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Tips for Managing Mommy Guilt While at the Conference

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Going to Allume last year was good for me in a hundred thousand ways. It was my third year to attend this amazing conference where so many of my precious online friends have become the kind of in-the-flesh friends whose numbers I dial without thinking when something exciting happens or when I desperately need prayer.

I love what happens when women who share one heart for the Lord and one desire to make Him known gather together … the energy is palpable. I always think it’s a glimpse of what heaven will be.  Lingering conversations and deep connections rooted in a shared love for the Lord.

tips for dealing with mommy guilt || teri lynne underwood for allume.com

But last year was also the year I realized my season of attending multiple conferences per year was over. My  girl is in her last year of middle school.  She is a cheerleader and she’s enjoying her second year in her school’s Show Choir. She’s taking Pre-Algebra {hold me} and her social life continues to blossom. All that added to my fervent desire to be intentional about her spiritual growth and a real awareness her days in our home are getting fewer quickly led me to the decision not to attend any conferences this year that required me to be away from home more than one night.

Many who will be attending Allume {and other conferences} will be in the same boat I was last year.  I missed one of my girl’s Show Choir productions.  In fact, I wrote about it during the live Five Minute Friday party and even shared my post with the group there.

How do we deal with being away from home when we know we’re missing moments with our families?

Here are a few ideas for managing the mommy guilt that can accompany our time away from home.

Stay connected.

Thank the Lord for phones and Skype and Facetime! You can still read bedtime stories and make sure the outfit for the dance look cute. Decide with your husband and your children how much interaction you will have while you’re gone … and then do what you’ve agreed! Set an alarm and be willing to leave even the best session at the event in order to listen to your first grader tell you about the spelling test. 🙂

Leave a piece of you behind.

Leave little notes for your family or make their favorite snacks for them to have while you are gone.  Let the kids pick out one of your shirts to sleep in while you’re gone.  Make a countdown for them to mark how many days you’ll be gone. Don’t leave out your older kids in this … they may be cool teenagers but they still love to know their momma is missing them.

Bring them a surprise from your trip.

Even just a postcard from the airport to show where you were will help your kids be sure you were thinking of them while you were gone.

Enjoy your time away!

Don’t let your joy be robbed by unnecessary feelings of guilt for being away.  The time of connecting and growing and worshiping is absolutely okay! And the refreshing time you experience will be a blessing to your family as you come back home.

Here’s the bottom line: God is doing an amazing work through the Allume conference and community.  And where God is working, the enemy is working harder.  Go and be encouraged and challenged!  And then come home to your family refreshed, inspired, and ready to love on them.

How do you deal with mommy guilt when you’re away from home?

Wishing I could give you all a hug in Greenville,

Teri Lynne

Life Lessons We Teach {and Learn}

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What the daughter does, the mother did.

Jewish Proverb

5 Life Lessons Worth Teaching || Teri Lynne Underwood || Allume

Monday my daughter starts 8th grade.  Crazy! {Obviously I was very young when I had her. Ha ha!} She’s becoming the most amazing person.  She’s always been very caring and she has her daddy’s sense of humor.  She is one of my very favorite people — not just because she is my daughter but because she is so much fun.

If the past thirteen are any indication, these next five years will pass by in a flash. And I’m finding myself increasingly aware of the ways my attitudes, behaviors, habits, and words have an impact on my girl.

If that Jewish proverbs is true, my girl is going to be a reflection of what she learned from me — good and bad. And so,  as her time in our home is drawing ever closer to ending, I’ve been thinking about the most important lessons I hope she learns from me.

life lessons || Teri Lynne Underwood

  1. Love Jesus.  This one is the most important! I desperately want her to know that loving Jesus and trusting His love for her is the one thing that will never fail, never disappoint.  In a world of broken hearts, broken lives, and broken dreams, I want her to be certain of her relationship with Christ and the sure foundation she has in Him.
  2. Love others.  It’s hard loving others.  Even on the best days, it requires giving up ourselves.  I hope she sees me giving others the benefit of the doubt, extended over-the-top forgiveness, accepting help, serving, and putting others first.
  3. Live simply.  We have been blessed with a beautiful home and lots of “stuff.”  But I want my girl to know life isn’t about the stuff.  A rich beautiful life is best found in simplicity.  I hope she sees me treasure small moments and the gifts of laughter and fellowship.
  4. Long for heaven.  I hope my girl always feels the discontent of being an alien in this world.  I pray she’s never satisfied with what our culture offers but that her heart will yearn for the things of eternity.
  5. Lessen the load for others.  Far too often I allow myself to get too busy to help others.  I strangle myself with commitments and projects and obligations, leaving no margin for serving.  I’m working on this tendency, asking the Lord to cause changes in me.  I want my daughter to see me taking action to help others … serving and coming alongside them to lessen their burdens.

One of the gifts I’ve found in my girl getting older is a better understanding that time is fleeting. Long gone are the days of nap time and play dates.  But my role as her life-teacher grows in significance as her time of living in our home decreases.  I want to make the best of the few years we have left.

But these are not just lessons for me or my girl, they are lessons I hope I’m teaching all the time … in my Bible study class, as I volunteer in my community, as I speak with others, and as I write.  We are all teaching lessons, leaving an imprint on the lives of those around us — the question we need to ask ourselves is, what lessons are we teaching?

I’m off to enjoy the last weekend before school starts!

Love,

Teri Lynne

What lessons are you teaching with your life?

What Satisfies You?

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contentment || Teri Lynne Underwood

Do you ever have a feeling there has to be something more?  Like something is missing or incomplete but you are not sure what it is?

I imagine most of us have been there.  And if you haven’t, you know someone who has. We can look around us and see all the ways people are trying to satisfy a need they can’t really define.

Drugs. Gambling. Alcohol.  Pornography.

We look at others who have those “issues” and we wonder how their lives could get so out of control. But there are so many ways we try to fill that empty space inside ourselves.

  • We seek communion online and neglect the community around us.
  • We savor food instead of the Bread of Life.
  • We accumulate more than we could ever need or use and walk past those with nothing.
  • We build big houses while countless children around the world are orphans.
  • We spend countless dollars eating out when millions of people are starving.

I’m not saying there is anything wrong with good food or beautiful homes or lovely vacations … I enjoy all of these. But there is a need for each of us to periodically check our hearts.  To pray as David did,

Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.  Psalm 139:23-24 ESV

We need to ask the Lord to search us, to test our thoughts. We need Him to reveal to us those places that are not His … because we were not made for this world, my friends.  We were created for something more, something better.  He has called us to this time and this place for His glory and for His service.  But we, like countless others can claim the promise of a heavenly country, for God has prepared for us a city {Hebrews 11:16}.

As you look ahead to the weekend, I pray you will carve out a moment or two for reflection, for confession, and for a turning of your heart toward the only One who truly, eternally satisfies!

Gathering of Loveliness

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gathering of loveliness || Teri Lynne Underwood || www.allume.com/blog

It’s true, you know, beauty brings beauty.  When we gather together as women the loveliness inside each of us is magnified.  I’ve watched it happen time and again.

Deep inside each of us is a longing for the beauty of true heart connection.  We pray for soul sisters who will walk the hills and valleys of life with us.  We long for friendships forged through play dates and prayers.  Instinctively, intuitively, we understand we need others.  Others make us better, stronger, beautiful.

Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil … And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken.  Ecclesiastes 4:9, 12 ESV

Do you surround yourself with the loveliness of other women?  Maybe you need to schedule a lunch with some friends or join a book club or plan a play date.

Make gathering with other women a priority … you’ll be stronger and lovelier from it.

What is your favorite way to spend time with other women?

Why Motherhood Needs Sisterhood

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It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

Dickens’ penned these words to begin my favorite of his works, A Tale of Two Cities.  I’m finding this is an apt description of motherhood, though.  In fact, there are days when all of this is true within an hour.  {Can I get a witness?}

motherhood needs sisterhood {Teri Lynne Underwood || allume.com/blog}

Motherhood feels like a full contact sport sometimes.  This child of mine can bring me the greatest joy … but, as we’ve entered the teenage years full on, I have found myself in tears wondering how she could break my heart so easily.  One of my wise friends told me a few months ago, “Don’t take it personally.”  In my head, I know she’s right.  But, y’all, no joke, it’s hard not to take it personally when your child hurts your feelings.

Having a thirteen-year-old girl has taught me a few things.  But the biggest one is this:

Motherhood needs—demands—sisterhood.

More than ever I need women to come alongside me.

I need the 20-something woman with dreams in her heart and stars in her eyes.

She’s eager for life to get started, for that man who will sweep her off her feet, and the children who will fill her home with fun.  I need her to remind me to laugh and enjoy these days.

I need the friend who has cried into her pillow and fallen into a heap on the bathroom floor, again, when the pregnancy test is negative.

She gives me this precious gift of looking at my child and seeing her as what she really is, a gift from God {Psalm 127:3}.  And this friend, this one in the sisterhood, she also offers me the opportunity to love someone well, to reach out beyond my home and into the heart of someone else.  I need this … because it’s far too easy to get wrapped up in car pools and dance recitals and how in the world we’ll pay for college.

I need the friend with the newborn, the one whose eyes are exhausted and who can’t put sentences together.

She is the one who lets me snuggle with her baby and whisper the promises of a God who is good and faithful into his sweet ears.  I need this {really need this!} because even though my girl has a big helping of her momma’s sassiness, she’s still my baby and she still needs to hear that God is good and faithful, especially when middle school girl drama feels overwhelming.

I need those moms with little ones toddling about and learning to read.

I watch them watch their kids.  And I need them to help me remember to celebrate the successes … whether it’s potty training or making cheerleader.  I need this because there are days when all I see is a messy room.

I need those women who, like me, are wondering if there is enough hair color available to keep us looking somewhat decent through these teenage years.

These women in the sisterhood know the frustrations and fears, the way each day can go either way and you’re never really sure if the child that enters the room is going to be the happy child you thought you’d raised or this sullen stranger.  Oh I need these women … because some days I start to believe I’m all alone and I’m really not.

I need those women who have raised their kids and lived to tell about it.

The ones who say, “Cherish these days, they’ll be gone before you know it.”  The ones who remind me you never stop being a mom, your heart never stops breaking when your child hurts, and your smile never goes away when your child is happy.  I’m so thankful for that part of the sisterhood!

And I need those women who love my girl.

The teachers and the coaches, the other moms and the older girls, the grandparents and the ones who could be, the single women who pour into her and the ones who tell her she is a world changer.  I need them, all of them, because motherhood is too hard to go it alone.

I need the sisterhood.  We all do.

So Happy Mother’s Day to the whole lot of you—the ones with babies and the ones with grandbabies, the ones who dream of babies and the ones who are living the dream, the ones who are hurting and the ones who are helping.  You all make a difference and I’m a better mom because you are in my life!

Would you share in the comments how you’ve found the joy of sisterhood in mothering?

xo,

Teri Lynne 

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