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5 Reasons Why You Don’t Always Have To Be Strong

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My entire adult life, I have been married and a mother.  I had to mature very quickly in order to fulfill my role as mother and wife. I remember when I was a child, I wanted to hurry up and become a grown woman.  I didn’t know that it would come so soon.

However, when the time came, I stepped into my shoes as mother and wife.  I did my best in everything and I learned how to be strong.  Over time, being strong began to take a toll on me.

My friends seemed to think that I didn’t need encouragement or a helping hand because, I was always doing those things for them.

It wasn’t that I didn’t need it.  It was something completely different.

When I was in the first year of my marriage and had just had my son, I had an encounter. This encounter would begin to shape my life for years and I didn’t understand why until recently.

At this vulnerable and very impressionable stage in my life, I turned to a minister that I thought could help me.  I thought he would lead my husband and I, as we traveled the road of learning to be great parents and spouses.  In my heart, I longed for a word that would show us how to walk with God and with one another.

This leader would speak into my life at various points. I remember going to him because I had found that I was different from my peers at the time.  They were all single and doing things that 20 year olds do.  However, I was a mother and a wife.  I was in the military and I owned my own home.  I had more in common with the 30 and 40-year-old women, than I did with the women that were my age.  His advice to me was simple.  He said show yourself friendly.  If you want a friend be a friend.

That is exactly what I did.  I was there for people as I had wanted them to be there for me, but when I needed them, they were not there.

I have to admit that their unavailability, allow God to be there for me more and more.  However, I began to build up this aspect of myself that had to be strong because if I became weak, no one would be able to help my friends and my friends wouldn’t be able to help me.

I couldn’t understand why thing were this way, but I never gave it any thought until one day.  My family and I were over 2,500 miles away in a new state.  I didn’t know anyone and no one knew me.  I started thinking about all of my relationships and my desire to have people in my life that genuinely cared for me as much as I did for them.  I saw that when I was strong and helpful, people clung to me.  However, I also began to realize that those types of relationships were not healthy for myself of my friends, so I began to make some changes.

When my friends would call, I would listen more.  When they awaited my answer to their problem, I asked them questions about what they were going to do.

At the time I was also going through some training as a Rehabilitation Counselor and I was learning that there is power is asking questions that are not leading.  I started telling myself that in order to truly build up my friends, I had to back off and allow God to do His work through the Holy Spirit in their lives.  I could not solve everything for them.

Setting Boundaries

I stopped answering the phone at 2 o’clock in the morning and worrying about how they were going to fix their lives.  Instead, I fell on my knees and I prayed for them.

When I wasn’t able to handle their lack of desire to do and be better, I said so and then asked them what they wanted me to do to help them.  If their expectations where what I could handle, I did it.  If they weren’t, I simply stated this.  I had to make sure that my friends understood that I was being strong for them, but in another way.  I was setting some healthy boundaries.

Do you know what happened?

My friends started to grow up.  They no longer expected me to be strong and they began to make better choices in their own lives.

Thinking on this helped me to realize that so many women are always trying to be strong.  We are strong because it is always projected that in order to be great you have to be the stronger one.

Why do we fight it?

In our society, it is never encouraged to be the weaker vessel.  Why?

They say that only the strong survive.  They also tell us that what we want, is to survive.

Well, I want to challenge that thought.  I want to thrive.  Not only do I want to thrive, but I want to live  because I am alive.  I am not dead and avoiding death is not the sole purpose of my life.

This is why so many women have trouble submitting to their husbands.  They feel that if they submit, it means that they are weak.

YES!!! It does.  It means that you and I are the weaker vessel in our marriages.  We should be proud of that fact.  What woman, honestly, wants to be married to a man that is weaker than she is?  He could not protect her or their family.  She would have to do it all.

If we are to be honest, in order to thrive as a married couple…be prosperous and develop well, as a married couple, we all have to love each other well.

Do you know that it wasn’t until I took this stand in ALL of my relationships that my quality of life began to improve.

Here are the 5 things that I learned.

1. Always being strong drains you

I found that being strong left me with little energy.  I had to be strong enough to listen to people’s problems and to solve them.  I had to be strong enough to take what they threw my way and not flinch.  I had to always be ready.  This was tiring.

2. If you are always strong, you leave no power for God’s strength

You have probably heard this before, but I am going to tell you again.  God has given us strength for this life, but He also knows that there will be specific points, where He will need to be strong for us.  These times allow Him to show us how much He cares for us.

“For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” 2 Corinthians 2:10

Yet when we cover up our weakness and pretend to be strong through it all, we leave no room for Him to be God in our lives.  In our strength, we tell Him, “I don’t need You to be strong for me.”

