stay-at-home-mom

Fixing Me Was God’s Job (Repost)

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Author’s Note: Ethan and Emery are in school, and i am on week 2 of my new job (will blog about that soon since I addressed it in an earlier post). So, I am taking a short break from writing new posts this month so I can focus on time with the kids and getting used to the new job.  In the meantime, I am reposting pieces of my testimony that were published when I started the blog in October 2017). 

God can use any time, place, or circumstance He wants to use to get through to you.  He can speak to you in the most unlikely of places and in the craziest of ways.

When I was 31, after spending more than 10 years ignoring God’s voice (and at times even denying that Jesus existed), I actually obeyed God’s calling and left my full-time job to be a work-from-home-mom and be with my then-16-month-old son.

To date, it it probably the craziest thing I have ever done.  Most of the things God asks us to do seem crazy at the time; that’s why those things are known as a “leap of faith.”  They aren’t things we could accomplish in our own power or with our own knowledge, skills, or money.

And that’s where I was in May 2010: being obedient to Jesus when I still wasn’t even sure I believed in Him!  I didn’t have trouble believing in a Creator God overall, but I had lost Jesus – the man who walked and talked and healed and taught and died and lived again.

So, what God did was to remove me from the busyness of the life I had created with a job and a mortgage and a husband and a child and a pet, and He sat me down at the family-heirloom dining table in our house and confronted me with myself.

Now, I’m not trying to say that staying home with your baby isn’t busy, but it was a lot less so for me than when I worked full-time outside the home.  I still worked part-time from home and cared for our home and our son, but God had cleared my schedule quite a bit.

Life was quieter now.  Life was slower now.  I had time to think.  (Funny, “thinking” was what got me into the mess I was in in the first place, but thinking was also what God used to get me out).  I finally acknowledged that I needed help with my mind and my thoughts about God and Jesus.

At first, I tried to fix myself.

I remember reading a book or two I thought would help me believe in Jesus again.  At this point, I really wanted to believe in Him but couldn’t fathom ever being able to again.

I did pray sometimes and ask God to help me.

I was so used to scholarly-type study from 6 years of higher education that I thought maybe I could study my way back to believing in Jesus.

So, I got a Bible commentary to read what scholars said about the Bible hoping that some smart person’s “proof” would sway me.  I read the book of James because I heard someone say it was a good idea for new Christians to start with that book when reading the Bible.

God led me to meet some Christian moms from our church and start going to MOPS – Mothers of PreSchoolers – at our church with them in the fall of 2011.

I began to feel God more.  It was slow, but it was there.  I knew my worldview was made-up, but I still didn’t want to submit it to God.

I was working hard to fix myself before I went back to the Lord.  I thought He wanted me fixed before He would take me back.  {Spoiler alert} That’s where I was wrong.

Fixing me was God’s job.  Fixing YOU is God’s job.

He doesn’t require us to come to Him already perfect.  {Hint} If you wait until you’re perfect before you go to God, you’ll never go to Him.  If God waited to save us until we were perfect, He’d never have anyone to save!

What Happened When Our Family Followed God

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What happens when you follow God?  What happens when your whole family chooses to do it?

Here in the Hooks household, we’ve learned that when you step out in faith and do something God has called you to do, like our family did when I became a stay-at-home-mom, you experience God.  When God asks you to leave something behind, and you do it, you will see how He can take care of you.

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Our God Provides

Philippians 4:19 tells us, “my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.”

In Matthew 6:26, the author says, “Look at the birds of the air.  They do not sow, nor reap, nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not worth much more than they?”

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It’s nice to read these verses, but they’re simply inspirational words until you’ve experienced God’s provision.  Once you have, you know it – you know that you’re worth more than the birds and that the Father will take care of you because you’ve seen Him do it.

In January 2010, when I told Bill I was being convicted by God to stay at home with Ethan, he flat out thought I had lost my mind.  We prayed for peace for him, but it didn’t come.

He did the math, over and over, to compare our monthly bills to his monthly pay.

“It doesn’t work,” he confessed.

I was concerned but not defeated.  I was sure this was what God was calling me to, so this was what I had to do.

We kept praying.

Finally, Bill said, “the numbers don’t add up, but if you say this is what God wants you to do, then we’ll do it.”

That step became part of our family’s story – part of our family’s testimony.

