Heart Talk from the Hostess

Ladies,

I’ve been thinking about you all so much lately. I can hardly believe I launched Single Mom Spot almost 6 months ago now!

Today, I woke up and wanted to write to you straight from the heart and share with you a little bit about where I’m at in my life as a single mama. Single Mom Spot is an online community for single moms, and we really believe in the power of telling your story and sharing where you are at so, as long as I’m a member of the single mom community that means you will continue to hear directly from me about my real single mom life.

At this very minute I’m busy raising two kiddos, running my business and being a girlfriend to my boyfriend, Tom. In the past two weeks both of my kids have been sick and just when I thought I’d dodged the bullet I came down with the same cold that they had been fighting. UGH. Our days have felt a little long and I’ve been a little crabbier than I like to admit but all through these last couple of weeks I have prayed one prayer of thankfulness after the next for the life I have with my children and I’m constantly grateful that I met a man that loves ALL OF US. Sometimes our days as a family are AMAZING. Other times, they just aren’t. The kids can bicker NONSTOP. Someone’s crying because they fell off the couch. Someone else wants a bowl of cereal and we are out of milk. The homework from school won’t do itself. My clients are calling and I’m trying to pretend I live in a silent oasis where no one disturbs me or my work. LOL.

Sometimes I feel frustrated when I can’t get all the things done that I want. It feels like an uphill battle trying to build anything let alone something completely new. It weighs on me heavily when I feel like I am neglecting something that I am supposed to be doing.

This weekend I spent some time asking myself (and God—while I was praying) what should I really be doing. I feel strongly prompted to work on Single Mom Spot but as a single mom starting something new in addition to the business that I already run is VERY HARD.

 So, my question to God was this:

How am I supposed to accomplish the things with my life that you want me to accomplish when I feel so out of time and energy? How? Really, just how?

And yes, I asked it just like that. With all that doubt rolled in.

It’s funny to see it written out because I opened up my email yesterday morning for one of the business adventures that I launched this year and in it a woman wrote me a one-word question that really struck me. Her question was simple and loud as a bell to me: ‘HOW?’

I think I heard her question because I had been asking it of myself first and then, when I couldn’t come up with a good enough answer, I asked God.

How am I supposed to do what you want me to do with my life? It feels too big. All of it.

Not feeling well the last few days and managing home and work with sick kids made this question feel all the more persistent in my mind.

I didn’t just want an answer, I NEEDED an answer.

In my quiet time, this is what I felt God say back to my heart: start by being with me. Just be with me and I will help you live the life that I made you to live. BUT, it starts with ME.

It has taken me a few days to process this and to think about what this truth means when applied first in my heart and then in my life. After a long weekend of wrestling with how to best move forward with my family, our home, my business and my personal passions like Single Mom Spot, I was surprised and relieved to open my email to a much-needed devotion that addressed how the most productive human to ever impact earth did it: Jesus.

These were the words from Karen Ehman’s book, When Making Others Happy Is Making You Miserable: How to Break the Pattern of People Pleasing and Confidently Live Your Life, that really put it into perspective for me:

“When Jesus walked the dusty roads and fields of the Holy Land, He had just as much time as we do: twenty-four hours a day. One-hundred and sixty-eight hours a week. And fifty-two weeks each year. According to the New Testament accounts, He never seemed to be in a hurry. However, He was the Son of God on a very big mission. His life was saturated with people. He had family. Friends. Work, worship, and rest.”

The devotion went on to explain how Jesus remained at all times connected to God and deferred to God  in prayer for strength and perseverance. Jesus, the Son of God, relied on God to help him carry out his mission.

God has given me and my children a life that is rich with purpose. My mission as a woman and single mom is nothing like Jesus’ mission BUT, my life and work is still greatly valued by God.

That said, if God has designed me with purpose, then living into my purpose and achieving anything that God would want me to achieve, truly cannot be done apart from Him.

Wow. I let that realization sink in. Maybe the months and years when I’ve struggled the most I haven’t truly been leaning on God to lead me forward.

And it led me to another important question: If God is going to help me live my life to the fullest then what is my responsibility when it comes to my family, my work and my dreams?

I answered the question by listing out my responsibilities based on this new, mind bending revelation that I’d just had.

My first responsibility is to trust God with everything.

My second is to pray about the path forward.

My  third responsibility is to take action in response to his guidance.

After taking action, my responsibility goes back to the very beginning: Trust God with everything.

This means that when I feel overwhelmed, out of time and as though my to-do list is requiring superhuman strength to accomplish the tasks before me, it is probably because I am in need of HIS superhuman strength.

When I come to the end of what I can do, I find myself at the beginning of what God can do. I cannot tell you what a beautiful gift it was to truly take this lesson into my heart. I hope that I don’t too quickly forget it. And I hope that in the moments when I get frustrated and panicked and feel like nothing is going the way that I planned that my heart will remember this lesson.

I know this was a long letter and I appreciate you reading it and your support of Single Mom Spot and our growing, online community for single moms. I hope that these thoughts meet some of you where you are at and bring as much help and hope to your heart as they did to mine.

With lots of love,

Jenna