Hey mama! It’s MARCH!!! And while it’s not spring… yet… it is soooo close. This episode is going to bless and encourage you and remind you of the hope that a new season IS COMING, especially if you’ve been feeling overwhelmed by where you’re at right now in motherhood and life. Maybe winter has felt dark in more ways than one. Maybe you feel as if your hope is fading. Maybe you just feel stuck in a super hard season. If you relate to any of these, then YOU are who this message is for.
So grab some coffee or tea and your headphones and let’s get started! I am SO pumped about today’s show. Let’s do it!!!
You can read the full blog post mentioned in today’s episode here
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FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION:
Today’s episode is for the mama who is frustrated or discouraged about where she’s at in life. Maybe you’re in a season of waiting. Maybe you’re longing for change. Maybe you just feel stuck and hopeless, which has you discouraged. You are not alone. I hope that today’s episode blesses and encouraged you.
I’m so glad you are here. Let’s get started. We all walk through difficult seasons in life and motherhood. Right. I remember that first year with my first daughter feeling the overwhelm, I feel like that’s kind of an understatement to be honest. And it wasn’t just once every now and then when she was fussy or didn’t sleep well, this was like an every day thing for a really long time.
It was so heavy that I had trouble getting out of bed some days. I remember thinking to myself, will this heaviness ever lift, like, is this what motherhood is really all about? Is this what being a mom is? Because this is not really what I had in mind. This is not what I pictured. It doesn’t feel hot. I thought it would feel.
It doesn’t, it’s just not easy. Like I thought it was going to be, it didn’t feel natural in some ways, like I thought it would, and I truly didn’t believe anything would ever change at that point. Even as a Christian woman, I received salvation in middle school. I didn’t feel God near me. I didn’t see him working in my life.
I didn’t feel him or hear him speaking to me. And the enemy and my weakness took advantage of that. He convinced me of lies that are not true, were not true. And as new moms or mamas who’ve recently deleted. We are so vulnerable in that first, what I would say at least a year. And I didn’t have anyone consistently speaking truth and life into me reminding me of my identity and who I was in Christ, what he says about me.
And so Satan took full advantage of that. And. I was ruled by feelings and emotions and lies. I felt helpless and hopeless. I felt like a failure. Like I was flawed. Like there was just something wrong with my body. I don’t mean like in a sinful way, we all fall short, but I mean, there was something wrong with me and my body because of how things went with my delivery.
That’s what I believed. And I would pray. I would literally cry out and it. I felt as if God was silent and the voices in my head, the thoughts that I would think that were so loud and mean, they would say things like, see, nobody cares about you. Even God’s forgotten about you. You’re all alone. Like you’re by yourself.
And none of this is ever going to change. And this is how it has to be. So. Move on and keep it going. Just keep on trying to survive and get through. And then one day I came across this article. It’s actually a blog post and it’s called when mothering is hard and no one sees. And I just want to share some of it with you today because I think as moms of faith, we need this reminder.
Sometimes this truth is not always at the forefront of our mind. Even if you didn’t just deliver, even if you have a toddler, your baby’s a couple years old, we get into seasons of. Like monotonous the day in, day out, mundane things. We live in feeding schedules, every three hours, eat, wake, sleep, eat, wake, sleep, or maybe your toddler’s going through a phase where she’s refusing to nap or refusing to eat or throwing things at you or pulling your hair or whatever it is screams.
Every time she’s riding in the car seat. That’s my two year old’s latest thing, but we get distracted by life. We all do, but I’ve found when I can intentionally return. To truth. When I can refocus my eyes, refocus my intention to what is true. Then I walk in so much more freedom. I walk in the freedom that is ours in.
So see if any of this resonates with you and kind of where you’re at right now, it says somewhere in a house with walls and a roof, very similar to the place you and I call home. There’s a mother who wonders if she seen, she wakes to a crying baby to nurse, an older child, demanding breakfast. She’s barely wiped asleep from her eyes and is yet to pour a cup of coffee before diapers need to be changed.
And the dog must be. Her job. Nah, her calling begins before her feet even hit the floor. There’s no commute to the office, no clocking in for motherhood. There’s breakfast to tin lunchboxes to pack backpacks together. You’re in soak sheets need stripping their dishes in the sink and a pile of laundry litters the closet floor.
