30 Years

10,957.

Today, that’s how many days we’ve been married. That’s almost 11,000 days of choosing faithfulness to a vow we made in front of God, our family and friends. Thirty years have passed in the space of ten, I think. How does it go so fast?

I was nineteen and he was twenty-one when we said “I do,” and yes, we were both as immature as we were young.

In truth, several people discouraged our marriage. After all, we came from very different backgrounds—his family was healthy and happy, while mine was on life-support, for starters.

His style was rock-n-roll, mine was very Portland preppy.

We both loved music, though. He played electric guitar and was the lead singer in a Christian rock-n-roll band. I was a pianist who was so intimated by his impressive skill on the guitar that I literally stopped playing when we started dating. I do wish I had kept with it, but it was a window into my terrible struggle with self-worth.

In the years to come, Jay would have his work cut for him out as he learned to navigate the broken places in my heart and mind. God has used our marriage as in instrument of healing in my life! Truly, Jay has loved me “like Christ loved the church” in so many ways over the past 30 years.

In the spring of 1989, we a sat down in a fast-food restaurant and completed an assignment from a pre-marital counseling session: we wrote out a list of marriage pros and cons. One column contained all the reasons why we should get married that fall, and the other was a thinly veiled attempt to be reasonable about it all. Of course, reason was long-gone. We were in love.

Even though we made that list more than thirty years ago, if I close my eyes, I can still see Jay spinning a pen over his fingers as he wrote. His eyes danced when he looked at me. He said I was beautiful and funny and smart—and amazingly, despite my secret insecurity and pain, I believed him. He made me want to be all those things.

Six months after the list was made, we walked down the aisle and set out on the adventure of a lifetime.

We’ve been through a lot in thirty years. Seven newborns have been placed in our arms—the wonder of which never ceases to amaze us. Each child has exposed strengths and weaknesses in us—and forced us to face them. We’ve traveled the globe together planting homeschool co-ops and speaking to countless men and women about the hope we have in Jesus. We’ve graduated four of our seven children and been privileged to become grandparents, too!

Of course, things haven’t always been easy. Our hearts bear the scars of healing from shared heartache. We lost a precious baby to miscarriage early in 2000. That loss taught us that nothing is more precious than human life. Several years later, we endured the humiliation of losing our home to foreclosure and learned that people can be cruel when you pull out food stamps instead of cash at the grocery store. This taught us compassion and the of power kind words.

There have been seasons when we struggled to love each the way we promised to. We’ve been selfish and unkind to each other. Our words sometimes hurt instead of heal. I’ve pouted and slammed the door and, embarrassingly, engaged in childishness we call “the silent treatment.”

And through all of this, my husband stayed. He has loved me like Jesus. He held my hand as I was wheeled into the surgery that put an end to our ability make babies together. He’s been patient when our sex life was less than he needed, choosing to be patient as I struggled through hormone therapy and crippling anxiety.

For thirty years, his love has brought healing into my life.

Marriage is precious. It’s worth celebrating. Worth protecting. Worth defending and worth every ounce of energy we put into it. Marriage, after all, was God’s idea.

Today, I’ll look at my husband with tears in my eyes and let him know that I’d marry him all over again. I’m so thankful for our marriage! I’m so thankful we got married young and that we have chosen — yes — chosen to stay faithful.

The vow matters. The promise is renewed with every passing joy and trial—and I am grateful.

Happy 30^th Anniversary, Jay. I plan to spend the rest of my life making our home the place you most want to be. I love you!

Abundant Motherhood

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Kara Moss recently joined me on the podcast, and I’m excited to have her sharing more of her heart today on the blog today! I want to encourage you, Mom—share your challenges with Him, day and night, and let Him be your shelter.

xo, Heidi

Momlife. It’s the good life, the hard life, the fun life, the challenging life…It’s full of glorious moments, and it sees its fair share of crash-and-burn days too.

If you’re anything like me, you open your eyes each morning with an idea in your head of what the day should look like. For many years, I had this idea that if we could just make it to the end of the day with no major issues, attitudes, meltdowns, or frustrations then I could call it a successful day in our home. A good day meant everyone made right choices…no conflicts, no problems, no arguments. As you can imagine, we didn’t have very many successful days when that was how I defined it.

