Choose Love

Today, I had a choice. A choice to respond in love, or respond in judgment of a stranger…

Let me back up a little bit…

We were out as a family, having some swim time, when all of the sudden we saw someone motioning for the lifeguard… then I saw a much older man, Who clearly doesn’t have children, pick up a little infant. Then two more life guards ran over… You could see the worry on everyone’s faces. Which quickly turned to Great disapproval.

Somehow, a very little, barely walking baby had found its way out to the pool without the parents…

First the father runs out looking frantically, and moments later you see the mom running out. I wasn’t super close and there was a lot of background noise… but you could see the people close by talking to them, didn’t have much grace…

It turns out the older siblings had opened the door out to the pool area, and accidentally let the little one out…

It could’ve happened to anyone…and yet, no one seemed understanding. I felt really bad for the mom, knowing that she was probably beating herself up… but I’ll be truthful, I struggle with reaching out to strangers. So I went back to focusing on my little ones…

Sometime passed, and as we were coming out of the bathroom the family was getting ready to leave. She stopped me as we passed by, and asked me if I had seen what happened. I had explained what little I saw. And she began to cry…

I saw this sweet mama, who loves her babies so so much, just wrecked inside with all of the other possibilities of how it could’ve have ended. And then she said something I think pretty much ALL of us can relate to as moms…

“I feel like a FAILURE”…

And as the tears streamed down her face, tears welled up in mine…. I hugged her. I told her she was a great mom. The Holy Spirit spoke directly to me that I should pray for her. Despite my hesitancy, I asked if I could prayed over her….I prayed the Lord would give her peace, and a lot of other things that truthfully I barely remember saying, because the Holy Spirit has a funny way of doing things that way with me.

Anyway, she was thankful for the prayers, and I could see a little relief that someone else wasn’t giving her a hard time…

I walked away with tears running down my face, thinking about how I would’ve felt, if I was in the same shoes.

This week, our church gave a charge to love people in our community, outside the walls of our church. I’ve struggled a little (and I’ll be honest this week has been crazy busy) with coming up with different ways that we can bless people, and have been really waiting on the Holy Spirit to show me who really needed his LOVE.

After today, I realized loving your community looks like so many different things. It can look like giving out diapers and feeding the homeless… or picking up trash and paying for someone’s groceries… OR, it can look like coming along side a stranger, and encouraging them, when everyone else was busy judging, and chastising… it looks like stepping out of your comfort zone and praying for someone there on the spot, and not just saying “I’ll pray for you”…

I’m thankful God uses broken vessel like me, to love on the people on his heart ❤️

And finally. Moms. Let’s do a better job at lifting each other up. This gig is so hard on its own, we need each other to build one another up, and not tear one another down!!

-Meg Priest –

❤️

( feel free to share but make sure To not copy and paste plz)

Love is a choice

Love is not a feeling. It’s not roses and boxes of chocolates. It’s not found in a song or smell, or even touch. It’s not love letters in lunch boxes.

Love is a CHOICE.

Love looks like choices you make every day.

Love is seeing your wife go from pretty, peppy and perky… to poofy, exhausted, stretch mark covered and slathered in spit up, crying over the burned Mac and cheese, and still telling her she’s sexy. And meaning it.

It looks like embracing , crying and praying together, and learning to heal after losing a baby girl. It looks like your husband going home to immediately pack away the nursery you had ready, that will never hold a baby, before you can even walk down the hall to the room, knowing it would kill you inside. It killed him inside too.

Love isn’t usually rainbows and butterflies. It’s doing the hard things, like telling the kids their baby sister died, so his wife didn’t have to repeat those dreaded words AGAIN…

It looks like sitting together in a room, with the 7th different doctor to say “it’s probably cancer”…And your husband assuring you, he’s never, ever going to leave your side, though every step, no matter what comes. And he didn’t.

It looks holding your husband holding you after every one of the 10 plus miscarriages, and never once said “maybe it’s time to give up”… Instead, he believed in the promise God gave, and tirelessly laid hands every morning to pray for my body. He didn’t think I was awake…. But I knew.

It looks like helping your pregnant (with much wanted twins) wife up out of bed at 11,2,3,5 and 6 am because she literally can’t walk without support. And Spending HOURS upon hours in the hospital and doctors offices, each time, saying “I’m here for you, I love you, there is no one I’d rather be with”.

It looks like beauty in the hard times, and sometimes, saying the hard things. It looks like unity in the midst of chaos. It looks like putting God in the center of a marriage that the enemy has tried to steal from. Love is a choice you make every day. To serve the unloveable. To forgive even the more reprehensible. To shine light even when the darkness feels insurmountable.

Love is a gift.

Choose Love.

-Meg

Progress over Perfection

Maybe you blew it today, and snapped at your kid. Maybe you reacted instead of responded. Maybe you have no idea how you are going to get through tonight, let alone tomorrow with grace, when all you want to do is scream! …

First, breathe. Second, repeat after me. Progress over perfection. Progress over perfection!

The reality is, no matter who we are, we are not perfect. Let’s strive for progress in our own lives and relationships, and not perfection! Having unrealistic expectations of your self or others, sets you (and your kids) up for disappointment, so let’s keep it real and remember it’s all about progress over perfection!

10 minute rule

ONE parenting hack that made my life easier is the simple 10 minute rule.

Picture this…

You are out with your young child at the mall, braving the play area… Your little one climbs on the little foam play figure, as you imagine Every. Single. One. Of the germs that’s slathered on the ENTIRE play area. Never mind the carousel…. Hand sanitizer. So much sanitizer after you exit. Like, you will basically bathe in it….

Then, you realize…. You have to try to DRAG your kid/kids away from the most “magical place in the mall”…
It’ll most likely end in a scene that is reminiscent of the exorcist…


Friends. There is a better way! 🙂
Let me introduce to you the “10 minute warning!”
How do you, as an adult, respond to being interrupted when you are super focused? I’m guessing a little frustrated…
The same goes for kids. They are soooooo focused, it’s hard to get them to switch gears mentally to leave without a little warning.

So, About 15 minutes Before I want to actually leave whwre ever, I’ll start giving my kids a countdown. that loons somethjng like, “15 minutes and we are leaving kids!”.

Although that might be what it sounds like for me telling my older (9-16) kids that the family “bus” is heading out soon…
With my toddlers, (ages 2.5) I break it down a little more. Which looks more like, “Josiah, Olivia… We are getting ready to leave in 10 minutes. We will clean up in 5 minutes, and put our shoes on to go home after that”…
Then I will continue to give them a 5 minute warning, then a 3 minute warning, then a 1 minute warning. Each time, explaining that we are going home after the minutes are up.

8 out of 10 times (Times two. Because twins) we will have no melt downs! It’s such a great tool to help departing from fun events with less of a hassle.


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