a tiny human whose crying sometimes mystified me, forced me to ceaselessly pray for God’s help. I needed His strength to make it minute-by-lonely night-minute. Tears would trickle down my face as I cried out to the Lord for the night to end and sunrise to come.

When I could peer out the living room window and catch the beginnings of the sunrise, the despair of a long night would vanish and hope would rise up within my heart. The citrus-colored sunrise would remind me of God’s faithfulness to walk alongside me in the hard moments—and that night would always give way to light.

Prior to having children, I would wake up after a full night of rest to read my Bible and pray before leaving for work.  I would sip a cup of black tea as I sprawled across our oversized chair in the solitude of our one-bedroom apartment. But when my newborn needed me every two hours and I was in survival mode, I was forced to adapt from what had been my pattern for over a decade.

At first anger sprouted in my heart. Why was my newborn preventing me from connecting meaningfully to God? But gradually, I began to recognize God was using my precious infant to commune with Him in new ways. While I missed how I used to spend time with God, I needed to embrace the life I currently possessed and navigate how to abide in Christ given my new circumstances.

Rather than demanding silence and solitude, Jesus met me in the chaos of motherhood. He wasn’t put off that I could hardly piece together a coherent thought about the passage I read while nursing or was unable to set aside the same block of time to read the Bible and pray as before.

Much like how seeds mysteriously grow, the Lord cultivated my faith in the midst of caring for a newborn. God met me where I was because His love was never contingent on polished moments together but on His faithfulness—and that was the gift of motherhood.

Read the rest of this piece at Momma Theologians.

5 Ways to Encourage Moms of Young Kids

When I was a mom of young kids, I wanted to practice hospitality more, but I was perpetually exhausted. I didn’t have the capacity to make our apartment presentable, plan and cook a meal, and clean up while still caring for two energetic boys who woke up throughout the night. But thanks to a young couple named David and Shelby, I didn’t have to.

They regularly visited our home and seamlessly wove themselves into our lives through simple acts of love: reading a bedtime story with our boys, coming to play games after the kids were asleep, bringing a meal component, or offering to babysit and then staying to chat when we returned. I eagerly received their hospitality in my own home.

Through their lives, and the lives of others in my local church, I witnessed the love of Christ while parenting little ones and it inspired me to care for others—even if their season of life didn’t match my own.

Encouraging Moms in the Church

Being a mother, especially to children under age three, can be exhausting. Moms of little ones often go days without much adult conversation and miss portions of church services to care for their children. They may struggle to find relationships beyond those with other moms and feel like all their conversations center on surviving a new parenting phase.

The Bible exhorts us to encourage one another (1 Thess. 5:11; Rom. 1:12) and not to limit that to only those in a similar season of life. The church is intended to connect across the generations (Ps. 145:4; Titus 2:3–4). Whether single, an empty nester, married without kids, or overflowing with children, you can encourage fellow believers—including young mothers. God can use seemingly mismatched life seasons to sharpen the faith of young moms as each of us step out of our own bubbles and onto the common ground of connection in Christ.

But sometimes it can be challenging to figure out how to do this well. Here are five ways you can encourage moms of young children in your church.

Read the rest of this piece on TGC.

3 WAYS TO PRAY FOR MOTHERS AROUND THE WORLD

Through bleary eyes and a foggy consciousness, I pressed the snooze button on my phone’s 5:35 a.m. alarm—again. For the past few years I had desperately wanted to wake up before my early rising boys to have time to pray more. But each attempt was thwarted. Multiple wakings at night despite being well past the baby years. Getting to bed far too late. Or like this particular morning, my boys started waking up earlier because somehow they had heard my alarm go off or their own internal clocks sensed mommy was attempting to rise before them.

Sometimes I would hit a stride of a few weeks of early morning wake-ups before it all would come crashing down.

And yet I have a desire to grow in my prayer life. I want to carve out more time to intercede on the behalf of unbelievers. Since the Bible is clear God wants all people to know him (1 Tim. 2:4) and we should lift up those outside of Christ (Rom. 10:1), I want to pray for the Holy Spirit to work in the lives of those who didn’t know Jesus yet.

After years of failed attempts, I had to admit that my plan to rise for prayer before my boys was only piling on guilt and actually hindering me from praying more. I needed to pivot. To ascertain how I could carve out more time to pray, but the plan—for me at this point—couldn’t involve getting up earlier.

FINDING TIME TO PRAY

The season of motherhood, especially with young children, can be demanding. Finding extended times to pray may feel as elusive as winning free coffee for life from your favorite shop. But rather than deciding that’s something we just can’t do right now, we may need to reframe our own perception.

Rather than lamenting the season of life we find ourselves in, we must acknowledge our limitations and figure out how to be faithful within them. This doesn’t mean sleeping less or piling on unrealistic goals. But it means letting go of our idea of what focused prayer time should be and ascertaining what we can actually fit into our lives as busy mothers.

If we keep holding out for some ideal circumstance, it may never come. While we may have dreamed of a solid hour of prayer time before the kids wake up in the morning, the reality may be that we pray while making sandwiches for lunch or stopped at a red light. When we decide to dedicate specific slices of time to pray—even those less than a minute— we train our hearts to turn to God in prayer.

WHO WE CAN PRAY FOR

If we want to utilize pockets of time throughout our day, we must have a clear sense of who we want to intercede for. Otherwise we won’t use our prayer moments wisely. I would encourage you to pray for unbelievers you don’t know—perhaps mothers around the world—as a starting point. This will spur us beyond the walls of our own home toward the greater work God is doing around the globe while keeping us grounded in the common denominator we share: motherhood.

Read the rest of my article on Momma Theologians.