I was unintentionally putting a pressure on myself to do things perfectly. I was expecting a level of perfection out of my children to the point of growing impatient and frustrated with their sin…when the truth is, I am well aware of my own sin and my need for grace on a daily basis.

The journey of motherhood is teaching me that success isn’t defined by not messing up; it’s defined by getting back up. Every failure is an opportunity to grow…for both me and my children. If we learn to fail forward, our failures become launchpads for growth rather than set backs.

The real victory is overcoming challenges together not simply avoiding them. Those attitudes and meltdowns…those are actually gifts.

I know, I know…call me crazy. But that moment when your toddler has a meltdown in the middle of Target, and you have to walk out mid-shopping, leaving a cart full of stuff un-purchased…it’s a gift. Or the moment when your teenager is spewing words that you know deep down they can’t possibly mean…that is gift. These are the moments we get to see into the hearts of our children. We see where they are struggling, and we get to walk with them through it. We get to find Jesus together in the middle of it.

When we pause, take a breath, and anchor ourselves in Christ right then and there, we can change our perspective. We begin to see the challenges that will inevitably come up, not as an inconvenience, but instead, as a moment we can make an impact.

So what does a successful day look like? It looks like making the most of every opportunity we have to speak love, life, and truth into our children’s hearts. It requires us to let go of the pressure of perfection and be fully present where we are. It calls for us to stop taking our children’s sin personally and help them find Jesus in the middle of it. Success is when we capture the struggles and challenges of the day and watch them become the moments where hearts are changed and souls are shaped.

You can always go back later and get that cart of stuff you left at Target…

Kara Moss is a wife and mom daily reminded of her need for Jesus. She is passionate about equipping and encouraging women to walk in the abundant life Christ promises. Her message is open and honest as she brings a relevant word rooted in Biblical truth.

More on Kara: Website | Facebook | Instagram | Abundant Motherhood

Chipotle Salsa!

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Best.Salsa.Ever.

So … I am a HUGE salsa fan. I like it HOT. (Can you imagine?)

I started making salsa years ago and when I started I did things the “purist” way … even fire-roasted tomatoes! Well, several children later, I’ve graduated to canned tomatoes and I have to say that they taste every bit as good because all the other ingredients really “make” the salsa!

Here’s my recipe for my favorite salsa, and a few tips for those of you with more “mild” tastes:

If you don’t like SPICY salsa, you can cut down on the heat by taking out the seeds in the jalapenos and all the white membrane that holds the seeds. **word to the wise** Be careful with jalapenos! I’m here to tell ya, I made the mistake one time of taking out my contacts with jalepeno still on my hands. It.Wasn’t.Pleasant. WASH YOUR HANDS THOROUGHLY after handling jalapeno peppers.
Chipotle peppers are just smoked jalapeno peppers in yummy sauce. They can be hot. If you want a more mild recipe, simply cut the amount of chipotle pepper but don’t cut it out entirely. That yummy smoked flavor is AMAZING in salsa.
Use fresh ground pepper if you can. It’s the best. 🙂

So without further adieu, here’s my secret recipe! Enjoy!

1 large white onion
1 red pepper
2 cans diced tomatoes – drained
3 jalapenos – seed them to remove the “heat” (I like mine HOT)
4 cloves of garlic
1 bunch of cilantro (yes the whole bunch)
1 or 2 canned chipotle peppers
2 tsp liquid smoke
1 T white vinegar
1 T lemon juice
salt & pepper to taste

Add these to your food processor and blend FIRST.

Onion
Cilantro
Jalapeno

Adding these first helps keep the tomatoes from becoming “soupy”

Add the tomatoes last and pulse your food processor. The trick is to get it the consistency that you like it. It might take a few tries but keep at it. It’s worth it!

After you have blended those, add your liquid smoke (Optional if you don’t have it. Don’t run out to the store, just buy it for next time.), vinegar, lemon juice, garlic, red pepper & chipotle pepper.