3.  Being strong all of the time tells everyone else in your world that you don’t need them

Just like our strength communicates to God that we don’t need Him, other people in our lives begin to receive the same message.  They feel that they are not strong enough to help us because we have it all taken care of.  We make them think that we are super human, when in reality, we struggle just like they do.

4.  Always being strong can lead to pride and pride leads to a fall

When we are always strong, we can begin to fool ourselves in to thinking that we don’t need anyone.  We feel that no one is capable of helping us and with this, pride begins to move into our lives.  Pride can be very dangerous because it takes away our ability to see all of the needs that we have.  The only way for us to recognize those needs is for something to happen, the fall…

5.  It might be someone’s else turn

Have you ever thought that perhaps your strength was standing in the way of someone else being strong?  I didn’t until it happened to me.  I had a friend that was really strong.  She was so strong that she would not let me help her.  I had never been that way, but her actions caused me to wonder if my other friends had perceived me as such.  I waited a while for an opportunity to show her how much I cherished our friendship, but that opportunity never arrived.  I had asked to help and volunteered, but she never would take any type of help, encouragement, or friendly gesture of caring through gifts.

This relationship showed me that sometimes it’s just not our turn to be strong.  It might be someone else’s turn to be strong and we need to back off.  From then on, I wanted to do my best to allow my friends to be strong for me and I would continue to do the same thing, when needed.

If you don’t get anything else out of this, I want you to know that you don’t have to do it all or be it all to everyone.  All you have to do is be you and give this life all that you’ve got.  Your strength is not who you are.  It is a quality that you possess.  It also does not define you.  You are so much more than one word, strong.  There is great value in you, but in order for you to see it, you’re going to have to step out of your own strength and into God’s strength.  There is a time and place for everything.  Just know that when you decide you don’t want to be strong, there is still greatness in you.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this.  Please leave me a comment below or better yet, email me at info@beingmrsmom.com

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Are You Successful?

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Are you successful?

Do you feel successful?  Why or why not?

If you answered no…what would it mean to you if you could, honestly, say yes?

 

For a long time, I struggled with this question.  In my mind, I had always known what it was that I wanted to do and that I would be successful doing it, but as my life and the dynamic of it changed, my idea of success changed.

Let me preface this… I am about to talk about something that I have not talked about publicly before, not to this degree, anyway. Ok.  Now that I’ve said it, let’s get into it.

For a long time, I found myself in a place where I thought I was enough.  I felt capable of doing what I was called to do and I had the education to do it.  However, due to what I had been taught, I went to those who were in authority for approval and, well, they disapproved.  They didn’t disapprove because they had tested my knowledge or life skills.  They disapproved because of two reasons.

  1. They did not know me
  2. I did not have a piece of paper to prove that I was qualified

This world is full of standards, I do understand why, but sometimes those standards disqualify the very people that have been qualified by a higher power…God. On the pathway of qualifications, wordly standards crush people.

In his book, “Read for your life,” Pat Williams talks about education.  He says that the normal masters degree requires a student to read a minimum of 50 books on one specific topic.  After reading these books and immersing herself in the topic, the student is then required to write about the topic.  This writing, proves the degree to which she has learned the material.  From there, an educator, who has assigned the readings, takes the writing and examines it.  When this process if finished, if to the standard set, the student is given a masters degree in a specific topic.  She has now been deemed an expert in her field.

After reading this, I once again felt the need for validation.  Isn’t that what the process of obtaining a degree is all about?

However, Pat Williams put a different spin on this, without disqualifying the necessity of education itself.

Before we go any further, let me ask you a question. Has your level of education had an impact on what you believe you are capable of doing? If your answer is yes, why? Keep this answer in your mind.

Pat Williams said that the average American does not read at all.  They spend so much time watching television and doing other things, which do not educate them, that to be an expert in a specific field, in relation to our peers, requires very little.

Ok, ok…I’ll explain.

We are going to do a little bit of critical thinking here.  Make yourself a promise.  Say, “I will finish reading this article.”  Go ahead, say it.

Did you say it?

Now…

If A is true, then B is true,

If B is true, then C is also true

This means that A and C are both true

It will make sense in a moment.

Here is A:  According to the world’s standards,  a person who spends time immersed in books, reading approximately 50 of them, studying, and researching a specific topic is an expert.

Do you agree with that statement? Is it true or false?

My answer is yes, A is true.

Here is B:  Statistics have shown that the majority of people in America spend little to no time reading, on any given topic.  They spend more time immersed in electronic games, making a living, and social activities.

