My thoughts as I worked through Mary DeMuth’s exercises about finding my passion led me to the importance of mothers. With that in mind, what is the world’s greatest need? And how can that crash into my joy?

photo credit: sskennel

The answer goes beyond the need for mothers and into what mothers need.

So, I’m a mother. I love and enjoy my children. I strive to train them up in the way they should go, and I don’t think I’m doing a terrible job of it.

But! There are those days . . .

I get tired and cranky. I lose my temper and raise my voice. I sometimes crush little spirits. Then I find myself having to back up and try again.

My heart and head are filled with mixed messages.

Am I being selfish when I demand a little writing time? Should I devote my entire being to the raising and educating of my little ones and being a helpmeet to my husband? Is writing and being a wife and mother mutually exclusive?

I’m not going to bring up that word “balance” because it’s not about balance. We don’t live on a seesaw! It’s about being a whole person for all the seasons of my life.

Right now, for instance, it’s a simple fact that my nursing infant requires a large portion of my time to survive and thrive. Also, my two year old needs minute to minute reminders that he has not been replaced and forgotten. My four year old is requesting several extra hugs and kisses before bedtime even when the previously mentioned infant is crying in the next room. And my six year old craves verbal praise for all her efforts to help me. (She is becoming an expert sandwich-maker. “Look, Mama! I did better at cutting them into triangles!”)

Not last on the list is my wonderful, attentive, hard-working, and self-sacrificing husband who honestly wants me to pursue my interests. He just hopes to be high up on the list of interests!

I am a writing mama. My family is not an inconvenience blocking the way to my writing dreams.

But . . . Sometimes I need a little encouragement. I bet other writing mamas do too.

So, finally, we have reached the purpose of this blog!

To celebrate living and loving the life of a writing mama.

I’ll unpack this mission more in my next blog post. I hope you have enjoyed this series on the Rebirth of Communicate Creativity. I have many great plans which I will complete one post at a time.

Will you join the party? How can you celebrate today? How can you encourage a mama who might feel a little trapped in her current life season?

Want some encouragement right now? Read The Hand That Rocks the Cradle.

I have read that civilization is defined by its stories.

photo credit: madprime

We find ourselves telling the same ones again and again with different characters and settings.

Mary DeMuth’s second exercise on finding your passion is listing your three favorite movies and finding the common thread or theme. She helped many people through this assignment in the comments so if you’re stuck read through a few.

When I asked myself for three favorite movies I couldn’t even think of what movie I had most recently seen. I thought and prayed about it and enjoyed one of those glorious epiphanies.

Movies are stories.

Choosing three favorite stories isn’t easy either, but here are mine.

• The Magician’s Nephew by C. S. Lewis
• The Good Samaritan from Luke 10:25-37
• Christ Caring for His Mother from the Cross from John 19:25-27

What do you perceive as the common thread?

Although Mary helped many people discover their common threads, I think it’s important to discover yourself the commonality among your own favorites. Your common theme may be as individual as your own mental rabbit trails.

The common thread I see among my stories is the importance of motherhood.

Jesus was suffering and dying yet he ensured his mother would be cared for.

The values Digory’s mother invested in him prevented him from stealing her life-saving cure, but Aslan still provided a way for Digory to save his mother’s life.

And the Good Samaritan? Who else could have taught him tender caring toward a human being who under different circumstances might have seen the Samaritan as beneath him?

Mothers are important!

To beat a cliche, none of us would be here without our mothers.

What are your three favorite stories or movies? What is the common thread that you see?

Please don’t put me in a box.

I rebel against definitions. Excuse me while I attempt to find peace within this straight jacket called Avoiding Tangents.

[See, right here? This space? I deleted a tangent here.]

Okay, so I have lots of thoughts on lots of subjects. A blog is a great place to spill the thought overflow, but I realize few wish to follow all my rabbit trails, and of those few, perhaps none could keep up. And that’s okay. I probably couldn’t keep up with someone else’s rabbit trails.

Focus, I need focus.

Focus on what?

I wondered about the answer to this for many moons. Then I read this great post by Mary DeMuth on Michael Hyatt’s blog. Mary asks the question, “What is your passion?”

What is my passion? My first response is, “Writing,” but as Mary points out, writing is a vehicle. What do I hope to accomplish with my writing?

Er . . . a million dollars would be nice.

Well, as many before me have discovered, the pursuit of cash simply isn’t a great motivator. Besides, it makes me crazy.

So, what is my passion, and why am I avoiding this question?

Mary offers several possible reasons, and I think, for me, I’ve just gotten too busy to really think about it.

Too busy to think? But I love to think!

No wonder my world feels like a tornado.

Mary offers three exercises to discover your passion, and because I don’t like to be defined, I worked backwords.

Doesn’t that sound noble yet rebellious? Actually, I just worked in the order of easiest to hardest.