Blend. Add the drained cans of diced tomatoes LAST. Taste for salt and pepper. Remember to PULSE your food processor. You want salsa, not soup. 🙂

This will make a whole lotta salsa! Enough to feed a crowd. Maybe it’s time to have some friends over… !

Enjoy!
Heidi

No More Moanful Motherhood

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My friend Jamie Erickson joined me on the podcast last week. Today, she’s sharing her heart on a topic may of us moms can relate to. I want to encourage you mom, hard times come – but they’re not here to torture us; they’re here to teach us. We either learn from them or we don’t. I hope you’re encouraged by her words. xo, Heidi

I saw a meme on social media the other day that made me snarl. Perhaps you’ve seen it too. It said something to the effect of “Wine is the epidural of Motherhood.” It’s not the only pithy bit of mommy humor to surface on my screen lately. There have been others—plenty of others circulating the interwebs reminding us all how tough it is to be a mom and how motherhood has earned us the right to drink heavily, hide in the bathroom, eat all the chocolate, and buy all the things. The messages are all different, of course. But they all have one singular aim, to get us all to weep and wail about our sad plot in life—to laugh and then cry over the fact that we are mothers.

Ten years ago when social media was the new hot thing, a lot of moms, myself included, fell into the comparison trap. We felt that we had to do more and be more—that we were never enough. The curated highlight reels of everyone else’s lives had us all striving for perfection. But then one day, when we realized that this pervasive perfection was not actually possible, we let the pendulum swing in the opposite direction, landing us in a very failure-centric place. Moanful mothering became a cultural epidemic that continues to rob society of the joy God intended motherhood to be.

We want to blame our kids for the life that we’re not living—for the time they take away from our plans, the sleep they deny us, the noise and mess they bring to our days, and on and on. We’d obviously never say any of this out loud, especially not in front of them. No, we’re too well-mannered for that. But we’d gladly plaster these harsh, albeit funny, criticisms all over social media.

But before you re-share any of that sarcastic drivel on Facebook or Instagram, Mama, think about this for a moment. Would you want to go online and see the exact same meme posted about you? Would you want your friend, co-worker, or mom to tell the world that they have to drink a whole bottle of booze at the end of the day just to survive your relationship? That they can’t wait for the school year to start again so that you’ll finally be someone else’s problem? If the answer to either of these is NO, remember the words of Matthew 7:12 and be drawn toward kindness. Treat others how you want to be treated, even your children. Admittedly, your kids might not have any social media accounts today, but they probably will someday. Start developing the habit of praising in public now so that one day when your children become your online “friends,” it will be second-nature for you to affirm them there with your life-giving words.

Motherhood is hard. That’s true. Somedays, parenting might even leave you limp, but children are not problems or sand in the gears, they are gifts—even yours. Especially yours. Yes, you’ll have bad days because your kids are imperfect. But, then again, so are you. So am I. Will they do anything today, next week, next month that will grate on your nerves or send you into another room to count to ten in order to regain your composure? Probably. But here’s the thing: the daily struggles of motherhood are holy ground. The hard things are often what God will use to make us all more like Him. Sanctification almost always happens when we have to lean hard on God. It’s so easy for our moanful-motherhood culture to say that home is where our children become more patient, more kind, more fill-in-the-blank. But it’s also where we, mamas, become MORE too.

If we all start changing the narrative and start casting a vision for success in our kids and speak words of life and love over them both on and off the screen, maybe we can help change the trajectory of the whole world. Maybe we can launch adults out into it who have learned to love by our example.

Jamie Erickson is the daughter of the King, wife to “Mr. Right,” and the mother to five blissfully abnormal kids. When she’s not curating memories, hoarding vintage books, or playing ringmaster to a circus of her own making, she can be found encouraging and equipping a growing tribe of mothers all across the globe on the Mom to Mom podcast, through her blog The Unlikely Homeschool, at national conferences, and in her book Homeschool Bravely: How to Squash Doubt, Trust God, and Teach Your Child With Confidence.In addition to writing and speaking, Jamie loves talking faith and family over a cup of Starbuck’s finest, collecting calories around a table full of friends, and taking grueling hikes with her formerly homeschooled husband, Dain (because alas, calories don’t display very nicely on a shelf like other collections).