I'm Embracing Change!

I'm not sure exactly what happened between the last blog post and now, but I think I've actually started a new blog!

My last blog post, An Accidental Mama, resonated with me so much that I felt like there was more to the story. I like risk and change. (I know, my husband thinks I'm weird too) So I decided to explore it!

I've LOVED my last couple of years here on Beck Far From Home. In the process of writing about home and the longing for it, I found I had really been home all along. My heart has it's dwelling in God. I will be far, in a sense, from my heavenly home for the rest of my earthly life. But I don't feel an urgent restlessness to ponder and wrestle with my homelessness like I once did.

Fittingly one of the last blog posts to be written here is entitled Finding Home. I'm satisfied.

Actually As I look over the last three posts I'm amazed. God is bringing me full circle in my life in so many areas. I've found a home. I'm embarking on a new journey of pursuing writing. and income, for the first time in years. And I'm discovering that while I didn't intend to become a mama, God had plans for my good far greater than I could foresee. I'm ready to explore what it means to pursue my calling in the throws of motherhood.

Now all that's left to do is say thank you. Thank you for journeying with me and supporting me as I practiced my faith and played with words! Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your journey as well. And to invite you to join me over at The Accidental Mama, it's not your ordinary mommy blog! See you there. 

An Accidental Mama

I'm an accidental mama, I had no plans of motherhood. Content in my skin, loving marriage, figuring out life; I was surprised by motherhood.

Not My Call

I don't live for my kids. I made room for them. But they don't define me. I don't relate to mothers who declare they were born to be have babies, that it's all they ever wanted. I can't taste it, don't trust it.

I worry about mothers who say their children are their lives. From my own experience I know the gaping wound that's left behind when a child grows up, claims their life for their own and leaves you. The bitter taste on the tongue of the heartbroken mama and the frustrated young adult. When I left home, I watched the slow bleed in my own mother's heart until Jesus healed it and gave her a new and right passion, himself. 

Some days I look at my children and wonder how I got here, covered in peanut butter and washing mounds of laundry. How did I become the mommy, where did my youth go? I don't resent it, most days. But I marvel at the fast moving pace of time and it's slippery march onward.

I don't live for my kids. I live for Jesus. But I do love them. I wasn't born to be their mother, they were born to make me one. And I'm thankful, because nothing has shaped this selfish heart with compassion, like motherhood has.

I'm amazed to see their little personalities and opinions emerging; unique, wonderful. I see God so clearly calling, drawing, loving. It makes me fall in love with him all over again, the way he loves my babies even more than I do.

My Calling

I don't understand motherhood as a calling. Perhaps it is and I just missed the memo. But I do know it's a privilege, and my responsibility, to usher these little lives into their own faith, their own place in God's family.

No, waking up to referee fights, cook another meal, read another book, make another bed doesn't set my heart racing with purpose and passion. Being a voice for the broken, mentoring women, praying bold prayers of faith, taking a risk for the gospel, pounding out words that bleed grace; that makes me whoop and holler!

I know who I was made to be, a voice, an advocate for truth. Being a mama is a tool God is using in my life to refine me, to remind me he knows what we need better than we do, to put a magnifying glass on the way of grace. I'm not at the place in my life where I can say motherhood is a calling. It's a refining, a breaking, a rebirthing.

The beauty is that if you see motherhood as your calling, a divine purpose for your life, or if  like me you don't, God still has grace for us all. Our end goal can be the same, children rooted in the love of Jesus, growing in faith. Our source of strength and help is the same, Jesus' mercy and power for this day. This moment. Mercy for now, mercy for each other.

Is motherhood your calling? Or are you more like me, pursuing your calling in the midst of motherhood?

The Power of a Story

Do you believe a story can change the world? 

I do. I always have. Stories have influenced my thinking, my heart, my view of the world since I was little. I so loved the transportation that came from a well told story that I named my cat Princess Scheherazade, after the heroine of Arabian Nights, when I was 11. Even as a young girl I admired the power and charm of a woman so able to wield words as to hold her captor captive.

I still believe words have power to charm, inform, captivate. Maybe that's why I'm so excited about being able to work on a project that uses words for good. CausePub, a new crowd publishing company, is using stories not only to engage the lives of people who read them but benefit people from the profits of the book. Brilliant!

Do you have a story to tell? I bet you do! At CausePub we're looking for stories of a time you rebelled against your couch, stepped out of your comfort zone and did something. It could be simple or extravagant. Whatever it is, we want to hear it.

Hop over to CausePub  and check the project out. If your story is chosen to be published in the book you will receive a portion of the proceeds from the book's sale. We've also partnered with Blood: Water Mission and they will receive 50% of the profit. If 15,000 books are sold it will provide 45,000 people in Africa with water for a year! That's a story worth telling!

Do you believe in the power of a story? Why not join us in telling stories and spreading the word!