Unfortunately, when I asked on Twitter and Facebook what others thought my passion might be, I didn’t get much response.

So I moved on to the other two, but those are for future posts.

Just for giggles, whether you’ve known me for 28 years or just long enough to read this post, what do you think my passion might be?

For more passionate reading, visit Hustle Life’s Passion Issue or thoughts on igniting passion from Zen Habits.

What are you passionate about?

Hamster wheels are for hamsters.

photo credit: Lite Speed Photography

How quickly one goes from education and determination to the definition of insanity!

Before I thought about it, I was blogging just to keep up with my own self-imposed schedule. I complained to my dear husband about the stress of it all, and he said, “Then quit. I don’t want you doing it if you don’t enjoy it.”

I ignored him for a while longer.

Then I missed a post or two. Then a few more. Finally, I wrote a farewell post saying I was taking an unlimited break to redefine my blogging purpose.

“If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.”

~Lewis Carroll

I set up camp off-trail, did more research, and took some time to ponder my paths. I gave myself permission to waste a little time and quit trying to be so productive. Finally, I figured out I really do enjoy blogging, but I need some loose ground rules to keep myself from blogging obsessively just to fill virtual space.

My Guidelines

Because “Guidelines” Can Be Ignored

• The focus cannot be making money. Eventually, I still hope to make some money with this blog. I have some plans in place to do so. You will see a few affiliate links, but my primary focus must be a helpfulness to my readers.
• I will not blog if it requires neglecting my family. I will cook dinner, do some housework, play with and educate my children, flirt with my husband, and overall focus on my most important ministry before maintaining the blog. Blog or not, my home is far from perfect, but the conditions of my home and family will not travel in a hand-basket to anyplace without adequate air conditioning.
• I will not blog when I am brain-dead. After ten o’clock at night or before my morning shower and breakfast, I will not be pounding out posts. Some people can do it, and perhaps at a different season in my life, I can join those people. However, right now I’m a homeschooling mama of littles, and I cannot be kind and consistent in my training of them if burning the midnight oil turns me into Grouchy McGrouch.
• I will not set a rigid schedule. I want to post two to three times a week. I have a plan for weekly and monthly posts, but if life gets too busy the blogging world will hear from me less often. If needed, I will drop blogging all together.

All of my guidelines come down to keeping my priorities in the right order.

Now on to the million dollar question. What will my blog focus on? Stay tuned!

I wrote this poem in my early teens, and even though I can read it now and know I’m a silly goose, I still try to save the world all by myself.

Knowing something had to change in our family, I set out to “fix things” by sheer force of will and stubborn energy.

I need to make money from home so my husband can work less, I thought. More money will solve these problems.

Okay, I admit. My thoughts did not clearly state, “More money is the answer.” I would have seen that falsehood a mile away, but “more money needed” became the chant of my heart.

I decided to jump on the blogging wagon.

Only I didn’t just jump on. I told the horses to take a break and started pulling the wagon myself.

I blogged every day. I wrote about everything from the battle against clutter to stories about my kids to random links I found on Twitter. I filled my blog with content while shoving adsense ads and affiliate links wherever they would fit. I blogged all day and late into the night. I learned how to order pizza online because the kitchen was too messy to cook in, and I couldn’t load the kids up for the drive through since my dear husband had our only vehicle with him at work. Besides, I never got around to meal planning or found the time for shopping. How about cereal for dinner?*

Even worse, when my man would mention he would really like me to go to bed when he did instead of staying up so late, I would gripe that I was working so hard for him, and I wish he would believe in me.

I’ve never been a perfect wife and mother, but this frenzied, “I’m going to fix everything myself!” version of me was not an improvement.

*Disclaimer: I fully understand that there will be days and weeks in life that cooking dinner just doesn’t happen, but I do not believe it should be a way of life.

I miss my man.

Due to a pile up of bad financial decisions, my husband has worked two jobs most of our marriage.

We had decided early on that he would bring home the bacon, and I would keep the home fires burning. My man worked long hours without complaint to make this vision happen.

He was tired. So was I. We fell into a routine of existence, and life passed us by.

Then we lost Gabriel.

After three healthy babies, I was sure we would soon be holding another when a pregnancy test confirmed my suspicions the day after Mother’s Day 2010. My husband joyfully shared the news as I anxiously awaited the fluttering that would begin telling me about the baby growing within the safety of my womb.

A week before Father’s Day I started spotting.

An ultrasound confirmed our fears.

No heartbeat.

My man took off from both jobs. He helped me walk when my legs wanted to fall. He held our children as they cried for the baby sibling we never held.

Many precious moments occurred during that time of intense mourning.

When my husband returned to work, we were far from better, but a wonderful change had taken place within our family.

Our children looked at their daddy as a hero again.

And I . . .

I remembered how much I miss my husband while he works all the time.

Something’s gotta change, I decided.