Do you agree with this statement?  Is it true or false?

My answer is yes, B is true.

Here is C:  If an individual spends her time immersed in books, approximately 50 of them, reading, studying and researching a specific topic, regardless of the lack of certifying authority, she has now become an expert.

Is C true?

My answer is yes, C is true.

If we are to think on this topic logically, both the individual with the certifying authority and the one that lacks the certifying authority are experts.

So why, was I so easily disqualified?  It was because my expertise was not recognized.  No one at the upper level of that industry had taken the time to examine my qualifications for authority.  Instead they dismissed me and ultimately, I disqualified myself.

What is your purpose?  Why are you on this earth?  Are you living out your dreams?  If you answered no, why not?  Have you disqualified yourself?

For almost 10 years, I allowed those words to echo in my head.  I felt that I was not enough.  I often times attempted to convince myself that I was, but I had not been allowed to do what I was called to do because someone didn’t invest the time required to investigate my knowledge.

In many ways, I felt unsuccessful.

I never disqualified myself as a mother or wife.  My teacher was experience and no one was going to tell me that she had not done well in teaching me the best way to be me for my family.

However, this same message did not permeate into my vocational purpose until I was working on my masters degree and they told me.  What did “they,” the educators tell me?  They said that everything I needed to accomplish what I had been placed on this earth to do was in me.  I just needed to make sure that I continued to obtain the wisdom and knowledge of those that had walked this path before.  This would keep me wise and maintain my level of expertise. I needed to keep doing what k had always done. Read, research, and study.

Now, in all that I have said, I am not advising anyone to out and begin practice professions in fields like psychology and medicine because someone could be hurt and it is illegal to do so without that certification.

What I am saying is that it is time for you to stop disqualifying yourself based on individuals who have not checked your credentials or tested you to affirm that you are capable of walking in your purpose.

It is time for you to stop questioning who you are, what you possess, and your capabilities.  Stop questioning God.

My journey through discovering who I am has brought me to a place where I no longer allow people to tell me something other that what God has already told me and what I know to be true.  I had to decide that I am successful and no one can determine my level of success but me.

This was not an easy conclusion to come to.  There were many obstacles in my way, but I have realized something.  I am not the only one that has had this experience.  It is a problem among our generation.  It is plaguing us and trying to tear us apart.  We are all beginning, and for some continuing, to take the words that someone has spoken over us to mean that we are of little value.  We have said to ourselves, “I am not enough.”

But guess what!!! I am not going to stand by any longer and watch you do this to yourself.  I am doing something about it.

I have decided to establish a company that focuses on helping you become your best.  I am taking all of the skills and resources that I am able to put together, for you.  I want you to realize your value, potential, and worth.  I want you to be successful so that you can do what you were put on this planet to do.

How am I going to do that?


That subscription is not for this blog.  It is for the business that I am launching.  If you would like updates on the services that I will be offering, with you in mind, subscribe.

I am also preselling my course “Discovering Your Pathway to a Life of Success.” It deals with topics like this and so much more.  The pre sale will end on February 29th and then the price will go up.  I am only accepting 50 people, so if you want to be apart of this course, please don’t wait.  I will be reaching out to everyone who signs up to find out what their struggles are, in this area.  From the information that I gather from the group, I will be adding additional content to the course.

What does that mean?  It means that this course is different from many other courses out there.  I want you to begin to grow as you find what it is that your heart has been searching for, purpose.

I want you to be in a place where you are successful because you feel successful.  I want you to live a Life of Success.  Take a moment to review the course, Discovering Your Pathway to a Life of Success and if you know someone who could be helped by it, share it with them.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.  I hope it has blessed you and I pray that God would continue to give you all that you need to keep moving forward.

Leave a comment below on your thoughts or send me an email at info@beingmrsmom.com

I look forward to hearing from you.

What am I worth

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I have to remind myself of this, sometimes, because the world tries to tell me otherwise. I’m sure that it says the same thing to you.

It says that our value is based on what we can do and on what we have. Yet that is not true!!!

Your value is in who God says that you are. It is obvious by the price that He paid, that your value is in Christ Jesus.

His blood brought and paid for you…

Let us not forget how valuable we are.

The Son of God is our value and our worth.
#priceless #broughtwithHisblood #ChristJesus #ChristianWoman #knowyourworth #inChristalone

The Importance of Being Authentic

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Be authentic…

Does that spark any thoughts in you mind?

Well, It is 2am and I am sitting in my bed typing this.  I wanted to make sure that I discussed it while it was fresh on my mind.

We all have a message.

We all have influence.