Our God Has Sovereign Control

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When something is a part of God’s plan, He.is.working…He’s already been working previously and in the background, orchestrating events that need to align for things to go according to His plan.  Pieces will fall together here and there, but you might not see it until later.

God takes care of the needs of His people long before His people are even aware of the need.

Take the story of Joseph, for example, in Genesis chapters 37-50.  God used Joseph to save the lives of many during a famine in Egypt.

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God, in His sovereignty, arranged the events in Joseph’s life – betrayal by his brothers and an unjust imprisonment, just to name a few – to place the man in a position to become second in command to Pharaoh just in time to lead Egypt through a terrible famine.

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God was in control then, and He’s in control now – in our family.

Bill had been hearing the name “Dave Ramsey” for years.  A friend talked about reading his books and shared some of Ramsey’s financial advice.  Then, Bill found The Dave Ramsey Show podcasts and began listening.

Since Bill is the financially-minded one of the two of us, he found Ramsey’s ideas intriguing but pushed them aside.  He couldn’t fathom it being a reality for us since we would only have one full-time income. There wasn’t any way to get out of debt using Ramsey’s debt snowball method if there wasn’t any extra money after bills were paid…and the way it looked, there wouldn’t be any.

Over time, though, we started noticing how things were dropping away from our budget as we prepared to lose my full-time income.

We’d gotten “gazelle intense,” to borrow one of Ramsey’s favorite phrases:  We cut cable, went to a different cellular carrier to save on phone bills, reduced car insurance by changing companies, refinanced the house to lower the mortgage, started using a monthly budget…anything we could think of to make wiggle room.

Suddenly, there WAS extra money in the budget at the end of each month.  It wasn’t a lot, but it was there.

Bill borrowed his friend’s copy of Ramsey’s book The Total Money Makeover, and we read it together.

“We can do this,”  he finally said. He’d been listening to people’s success stories on the podcast, too, so he was extra pumped.

So, we decided to give it a shot, and we began Baby Step 2 of Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover in August 2014, owing approximately $20,000 on a car, a set of Tempurpedic mattresses, and a student loan.  Seven months later, we paid it all off – 7 months early on the car, 1 ½ years early on the mattresses, and years ahead of schedule on the student loan.

One of the most fascinating elements of this whole experience has been that we haven’t felt like we had to go without necessary things or struggle to pay our bills.

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Sure, we’ve sacrificed.  We started living on a budget to see where we were spending money.  There’s been a lot less eating out. Bill had to figure out how to watch ESPN without cable (that took him awhile, so he went without it completely for several months).  I very rarely shop for new clothes.

But, we’re fine!  God has provided the things we needed, and we’ve learned to be content without many of the “extras.”

Even when the numbers didn’t add up, we relied on God, and He has taken care of us.

He’ll take care of you, too.  You can trust Him. With your finances.  Your relationships. Your children’s education.  Your job. Your health. Your house. Your important decisions.  He’ll take care of you. He feeds the birds, AND He clothes the flowers, but He loves you even more than He loves them.

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(If you’d like to read more about God’s provision in times of need, see Donna’s story or Meggan’s story).

What does He want you to trust Him with right now?  Is there a conviction you’ve been ignoring? A calling you’ve avoided?  What’s holding you back?

Would you share some things you have trusted to God? How has He provided?  Can you look back and see how He planned things out – pieces that fell together, events that coordinated?

A #parentingfail – Part 1

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Author’s Note: Sharing things that I’ve failed at doesn’t exactly bring me joy.  However, when I began to realize that I was going to have to be obedient to God’s conviction and start a blog, God showed me that I would have to be honest…real…vulnerable. That I would have to be truthful and tell you things about being a wife, a mom, a believer, a woman that maybe weren’t so glamorous or flattering or honorable or joyful.  This was one reason I held off for so long. There are a lot of things I don’t want to tell you about myself. But, in the end, I realized that I am just God’s servant girl, and right now, He wants me to tell you some of the stories He’s given me so you can connect, so you can relate, and so you can see God in my stories and in the stories that He’s given you.  

I had one of those days that makes me feel like a failure as a parent. It was a Saturday so it should have been relaxed and fun and happy and sunshiny.  But I yelled and fussed and argued and complained and knit-picked.  And then I furrowed my brow and pinched my lips together and clenched my teeth so hard that I got a headache, and it was difficult to relax my face.