It isn’t a glamorous role and no one is applauding her. This. That was one thing that I thought mom life was going to have some kind of like gratification in that somebody was going to be saying, thank you or telling me I was doing a good job. And as we all know, that is not the truth. That’s not the case.
This is a mom who wipes fevers from brows, tears from cheeks and blood from skin. She sweeps crumbs from crevices and brushes hair from eyes. She chauffeurs, she cooks, she cleans, she scrubbed stains from pant legs and men’s broken hearts. She’s an encourager, a truth speaker, a life giver. She corrects, she counsels.
She directs, she does the hard work, the mundane tasks. And most of the time she does it all without an eye to see. And sometimes she wonders if anyone notices. And I’m reading this and I have, my baby is like a couple months old and I’m just weeping because I’m not going to read the whole thing. I’m going to link it below in the show notes.
You can read it all if you want to. But it goes on to say, does anyone see the hands that tend this family, the quiet kiss, a top, the head after they fallen asleep, the never ending grocery list. Does anyone see, does anyone notice? Is there any appreciation and then that still small voice God sees. Ellroy the name Hagar gave to God when he saw her, after she’d fled into the desert, pregnant and alone, he sees, and the name God gave her son Ishmael, which means God, here.
And there’s like a whole backstory that I could tell you as to why that just like made me weep. Because when I was trying to conceive that story in the name that Hagar says to God, what she calls him that spoke to me during that time. And it has ever since, because there are so many times and seasons when I feel all alone.
And I’m sure that you do too. And remembering that that is who our God is. He is a God who sees. That has always brought me comfort. Okay. I’m going to finish up with the blogpost. He sees you. God. Is there in the midst of it all hearing, seeing you, he notices this service of motherhood. This is dying to self to tend the needs of your children.
The middle of the night sheet stripping the early morning. He sees it all he sees when you sit and when you rise, he perceives your thoughts from afar. He discerned you’re going out in your lying down. He’s familiar with all your ways. He sees you. And he whispers to the depths of your Tinder, parched soul.
See this hard stuff, this laying down of your life for the children. I’ve gifted you. This is worship in action. The day in day out, constancy of a mother service is Tom camped out in the refiners fire. Amen. It’s a losing of our life so that we may find it a daily laying down of ourself only to discover that God resurrects, dear friend, you are doing hard work, dirty work, tedious work, work, not seen or applauded by many, but you are doing the most important work.
The highest calling you are raising a generation. And in the midst of that sacred work, God sees. And she quotes Matthew 16, 25, which says for whoever wants to save their life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for me will find it. So maybe you like me are crying right now. Maybe you’ve got tears in your eyes.
Maybe that the reminder of that truth is just what your soul needed. It’s what you’re longing for is just to know somebody sees. Somebody sees all that. You’re doing all of the work, all of the sacrifice. It may not be your husband. It may not be your children, but the Lord sees. And so when it comes to your season, when it comes to those seasons of motherhood that feel unending, never changing forever long sometime.
All we can do is hold onto that truth is just knowing that God sees us that there’s purpose. There is purpose here. There’s something that he’s doing. He’s working at all together for our good. We can’t always see what’s up ahead. And I’m even learning some of this right now. Like, I’ll learn this lesson.
I thought I had learned this lesson eight years ago in a totally different season, but I’m learning it again with this podcast and this business and it it’s just, it’s so cool how it mirrors exactly what I needed to know and learn and go through then. And God’s walking me through the same thing now. So I’m thinking that you can relate to this in one way or another, that maybe this resonates with your season.
Because I was talking with a friend back and forth other day through voice memos, through texts. And she resonated with some of this in the season that she’s in, you know, when you don’t really understand, like why do things have to be like this right now? Or maybe you’re longing for something, you know, longing for a different season or whatever it is.
Maybe you don’t feel seen, maybe you don’t feel heard, maybe you don’t feel appreciated. So I hope that what I’m about to share with you. Serve as reminders of truth and something that you can tangibly, but not tangibly hold onto truth that you can clean to and remember, and remind yourself of when nothing else around you suggests that thing or gives you proof that that thing is ever going to happen, that your season will ever change, that anything will ever be different.
