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Hard Does Not Mean Bad
By Vanessa Rasanen Sometime last year in a desperate attempt to find reprieve from the exhaustion that comes with having four kids (including a newborn), a husband traveling for work, and a full time job, I found list after list of remedies that I couldn’t fathom fitting into my daily routine of craziness. Go to bed earlier? Ha! Post-bedtime is when I finally get to sit and enjoy the quiet so I can hear myself think… assuming there isn’t laundry to be folded or dishes to be done, of course. When my husband is home, that’s our time to connect, talk, or watch a show together. Exercise? Yeah. Endorphins-shmendorphins. I…
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Some Dreams Have to Wait and That’s Okay
By Vanessa Rasanen Years ago during my active blogging days I attended a conference for Christian bloggers and writers. It was a disaster for many reasons, none of which are pertinent here, but there’s one piece of advice a fellow writer had offered to me — unsolicited, of course — that has nagged at me since. We had been discussing how to write a novel while being a parent with young kids. Her advice? Don’t put it off for years. Get it done. Make the time. It was really the only piece of advice I heeded from that awful weekend, and I set to work on my manuscript. I worked…
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The Sacred Work of Mothering in the Pew
By Shelley Hurt Mielke I was recently talking with a friend about the challenges of worshiping with small children. She was lamenting how hard it is to teach her children how to participate in the liturgy while juggling wiggly siblings and easily distracted littles. And with every fiber of my being, I got it. I have blogged here and here and here and probably scores of other places about how hard worshiping is with little ones. I can’t count how many times I came away from worship frustrated, exhausted, sad and even angry. Not exactly the emotions one would hope for after worship! While we always wanted a large family, I used to joke with my…
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I Make Motherhood Look Awful
By Vanessa Rasanen Tomorrow is Monday. Again. I will get up before the sun — and hope I rise before any of the kids do. I’ll feed the dog, let him out, and groggily reheat coffee that I brewed on Sunday morning, because 1) I only know how to make 12 cups at a time, b) I can’t drink 12 cups in one day (*for shame!*), and finally, meh. Reheated day-old coffee is as home to me as cold eggs on a slice of toast that my three year old has snuck a bite out of while I hear cries of “Mom! I need help wiping my bum!”. After feeding,…
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The Offense of Failed Empathy
By Vanessa Rasanen There’s perhaps a point in each of our lives when even the most docile and genial of us have wanted to firmly kick another person in the shin. Hard. If I were a betting woman — which, who are we kidding, I totally am if there’s a blackjack table and a babysitter nearby — I’d wager that more often than not this urge is due, in no small part, to the other person’s less than tactful comments. In short, “Oh no, they didn’t!” Of course we live in the age of offense, where even those of us who mock it become offended just as easily. (Even if…
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Finding Help Shouldn’t Be This Hard, Should It?
By Vanessa Rasanen I am not the most private person — classic oversharer, here. It’s pretty easy to open up, to let people in, and to yammer on about even the hardest of situations with others, and I have always processed situations — especially difficult ones — by talking. If I try to keep it inside and handle it on my own, it seems stifling, suffocating. Yet, I have also spent years upon years individually processing and analyzing my life experiences and the resulting scars. Tirelessly. Endlessly. That horse? It was beaten to death long ago. After years of self reflection, some growth, and much prayer many of my scars…
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I’m Failing to Parent in the Pew
By Vanessa Rasanen That Sunday was pretty much like any other, except my husband actually had the day off work and was able to join us for church. I don’t know if having him there with us caused me to drop my guard or what, but shortly after the Lord’s Supper had concluded and our pastors were returning the chalice and such to the altar, I looked up to see our almost three year old little girl smiling at me from the other side of the chancel railing. Somehow she had slipped away from me and her Godmother while my husband was out in the narthex disciplining the five year…
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Born Still Part Two
By Genevieve Wagner Editors Note: Genevieve is a dear friend of mine for many years. She has graciously agreed to share her family’s recent full term stillbirth, and the hope and faith that her family has. Our world had tipped. How was this possible? What are we going to tell our kids? What do we do next? How do you pack for this? Everything we were planning for – the unmedicated birth like 3 of the siblings, the peaceful home waterbirth like the 4 year old’s – it was all instantly switched for a very medical birth… and we wouldn’t be bringing a baby home. Now traveling in rush…
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A Lutheran Perspective on Stillbirth
By Genevieve Wagner Editors Note: Genevieve is a dear friend of mine for many years. She has graciously agreed to share her family’s recent full term stillbirth, and the hope and faith that her family has. After a trial run of labor the week before where the whole birth team had been called out to the house and hours of 3 minute apart contractions just… stopped… it was time for what would hopefully be my last prenatal appointment. Because I was so large and easily tired, my husband volunteered to drive me to my appointment, and I gratefully accepted. We don’t live near family and it was a last minute…
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Withholding Forgiveness
By Allison Hull I’m sort of a free-range mom. I let my kids play outside in the front yard. And in the street of our cul-de-sac. Drives some of my family insane that I’d let them ride their bikes around our house without me watching them. But both they and I need the space to run free. The neighborhood kids from the block do the same. They all meet in the street to play, joke and chase each other around. And during this time at least once if not three times a day one of my kids comes in crying. I can handle it if it was because of…
