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Love Goggles – my daughter is the most beautiful girl in the world
Do you have Love Goggles? I bet you do. I have whispered a shocking secret to my daughter many times since she was born. “You are the most beautiful girl in the world,” I would say, gently kissing her cheek or forehead. Then add, “to me,” lest she wake up one day completely surprised that she isn’t. That day came sooner than I could have ever imagined. My daughter had a wonderful playdate with a friend that turned emotional quickly. Hangry is a real thing. It was such a dramatic meltdown, from perfect harmony to disaster in less than a minute, that it was almost comical. Our emotional center of…
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A Change in Perspective
Heaven Not Harvard started with my acknowledging that all the world’s pressure on my parenting was creating unnecessary stress, weighing on me, pushing me to be cranky and insistent with an incorrect perspective, trying be a perfect mom based on imperfect standards. Inside my head, I yelled, ‘stop!’ And I shifted my parenting away from a generic “Harvard” goal and prioritized my focus on a “Heaven” goal. Over time, that mantra has shifted my focus in a myriad of ways, including my goals for myself, including my perspective on my marriage, and including events like Thanksgiving. Today, I simply wanted to focus on being thankful, with a peaceful attention on…
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The Butterfly Effect: Handling Rejection as a Christian
How are you with handling rejection? I’m not very good at it. God has shown me better how to handle it, but it always hurts. When someone I care about rejects me, my first reaction is intense hurt and sorrow. I want answers. What did I do? Am I not a good person? But . . . not every rejection is about me. If it is, if I did something unwittingly unkind, then I need to own it, but I have had to learn that sometimes the conflict is not about me. Sometimes, they are rejecting Christ in me. So what should we do when people reject us because of…
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Purposefully Practical #1
I am trying to be honestly transparent in my posts, making sure every word is Godly and Biblical. But as I have been working on my parenting, I realized that a lesson about anger and temper is a wonderful tool to help our walk become more Godly; however, some practical tips may be more helpful at times. Like when your child is smearing her somehow naked body with soap in front of the sink when all you asked was for her to wash her hands. . . those are the moments I need real answers about how to parent without getting angry. I wrote about Temper Tantrums just a couple…
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The Experiment that Made God’s Love Real to Me
A science experiment made God’s love real to me at my daughter’s fourth birthday party in an object lesson I never forgot. My daughter had a science themed birthday party when she turned four. I was searching for a cute gender neutral party theme, and thought science experiments would be something different and extra fun. All the kids wore labs coats and colorful safety glasses. They blew touchable bubbles from test tubes, and we performed several easy experiments. We covered the lawn with Mentos and Diet Coke, the kitchen with vinegar and baking soda. The party was a blast. One of everyone’s favorites was the packing peanuts experiment. I took…