And this is, this is it. Sometimes all we can do is hold onto the. We have in Christ when you’re waiting for your season to change, when you wish things can be different when you’re struggling through something, when you’re a longing, sometimes all we have is the hope that we have in Christ, because his word says you are loved.
You are seen, you have value, you have purpose. He has a plan for your life, and he’s working all things out for your good and his glory. And we can’t see it in the. We most likely won’t ever understand it in the moment, but that’s also not faith because faith isn’t what you can see. Faith is stepping into the unknown, like frozen, frozen, do vinyl, walking through what you don’t understand and following God’s lead through all of it.
When things around you seem like they’re falling apart, or maybe they are quite literally. I want to challenge you to hold on to faith because I’m challenging myself to do the same thing, hold onto the truth that you know, intellectually in your mind, even when your heart does not feel it and your circumstances show no proof of it.
That is fake. I shared this with a local Bible study. That I’m a part of, because like I said, God has been showing me some things and reaffirming them in a few different areas. This Bible study is one of those areas. One of the questions in the study asks, when have you been called to act on your beliefs, trusting in God’s character, more than your circumstances.
And I immediately thought of this podcast because right now it doesn’t look like. To the world. No one really knows who caisson his or her pursuit is. And even people locally who probably see me share stuff for like, what, what, what is she doing? A podcast? What, what is that? And why does she have one? But I told them in the group that sometimes we have to walk in faith accordance with what God has placed in our hearts.
Trusting his faithfulness, even when nothing around us gives us reason to believe otherwise. So I keep holding on to change that a new season is coming. Growth is coming. There will be a time when it does look like what I feel like and believe in my heart that he showed me. It is right now. And I’m walking it out every day as if it is, I show up here as if it is because to me, it is.
It is a big deal. It is changing lives. I am walking in my purpose and this serves moms. And that’s the whole point. How does this apply to you and where you’re at in your season of motherhood? Do you feel God calling you to something and it just doesn’t make any sense right now? Has he given you a vision for something, but you don’t know how you’re going to get there or how it’s all going to unfold?
Are you holding out hope that he’s going to fulfill a promise that he spoke into your heart, but right now you have no idea if you even heard him. Correct. Does where you are now just feel completely hopeless. Do you feel totally alone, unseen? Like nobody cares about you or the work you’re doing day in and day out.
Nobody sees you. You’re not valued. Is that where you are? Because these days are hard. I feel like it’s really hard. I don’t know. We’re not to the teenage years yet. So I might be saying this is really hard, but they’re beyond difficult things we go through sometimes are beyond difficult. But we can always hold onto hope that this current season it ends in victory because we already have the victory in Christ.
We don’t wait for victory. We can live from a place of believing. The battle has already been won for you because Jesus overcame the grave and the holy spirit lives inside of you. For those who walk with Christ and know him. So this phase, this season, this hardship you will overcome. And when you get to the other side, it is so much sweeter to be able to look back and say, God, look what you did.
Look what you walked me through. Look what you led me through. It was such a precious time of you holding my hand and just guiding me. It was all you, because I didn’t know how it was going to make it some days. That was me. That that is me still sometimes in some seasons, but seven years ago when I had this newborn baby and I was completely lost and overwhelmed.
I didn’t see a light at the end of the tunnel. And right now, I don’t know the end result. I don’t see the plan. All I could do at that point was wake up each day, but one foot in front of the other and pray for supernatural strength and peace. And some days I still do that to keep going with what he’s put into my heart in this season.
And he’ll do it. He will, he will do that for you. But the choice is yours because we have free will. Sometimes I wish it were forced and I wish he couldn’t just make me do the things I need to do and the ways that I need to do them, but I know that. That’s, that’s not an actual relationship, first of all, but there’s also something so much sweeter about having the choice and choosing to walk in obedience, choosing to walk by faith because he doesn’t force us.
He doesn’t make us. He gives you the choice. The ball is in your court. How are you going to wake up each day? What is your attitude going to be? What are you going to choose to think about? What truths are you going to speak over yourself? What are you going to believe? About where he’s he has you this season.