 

Some of us feel that we are less heard than others, so we begin to reach out for a bigger platform that will afford us the opportunity to get out message out to a larger audience.  Yet, many times, we never stop to think about when we will be satisfied with the size or magnitude of our platform.  When will you be satisfied with the size of your audience?

Have you realize that your message has the power to change someone’s life?

If you focus on the size of your audience, you may never say what you need to say to change the life of that one person.  Yes, one person matters.

Will you be happy if your message changes 500,000, 100,000, or 5,000 lives? How about 500?  What about 100?  What if your message reached 50 people and their lives were changed?  What if you message reached 5 people?  Would you be happy that those 5 people were always attentively listening to your message?  What if the message that you shared changed the lives of those 5 and then they, in turn, had an impact on their sphere of the  world?

Ironically, my family has 5 of the members, besides myself, in it.  Years ago, I told the Lord that I wanted to change the world…He gave me my family.  My role as a wife and mother has become the most important role in my life outside of being a child of God.  I have come to realize that nothing else can be placed above these two God-given roles.

Now although I am a wife and mother, I am also a writer.  I have come to learn that I must know my audience.  When I am talking to my family, they are my audience.  My message is for them.  However, when I am writing, my message is for a specific, God-given audience.

I believe that we have to understand and appreciate the fact that God has given all of us an audience.  Whatever it is that you do, you sphere of influence is God-given.  You don’t have to change your message in order to attract your audience.  Share the message that God gave you and watch those within your sphere of influence; receive a major impact in the way that God ordained.

Stop focusing on the numbers.  Stop thinking that no one is listening.  Those are all distractions.

When you are at home cooking dinner for you family, the message is clear…you care for them.  They hear you say, “You are worth of my time.”

When you take the time to help your children with homework or to, simply, hug them…you are sharing your message.  They hear you say, “I love you.  You are valuable to me.”

When you listen to your husband talk about his day…you’re listening.  He hears you say, “You are interesting and your story matters.”

If you are a blogger, like me, and you take the time to share a message with your audience…you are investing.  They hear you say, “Your life matters and I am honored to share my message with you.”

We all have to realize that our message is bigger than ourselves.  Whether the listener responds in a way that communicates what we are expecting or not, we have to understand the potential for our message to reach their hearts and to inspire them.

The numbers don’t matter.

I understand the statistic.  “If you have a larger number of people in your audience, the greater amount of people who might hear your message.” Yet, you are focusing on the numbers, not the message.

Let me give you a different statistic.  If you have a larger number of people in your audience, the greater number of people who may possibly encounter your message, but they might not be listening.  Yet, if you focus on the quality of your message and know your audience, regardless of the numbers, someone will most likely listen and be greatly impacted.

What I am trying to tell you is that focusing on the numbers causes us not to be authentic because we are willing to do whatever is necessary to get our numbers up.  We become blinded by the numbers and unable to see all of the people who God has placed in our lives, who are actually listening.

However, when we focus in on the quality of the message and share what God has placed in our hearts, the lives that He has foreordained, are changed…

Don’t change your message to make people listen.  Share your real message and the people who are supposed to hear it, will listen.

All of this is a choice.  Just give it a thought and be authentic…

The Little Things

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The Little Things…

Thankful In the Little Things

Over the past 13 ½ years, I have gone from working mom, to student, and then to stay at home mom and back to student/SAHM again.  When I look at the standard that the world sets, I realize am supposed to be able to do it all and still live a healthy life as a wife and mother.  However, I have found this to be a task that I have not successfully achieved in all of my adult life, to the degree that I desire.

When I attempt to tackle too much, I find that I am overwhelmed by the daily tasks and expectations that are set before me.  I want to be, both, a great wife and a great mother, but when working hard at achieving these two goals and then trying to juggle a full-time job, it seems that I end up dropping the ball and despising one aspect of my life.

For that very reason, I decided to give up the 9-5 for a while.  I decided to  focus on my education, which will afford me the opportunity do work a more flexible schedule while doing what I love.  In the mean time I focus on being thankful for the little things.

