At the moment I’m reading a book (okay, a Kindle book!) called Desperate: Hope for moms who need to breathe and it is just exactly what I needed right now, at this place and season of life. I read about it on one of my favourite blogs, ever, Your Wishcake, and knew that it was going to have to be the top of my reading list.
At the end of a long day of mothering, when all is finally still and quiet in the house, I am finding that the best thing for me to do is to curl up with my Kindle and read another chapter of this book. It is rest in the best way- setting me up for another day of mothering, encouraging me, challenging me, teaching me fresh things and reminding me of things I already know. I’m nearly three-quarters of the way through and I am dreading finishing, honestly, although I expect I will just go back through and read it again. I have highlighted most of it already, which probably defeats the point in highlighting.
Being a stay at home mum to two little tiny ones can honestly be quite a challenge. I found it really tough in Phoebe’s first year- being alone with a small person who needs watching 24 7 and who can communicate in a very limited way is quite a draining adjustment from any ‘normal’ life previous to that! As she’s grown and Simeon has been born the challenges have changed, and I am better suited to some challenges than others. It is a massive learning process for me, not just the baby who is learning how their body and the world works. It is also really amazing and wonderful, to have the privilege. Parenting, mothering is by far hardest, most rewarding, challenging and wonderful thing. Shaping small people, and shaping them in a way that will show them who God is, and glorify Him in the way I do it is quite the challenge. There have been times that I’ve felt lost, alone, tired and worn out. Reading other parent’s blogs, seeing their lives pan out over social media has really encouraged me at times I have felt a bit alone and at a loose end, but reading this book has encouraged me above and beyond that, with really truthful, helpful words.
Each chapter has honest reflections from Sarah Mae and Sally from their own experience of mothering, and the topic covered, and a few bits of Scripture to look up and some thoughts of things you can do at the end, to practically put things into action. Reading it has been the most refreshing thing, to know that I am not, and have not been alone in what I have been doing, thinking and feeling, and being refreshed to get up each day with new joy and intention and a better attitude towards the eternally important task which is at hand. It has been like breathing one big sigh of relief.
I am pretty bad, when reading eagerly through a book like I am, at doing the questions and action points at the end, but I have decided to dedicate an evening to go through them all and write them down once I have read the whole thing. If you have children at home, I would recommend a read- you can usually read the free sample on Amazon to see if you like it anyway- and if you may have children in the future, put it on the ‘to-read’ list!
PS. I was going to call this post ‘Desperate’, but this book is making me feel so refreshed that it was a much better fit!
Leave a Reply