He has you in and who he’s created you to be when you feel overwhelmed, when you feel hopeless, when you don’t think things will ever change. When things just feel so very hard and difficult because they will, and maybe that’s where you are. Now. The first thing I want to encourage you to do is to look to him.
Because Psalm 34 says those who look to him for help will be radiant with joy. No shadow of shame will darken their faces. Remember that? Let his glory shine upon you and be open to receiving it and accepting it because shame doesn’t win. Guilt does not win. Anxiety does not win. Depression does not win.
Overwhelm does not win anger, bitterness, these things. Don’t when. Because he’s already overcome them. And for some of us, this one shift in our mindset will be enough to help us overcome and believe in walk in the freedom. And for others, we’re going to need extra help, maybe a counselor or a trusted friend that we can talk to, to hold us accountable.
And that’s okay. There is no shame in that. There’s no judgment in that because there is hope and there’s hope for you in whatever that hope looks like, whatever that help looks like for you. It’s okay. As long as it aligns with your identity in Christ, in what he says and his word it’s okay. If you need help, it’s okay.
If you need someone to take your hand and walk with you physically, you know, cause obviously, like I said, in a very early podcast episode, I think it was episode one or two. When you’re at your worst, when all you can do is put one foot in front of the other, Jesus, unfortunately is not going to walk through your front door and get you out of bed each morning.
I remember it like it was yesterday wishing that he could, and that he would, because I didn’t have the strength I had did not have the will to do it. It was too overwhelming. It was too hard. It was too hard. And so if that’s where you are and that’s what your season looks like, it is okay to ask for help.
It is okay to see a doctor about talking about a plan for you to try medication, to work with some medication and see if you can get some relief from that. I’ve had to do that in past seasons. I plan to do a future episode all about that. But it’s okay. I think that the enemy wants for you to think that just because you are a Christian believer that you’re not going to face these things, that you shouldn’t need help from anything else that you should just be able to do it all, you should just be able to do this and what’s wrong with you that you can’t do this and you can’t get over this thing and get past it and just get your life together.
And that is a lie. That is a lie straight from the bit of. So remember this is what I want you to take away from this episode. There is hope just like the seasons change, just like the sun. It starts to shine a little longer. There’s daylight for a little longer each day. After that darkest day of the year in December, every single year.
After that darkest day, the sun stays out longer. The sun shuns longer every single day, it gets longer and longer. It’s sunnier. Because spring is coming friend it’s, March and all around us. There are going to be signs of life flowers, blooming leaves, growing grass, turning green. New life is going to be everywhere.
If you stop and notice it let the physical surroundings of nature and our outdoor environment remind you of what is possible in your own life. Will you let him breathe new life into you? Will you let him bring your heart back to life because he will do that. If you just ask, and if you walk in obedience, if you take steps of faith, if you just surrender control and expectation and stop trying so hard, and I get emotional about it because I know what it’s like to feel like that is not possible for you.
And I hope that. You believe me when I say that there is hope and that your season will change. All you have to do is be still and know he is. Ellroy the God who sees you. You, you, I wish I could insert each of your names listening to this right now. He sees you. He sees you. He sees you. He has not left you where you are.
He’s not left you all alone. So take heart mama, because change is coming. Okay. A new season is coming. We don’t know how long it’s going to be. We don’t know how long the season lasts. We can’t see a light at the end of the tunnel and that’s okay. You can take steps of faith anyways. Follow him anyways. Do what he’s called you to do anyways.
Live with a heart of gratitude. Anyway. I love you. And I’m so thankful that you joined me today. I pray that this has blessed you. I prayed, encouraged you before you go. If this show has encouraged or inspired you in any way, the number one way you can help me is to leave a written review. Letting other moms know how this podcast is impacting your life and motherhood, then send this episode to some mom, friends.
Thank you for joining me in the mission of spreading messages, just like this one to moms around the world. If you’re looking for a community of like-minded mamas to come alongside you support and encourage you join our Facebook group by searching her pursuit, or by clicking the link in the show notes, come share with us what you’re taking away from this episode.
What stuck out to you? I can’t wait to hear from you. I’m so grateful to have you on this journey with me and I’ll see you next time, mama.
