“One generation shall commend your works to another, and shall declare your mighty acts.”  Psalm 145:4

These days it seems that every mommy has a blog.  We’re the mommyblog generation.  I’ve hesitated a long time to start one because I really don’t think the world needs another blog.  No one has time to read another blog.  Why would anyone care to read my blog?  And I don’t have time to write a blog (I’ve already been interrupted 3 times in 6 sentences – fixing shoes, oohing and ahhing about sticks found in the backyard, and passing out chocolate chips to little hands… so much for sending my children out to play so that I could write).

When I think of the blog world… its overloaded… blogs about crafts and cooking and child-training and confessions about failures as parents and and and.  No need for more of those.  Plus that’s not what I’d be good at blogging about anyway because that’s not me.  I don’t want to be the woman in Christmas in Connecticut who sits in her NY apartment typing about a pretend world where she is the domestic diva caring for her farm animals and cooking pies for her family.

This is the way I and the littles attempt crafts… the MOPS Valentines party was this morning and for Valentine boxes we dumped out K-cup boxes and taped construction paper on them and slapped on some stickers and neon straws.  “Beautiful work.”  “So creative.”  “Yes do add a drawing of Paul Bunyan’s axe.”  Done.  And I watch other women in my church who are gifted artists (like Heather from MOPS) and I’m truly impressed.  But that’s not my skill set currently and that’s OK.  So this blog is not about creative projects to do with you children.

And I’m not an amazing baker such as my sister-in-laws.  I buy cakes from my sister-in-law when I want my family to have a good cake.  And that’s OK.  So this blog is not about that.

And I don’t claim to be an expert on childtraining.  Was it OK that this morning my 4 yr old son ended up bringing a backpack along with four favorite shirts inside (the ones with trucks and boats insignias on them that make him feel like a manly man, particularly the one that has blue and orange so that he can pretend he is working at Home Depot and Lowes at the exact same time) and several different times during the Valentine party disappeared into the nursery bathroom and came out wearing a different shirt?  I don’t think it was particularly a parenting fail or win or any deep psychological anything.  And if someone has strong views I’ll listen to them but I’m not going to let it concern me because I know my child and he was just excited about shirts today.

I actually do have strong views on childtraining and really my husband and I are extraordinarily intentional in this area.  But this generation of mommys need to stop finding our parenting philosophies from other bloggers.  Run back to the Bible, find wisdom from your pastoral leadership and wise older women in your church, find your approval in Jesus.  And be confident that God gives you wisdom to be the exact parent you need to be for your child.  So this blog isn’t about that.

And regarding the confessions about parenting failures… I’m genuinely concerned about the current push (a reaction to the perfect Pinterest world?) to broadcast our “failures” as some sort of encouragement to other moms so that we all can feel better about ourselves.  Applauding failure isn’t good.   Authentic is good.  Humilty is good.  Openness is good.  Posting a picture of your house and there happens to be toys out of place in the background… sure!  That’s reality.  Don’t be fake.  But applauding failure just for failure’s sake so that we can feel better our own messy house or dirty car or losing our patience… that’s not cool.  Isn’t it better to glory in Christ’s greatness inspite of our failures, and encourage each other to continue to strive toward what reflects His glory?  Isn’t it better to say, “Yes the dishes are piling in the sink at my house.  But I’m going to keep striving toward order.  I will keep washing them.  Again and again and again and keep fighting to bring a tiny bit of order into this world even when it seems endless and I struggle a lot with keeping things organized while also being a mom of tinies?  I won’t grow discouraged and give up.”  Isn’t that having a more proper understanding of grace and purposefulness?  And there is a fine line here and people have become very offended at me in the past when I have mentioned this.  So to clarify.  I mean the difference between glorying in our mess because we think that’s the way we finally find security in who we are vs. glorying in Christ’s greatness.

So why, last night while drying my hair, did I finally decide that I would blog/attempt to blog?  Well back to how the world doesn’t need another blog.  It doesn’t.  But I have a tiny 2 year old lady now sitting next to me (playing outside got old very quickly) asking me to bite the skin off of her little apples from chick-fil-a (which I’m not supposed to eat these first two weeks of my husband’s and my yeast-free diet… but I’m willing to sacrifice for the team).  And she needs it.  She needs her mommy to write these words for her.  I believe it is God’s calling to parents to proclaim His praises and His character and His acts to their children.  There is so much I want to teach her.  Who God is, her identity in Christ (and the security and joy that comes from understanding those two things hand-in-hand), a strong theology that undergirds all of life, a healthy philosophy, understanding a well disciplined life, etc. etc.  And as I write to her I do not say that I have achieved any of this.  But I encourage her, as I do, to continue to strive toward the goal of knowing and loving Christ with her entire being.  And to strive to emulate the qualities we see reflected in God… such as order, patience, goodness, graciousness, love, trustworthiness.  I’ve always intended to start writing these things for her (and my sons).  But perhaps having a blog will be a tool to keep me accountable to actually do so.

I imagine, knowing my personality and my hopes for what I desire to tell Lizzie, most of these blog posts will be on spiritual things.  However, lately I’ve been thinking much about organization so I may start with some topics regarding that.

~ Kathryn