Y’all I have the amazing opportunity to speak at the Thrive Moms Retreat  this weekend and next Tuesday May 3rd in the evening! Get on over and register for this free online retreat that is meant to fill your tank with God’s abundant love! You can tune in from the house Saturday am over pancakes or at the park! Oh the beauty of an online retreat. We would all love to have you. Check out the amazing speaker line up as well.

Also, if you don’t follow Thrive Moms, get on that! I absolutely LOVE getting their encouragement and devotions every monday morning. I also love their magazine as well. I wrote this article for the latest version Abundant and couldn’t be more honored to share.

So long story short. If you are a momma, need encouragement and love! Get over to Thrive Moms and learn more!

I’ve witnessed God’s love flow as a current through the timeline and story of my life. Only an amazingly good God would have brought me here. He has pushed me through doors I never thought I would fit in. He has orchestrated even the ugliest moments or choices in my life into beauty. If I step back, I can see he continues to weave together a pattern of His Grace and His Gifts. All in HIS time not mine. All in HIS plans, which are not mine.

I remember specifically saying in my senior year of college that I NEVER wanted to own my own business. Thank you Lord for not listening to my “little plans” and leading me into a business of loving and serving people with my own photography and mentoring business. I remember the multiple years of waiting and begging to have a child. Thank you Lord for orchestrating our son’s arrival in your timing. So many reasons have come to the surface now, that we see looking back.

As a mom. I often feel like I carry the weight of every decision. I hope and plan for how the next 5 minutes and next 5 years will turn out. It is such an heavy load that I carry around. Yet, I don’t NEED to carry this weight in my own strength. I just need to get on my knees. I need to look back and remind myself that God’s plan always wins, to remember his faithfulness, and the beautiful stories he has told even in my short timeline.  Lord help me to inscribe these words into my every thought.

Isaiah 55:8-9 (NLT)
8 “My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord.
“And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.
9 For just as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so my ways are higher than your ways
and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.

I see God’s love shown most through the stories He is telling through our lives.

And y’all, God tells the best stories.

So whether you are in the first chapter, stuck in the middle or closing a book with perspective. Remember, God truly does tell the best stories. Let’s trust him in our next chapters, and even in our next sentence. Walk in faith and remember his VOLUMES of faithfulness.

We live in a culture where hustle, pushing harder & longer is praised. With that we also praise and laugh at the result. The burnout, binge watching, the donuts. To be honest, this is a cycle that doesn’t leave us whole or rested. Hustling until our bodies crash isn’t a way to live life.

This year I am working on making weekly scheduled rest a big priority. It’s my bend just to work a little more, to get ahead, just another hour. Sound familiar?

Yet, I am learning the importance and truth that rest is commanded (Exod 20:8) aka it’s not a luxury or being selfish we are all created to NEED a day of rest EACH WEEK (not once in a blue moon). TRUE rest.  While I love me some netflix, I never feel truly rested after watching my 4th show, I just want more.

My heart this morning wants to break this bogus culture that is rest is weak or only for the lazy. It’s the freaking opposite, resting is so wise and often a challenging discipline. (Preaching to myself today as I often feel guilt for resting)

But y’all the fruit is so worth it. Yet I feel like we never get a taste of this fruit as we are all so busy, overwhelmed we don’t know how to rest anymore.

So I encourage you to try to REALLY rest this weekend. Even if it’s an hour. Take a bath, a walk, create. It’s not selfish. It’s part of our design. It will bear fruit. Let it refill your well I promise real rest is#betterthandonuts every single time.

Musings originally posted over @ginazeidler

Somedays I have one foot in mothering, one in being a wife. Other days days I have two feet in my business & encouraging others. Somedays it’s two feet into grocery shopping and toddler wrangling.

I believe being a mother is all about slowly but surely, learning to ride the rhythms of your current season. Finding your feet each day, often each step at a time.

Somedays it’s graceful and you literally dance through your tasks & other days you resemble the game of twister, feeling entangled, turned around and upside down.

If I’ve learned anything so far about approaching motherhood it’s about remembering where my feet are firmly planted. To remember that no matter if I’m gliding or tripping that day, my performance isn’t everything.

To come back to my Father God. Who determines my steps. He gives my tired feet a rest. He picks me up when I fall. He restores and He lifts.

I want to stop carrying guilt that my “feet” aren’t doing the right dance or dancing as good as “her” So I’m choosing to sing some lyrics to the tune of my motherhood these days, ‘life’s a dance you learn as you go.’ To laugh at myself and just dance, like no ones watching.

Musings originally posted over @ginazeidler