Why? I kept asking myself.  Why do I keep doing this?

Why can’t I get along with my son?  Why am I aggravated by everything he does?

This is one of the biggest sources of anxiety and frustration and shame in my life right now and has been for some time – my relationship with Ethan – and I don’t have anyone to blame but myself.

I just can’t figure out how to get better at being Ethan’s mom.

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Ethan and me in 2015 on a chairlift at Tweetsie Railroad.  Bless his heart – he looks just like me when he smiles!

I have cried about it.  I have prayed about it. I have journaled about it.  I have asked other people about it…but I haven’t figured it out yet.

Honestly, this is probably one of the things that pushed me closer to God.  Before Ethan was born, Bill and I were already in church together and I was feeling wooed by God, but it wasn’t until after Ethan was born that I started desperately seeking Him.

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I felt like a terrible mother, and I was begging Him to make me better.

The first 3 or 4 months after Ethan was born were challenging and stressful to say the least, but I was a first-time mom, so that was to be expected.  After about 6 months, things seemed to even out, and it became more enjoyable. Ethan was a smiley, happy, bouncy baby for the most part, and Bill and I kind of settled into the parenting thing.

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Ethan in 2010 – around 15 months old.

Then, God convicted me to leave my full time job and stay home with Ethan – another fairly smooth transition.  We had our routine. We ate. We read books or built with blocks.  We played outside. We strolled around the neighborhood. He napped.  Things were doable. I found joy.  The parenting thing wasn’t too bad after all.

He was easy to get along with, easy to redirect, easy to pacify.  He liked to be read to and to play with his toys and to be outside in the sun.

When he turned 2, I didn’t see any of the Terrible-Twos stuff many people bemoan, so I naively thought we’d missed that somehow.  Maybe Ethan wasn’t going to do that stuff?!

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Ethan and Bill in 2011 at Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia, SC.  Ethan would have been about 2 1/2 here.

Then, along came about 3 or so, and all of a sudden, my pleasant, smiling, easy-to-get-along with little fella started saying no to everything I asked him to do, refusing to nap, being difficult to redirect from one activity to another, and complaining about the food I got for him (which was exactly what he’s just requested not 2 minutes before).

Where the heck was my precious angel-baby?

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Posing for family pictures on the beach in 2012 – he was 3 1/2.  (He still looks like an angel-baby with those big, clear, blue eyes, doesn’t he?!)

I had no idea what to do!  I’d always heard that children would test you…”just be consistent” was the advice I replayed from my pre-child days.

So, I was consistent…I thought.  But a day turned to a week which turned to two months which turned to a year, and he was still disagreeable and stubborn and wouldn’t nap and complained about his food and didn’t like to stroll around the neighborhood anymore.

And I still didn’t know what to do.  “Be consistent” didn’t seem to be working.  So, instead, I decided I could be more stubborn than he could.  I was the parent, and he would do what I said.  (I know. I know.  I’m supposed to be the adult here.  I didn’t say this was the right decision or the most mature parenting move I could have made).

At some point, I don’t exactly know when, I started screaming and yelling and slamming whatever was in arm’s reach onto the table or the floor and making him sit in the corner and spanking probably more than I should and making the “mad face” as he called it.

I NEVER knew I had a bad temper until I had children 😦

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All this led to a TON of guilt.  I cried – correction, I blubbered.  By myself and to Bill mostly. But, I cried a lot.  I also started praying about my temper.  I know parents have to be in charge and to  discipline their children, but I knew I was taking it too far when I lost my temper the way I did.

I honestly believe this was what drew me so close to God during this season of my life.  I had to learn to lean on Him because nothing I could do was working.

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Summer 2017

Next week, in A #parentingfail – Part 2, I’ll share some things I have learned along the way about children and tempers and consistency.  I’ll also share some specific words from God that I’ve gotten in response to my petitions for Him to take away my temper so I wouldn’t scream at my kids anymore.  I think you’ll be surprised at some of the answers I’ve gotten.  I know I was.

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How about you?  What have you learned from going through the Terrible-Twos or Terrible-Threes or Terrible-Tweens or whatever difficult stages you’ve walked through as a parent?  Where did you go for help? What did you find that didn’t work? What did work? Where are you now in your parenting journey? Any advice from those with older children to those with younger ones?  Can we survive this thing called Parenthood?!