This weekend, for the second year in a row, I attended the Hearts at Home conference in Grand Rapids, MI. I loved it last year and was super-excited to go again this year and get encouraged. Hearts at Home exists to encourage moms, specifically stay-at-homers, but I want to emphasize that I felt both times I attended the conference that there was nothing I heard that couldn’t be applied to work-outside-the-home moms, single moms, ALL moms! It was once again, amazing. I loved it even more this year than last year. Although, it should be noted, that miraculously, I cried a lot less than I did last year. 🙂
Throughout the next few weeks I will probably be sharing some more of what I learned from the great speakers I heard – especially Dr. Kevin Leman, author of the Birth Order Book, and my new FAVORITE book ever, Have a New Kid by Friday.
But what I want to share first (and quickly) are a couple of phrases spoken in a keynote given by the founder of Hearts at Home, Jill Savage. These words really stuck with me. She said that we are moms need to share our HARD stories with each other. That everyone loves to hear the cute, funny, stories about how your kid can turn his ear inside out, but what’s important to share are the experiences where you screw up as a mom, or get depressed, or have a giant housekeeping FAIL. Because everyone has these experiences, but we can’t learn from them if we’re too scared to talk about them, too concerned with keeping up appearances, with meeting a certain standard, that we keep it all stuffed inside.
Another thing she said that rings sooo true, is that we will never learn from each other as moms if we can’t stop judging each other. I know it’s hard. I have struggled with it in the past. But I believe there is no winner in the Mommy Wars. Let’s just encourage each other to be the BEST moms we can be, in the way that we feel is right for our families.
Lastly, something I took away with me last year, that was reiterated again this year, is that I am not alone in motherhood and I was not meant to take this journey alone. And I am not talking about having a husband or not, I am talking about walking with God. God gave me these children, and he will partner with me in raising them! And even if there is a “hard story” that I can’t bear to share with anyone else, he knows it. And if I let him, he will get in the down & dirty middle of it with me.
So let’s get real! Call up a friend, tell her your “hard story”. Tell it here in the comments. But TELL it. Let’s learn from each other!