What little things? You ask…

  1. I am thankful for the conflicts that my husband and I have.  They remind me that I am in a healthy relationship where my spouse is willing to challenge me.  He helps to sharpen me like iron and he makes me better.  I am married.
  2. I am thankful for the mandate that I have to balance my roles as mother and wife with other roles that I have. They remind me of how important it is to me to be a mother and a wife.  These challenges show me that somethings will come up against my most important human relationships, but resilience and reevaluation are the keys to getting things back in line. I am a wife and a mother.
  3. I am thankful for the mounds of laundry that I tend to have. We have six people in our family and those mounds of laundry remind me that God has blessed us with tons of clothes and choices of what to wear. We have clothes to wear.
  4. I am thankful for the dishes in my sink. I have to take the time to wash them, either by hand or by dishwasher, but they remind me that we have all eaten and do so daily. We have food to eat.
  5. I am thankful for the toys to pick up off of the floor. They remind me that God has blessed us with an income to provide for our children’s pleasure.  They get to play with things that they enjoy. We have a steady income and material things to enjoy.
  6. I am thankful for the time that I have to manage wisely. As a stay at home mom, I have a certain amount of time that I have to manage in order to be productive, while my family is away at school and work.  This could feel overwhelming at times, but it is a blessing to have that time to decide what I would like to take care of and how I would like to do it.  I am still alive and can manage my time.
  7. I am thankful that I have to tell my kids to stop running around the house or being so loud. I grew up as an only child in my house, so I having four children actively running around and playing are things that I had to get used to.  However, their noise is a very pleasant reminder that they are healthy and adventurous.  Their noise and lively activities remind me that I have been blessed with children and I am thankful.  I have children and they are healthy.
  8. I am also thankful for the school work that I have to complete and the books that I have to read. They are reminders of the fact that I am receiving an education that will prepare me of various opportunities in life.  I have the opportunity to be educated and make the best out of life.  I have a sound mind.

I have a long list of things that I could discuss, but I think you get the jest of what I’m saying.  It is very hard to forget our blessings, especially when some of our struggles come from those very places.  We could all take a look at the things that we complain about and realize that they are simply a blessing that we must learn how to manage.  I hope that you have found this post encouraging.

Do you have various areas of your life, where you tend to complain, but after reading this post, realize that you have more to be thankful for than to complain about?  If so share them with us.

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Is Your Husband Flawed?

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When I first married my husband, I was convinced that he was a great guy.  I knew that he would always love me and show me that he cared.

As we moved into our second, third, fourth, and even fifth year of being married, I could see his flaws more than I could see them originally.  I considered how I thought he had changed and was determined to help him remember the qualities that he had possessed before, which qualified him for the “great guy” category.

Is your husband flawed?

What I did not know was that he had always been a flawed individual, but because of the love, passion, and desire that I had for him, I could not see them.

When we were dating, my husband would show up early for our dates.  He would ring the door bell and then patiently wait for me, on the couch or in the car.  When we arrived to our destination, we were always early.

Later on in our marriage, he would get ready and promptly remind me of my need to speed up, as I got dressed.  He wanted us to arrive early to our destination, but I was taking my time getting dressed.

Before marriage…not a flaw….

After marriage…flaw…

Over the years, I had tried to change various aspects of who he was, but learned that it was more difficult to change him, than it was to change something in myself.

What I mean is that I started to ask myself why certain aspects of his personality seemed to be flaws to me now, when they were not flaws to me before…

He had always been very punctual…nothing had changed about him.

Had I been unaware of the changes that had occurred in my own personality over the years?  The more I asked this question, the deeper I dug into the root of my issue.  The more I dug, the more I prayed.  The more I prayed, the more God began to show me…myself.

He helped me to see that I wasn’t perfect, but He never considered me so flawed that I could not be loved.  He showed me that He had actually given me time, as He would continue to in the future, to get past certain struggles and be the woman that he created me to be.  He showed me that there were various aspects of myself that would need to be changed before He would consider me mature.  Yet that never changed how He saw me.  It never changed the fact that He considered me precious and lovable.

Learning to see myself through God’s eyes, helped me to see my husband in the same way.  I began to accept who he was and his “flaws” became characteristics that I cherished.  Our differences came to be the strengths of our marriage, when previously, I had considered them weaknesses.

Today, I am a more punctual person.  Although I still struggle with consistency, my husband’s ability to remain consistent will definitely rub off on me, I’m sure.  I consider that my perspective is often times what needs to be changes, not my husband.  God will and does work on him, but my job is to allow Him to work on me.

I love my husband more and more each day.  I cherish the ways that he sharpens me like iron, even when it’s not comfortable at the moment.  When I look back on it all, I am thankful.

If you were to ask me if my husband is flawed, I would humbly say, “Yes, he is, but so am I.  We are both human.”

Can you relate to what I have said here?  Do you find it easier to identify the “flaws” of your spouse that it is to identify your own flaws?  How can you change your perspective and actions to make the weaknesses of your marriage the strength of your marriage?

I’d love to hear from you.  Leave me a comment below and consider joining my email list to receive weekly encouragement and exclusive monthly content.

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