Question: Are you the fun parent?
I am not.
THE AWKWARD MOM
because uncomfortable conversations are the ones worth having
Category: Gratitude (page 1 of 4)
Reading Time: 3 minutes
Reading Time: 3 minutes
Confession: My heavenly intentions for Thanksgiving are often clobbered by my oh-so-real life.
I would love to be preparing our hearts all month for gratitude, but I find myself picking up someone else’s rank gym socks. I would love to be stuffing a jar with slips of paper declaring our thankfulness, but can tend to stave off a little more teenage complaining instead…?
Reading Time: 5 minutes
As part of the premise of this blog, I commit to uncomfortable conversations worth having. And the onus of that falls on me—toward authenticity in the midst of my own doubt and weirdness.
So today, I’m opening the convo with something I regret.
Reading Time: 3 minutes
Like so much of 2020, there are parts of Thanksgiving this year that are a bit sad. We’ve canceled our family trip for reasons you can probably guess (thank you, COVID).
But this year continues to fling doors wide open in raising resilient kids.
Reading Time: 2 minutes
This year, my family is opting for a paper-plate Thanksgiving: That is to say, we’re going for a little less prep, a little more togetherness. (I hope.) Because I’m eager to make all this about something more than a meal.
When I learned that the pilgrims built seven times more graves than huts, it started to dawn on me that this isn’t always about this surplus always spilling around us. We need this day, no matter how much we have or how harrowing of a year it’s been, to turn our faces upward.
So I’m eager to pass this on to kids, too–to create great memories around the actual acts of giving thanks!
Reading Time: 4 minutes
A friend told me recently of a trip he and his wife to Hawaii took several years back. After dropping his wife at the terminal for the flight home, he was the only person on the rental car shuttle. He recalled the shuttle driver’s words: “I think I need to go on vacation.” My friend laughed when he told me this. Where do you go on vacation when you live in Hawaii?
Having friends who used to live in Kauai, I know that wherever you live, life is never all bliss. In fact, one side of my house looks over a little cabin serving as a VRBO (Vacation Rental by Owner) year-round. And God seems to use it to tap me on the shoulder: Just a reminder. You live in a place where a lot of people go on vacation.
Reading Time: 2 minutes
So many of us are experiencing new heights of irritation with and alienation from our own nations’ government. But consider this post an opportunity to shift our eyes in gratitude. When I’m struggling to feel content here, I think of my African friends’ perspectives on just what abundance we drink in every day.
Today’s and yesterday’s posts, rather than reinforcing the misguided, often arrogant notion that developing-world countries are horrible places to live, are simply invitations to be grateful with me about what we have…but generally did not create for ourselves.
Reading Time: 2 minutes
So many of us are experiencing new heights of irritation with and alienation from our own nations’ government. But consider this post an opportunity to shift our eyes in gratitude. When I’m struggling to feel content here, I think of my African friends’ perspectives on just what abundance we drink in every day.
Today’s and tomorrow’s posts, rather than reinforcing the misguided, often arrogant notion that developing-world countries are horrible places to live, are simply invitations to be grateful with me about what we have…but generally did not create for ourselves.
Reading Time: < 1 minute
Editor’s note: This is a guest post of Personal Creations, who wanted to extend their printable Scripture art to you! Just one more thing to be grateful for this year. Happy Thanksgiving! – Janel
When it comes to Thanksgiving, we gather around the table to enjoy a the turkey, the cranberry sauce, the all-American green-bean casserole–and to celebrate each other’s company. Before carving the turkey and piling the plates with food, take the time to say a special thanks to the Ultimate Giver: God.
While prayers of gratitude have been around far before Thanksgiving in 1620, all early celebrations of thanks began with God at the center. Across many unique celebrations, people praise Him as a way to say thanks for the all the good that He’s given…and given…and given.
Reading Time: 3 minutes
I padded downstairs to shake my daughter’s shoulder, waking her for school. But instead, she woke to my “Oh, no.”
‘Cause that’s generally what you say when you see liquid pooling in the hall in the half-light, oozing from the laundry-room-slash-pantry.
That was the price-club-sized empty detergent bottle on its side, the cap to the air vent lying surrendered beside it, and the laundry room now flooded with a pleasantly lemony, biodegradable, outstandingly viscous liquid soap.
Pull up a chair for practical ideas and discussions on the parenting, relationships, and spirituality we're all army-crawling through every day.
After five and a half years in Uganda, my family and I returned to the U.S., where I write and speak professionally, and we continue to work on behalf of the poor.
My first solo book, Permanent Markers: Spiritual Life Skills to Write on Your Kids' Hearts (Harvest House), released October 2021.
#instagoodness
Most popular: Shame-parenting vs. Guilt Exposure
Popular: When Your Help Makes Kids Helpless
Spiritual Life Skills for Kids
Popular: What does God think of strong women?
Popular: 11 Ideas for Emotionally Healthy Parenting
Popular: Am I Judgmental? Judgment vs. Discernment
Popular: Complaining vs. honest expression
On God and the dreams of women
20 Practical ideas for every love language!
![Now You're Speaking My [Love] Language](https://www.janelbreitenstein.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/love-languages-text-1.jpg "Now You're Speaking My [Love] Language")
Ideas and Questions to Take Your Relationships Deeper: Click here!
© 2024 THE AWKWARD MOM
Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑
