“Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:4-7

She wakes up to kids jumping on her pillow asking for juice before her alarm has had the chance to do it for her.

She gets everyone fed, dressed and out the door, often without having the time to dress or feed herself.

Her day is filled with errands, school, daycare, work, projects, carpool, appointments.

Kids cry, scream, tattle, fight, and whine and she handles it with less patience than she wants to.

She makes dinner or orders it on the way home, and cleans up whatever mess was created from dinner (plus the other meals and snacks from earlier in the day that are still out).

She undresses her little children, puts them in the bath, then digs through the dirty clothes bin for last night’s pajamas because she forgot to transfer the laundry from the washer to the dryer.

She puts toothpaste on a toothbrush and watches her kids suck off the toothpaste without brushing. She holds their mouths open while brushing for them.

She holds her kids close at bedtime, and makes sure they know how much they are loved. They know. They always know.

She crashes. Into bed. Or the couch. Or huddled over a pile of bills and the family budget at the kitchen table.

The next day she repeats it all.

This daily life of “someone” (maybe me) above is just a snapshot. And while it might not be every day, it often feels like it is. Your stage might be with a newborn and sleep deprivation, which is different but hard. Or your stage might be with teenagers, which is different but HARD.

“The days are long, but the years are short.”

This familiar quote about motherhood hits me right in the feels. It is so true. Each day feels unending. They are long, busy, and tiring. But then each year feels like sand slipping through my fingers when I so badly want to hold on to them forever.

I think a huge part of taking care of yourself as a mom is protecting your relationships with the little ones that made you a mom and keeping you in a place mentally where you can thrive even in the exhausting day-to-day.

This week’s challenge is simply this: at the end of every day, write down 10 things you are thankful for. Even in the hustle and bustle of being a mom, it is important for us to rejoice and focus on all of the graces that God has given us daily. Spending a short amount of time each day to reflect and give thanks will help us not get bogged down with the tiring tasks that are often hard to rejoice in while in the middle of them.

A few tips for this challenge:

• We recommend you do your list in the evening. This is because sometimes on those really hard days you just want it to be over and start new again tomorrow. But we want you to focus on the good things even in the hardest of days. (Paul wrote our passage for the week about “Rejoicing in all things” while he was wrongfully imprisoned. Surely we can find something to rejoice about in our hard days of motherhood.)
• Maybe a few days, or even every day, this week do this challenge with your kids. Have them make a list of things they are thankful for. Even if it is simple a conversation at bedtime. I think asking them to share and you sharing what you are grateful for will help your family end on a note of thankfulness for each other, no matter what the day brought.
• We want you to write these down. While making a mental list is great, writing it down helps us reflect better and turn it into rejoicing and thanksgiving to God. Who knows, in a couple years you may look back at your list of thankfulness in your journal and be reminded of something sweet your kid said that you had forgotten about. Or you will be reminded of little ways God provided when you felt you were in the middle of a storm.

Good luck this week ladies. We are all part of a group of women that get how hard it can be.  Reach out, vent, rejoice. That is what we are here for. We want to support each other in taking care of ourselves — spiritually, physically, mentally and in our relationships with our families.

Although, we often have the best of intentions to drink “enough” water each day, typically, it just isn’t a top priority. Drinking a healthy amount of water every day helps keep our skin looking young, it helps our brain and other major organs function at a higher level, it helps promote healthy weight management, aids in digestion… I could go on and on.

It is not a coincidence that the Bible often uses water to symbolize faith, salvation and provision. Water is the base of our physical living, just as Jesus is the foundation to our spiritual living.

So the challenge this week is fairly simple. Drink half your body weight in ounces of water every day. So if you weigh 150 pounds, you need to drink at least 75 ounces of water each day. Make sense? Like I said, this challenge is fairly simple but needs to be a priority for us busy moms, because it is such a great practice in taking care of ourselves. In addition to drinking water this week, we also want to challenge you to read John 4:1-15.

A few tips for this challenge:

• Kirsten likes to keep infused water on hand to make it easier and something to look forward to, which is brilliant. Adding fruits, cucumbers, etc, is a nice way to mix it up and make it more enjoyable, especially if you aren’t used to drinking that amount of plain water every day.
• We want to encourage you to drink the said amount of true water. I am guilty of getting a big glass of water but then adding in a tea mix and saying “whatever, it counts”. But part of the goal is to get you craving true water to quench your thirst. My goal is to drink my amount of water every day and then after that, allow myself to have tea mixes or La Croix.
• Try to start your day with a glass of water first thing in the morning. I am also guilty of not drinking water until like 7 at night and then chugging right before bed. (And then, of course, having to get up and pee a million times in the middle of the night.)

Good luck this week gals. Check in on the Facebook group and let us know how you are doing!

^“5 God is within her, she will not fall;

The first challenge in self-care for moms is simply this: Get up 30 minutes before your kids wake up and have quiet time alone. 

This might be easy for some people who are natural early risers, and more difficult for other people, like me,  who are night-owls and use their kids as alarm clocks. However, there are so many scientific benefits to rising early in the morning, like reducing stress and handling negativity better. Not only that, making intentional quiet time to spend in silence praying, meditating on scripture or listening to worship will help set our minds right for the day and remind us of where our focus should be, on Him, before all of the child screaming starts, of course.

Think about your ideal morning and how you would like to wake up. Pick and choose the things that are possible and able to fit into a little 30 min routine before your kids wake up. We would like to challenge everyone to read the theme verse for this week every morning. And we challenge you to read all of Psalm 46 at least once this week. It is a good reminder to be still and rely on God.

For example, this is my plan for my mornings this week:

• Wake up to an alarm at 5:30 and pull myself out of bed.
• Go downstairs with glasses on, in my jammies and put on a pot of coffee.
• Sit in our sunroom with my coffee and read Psalm 46:5.
• Listen to a Lauren Daigle Pandora station for the rest of my time alone and enjoy the quiet of no toys making noise and no children screaming for juice.
• My goal is to finish one cup of coffee, while it is still hot, before my kids wake up.

This is doable for me for a couple reasons… 1) I know that I cannot function at a high level that early to dive into a Bible study, but having slow time to listen to worship music puts my head in the right space for the rest of the day. 2) I like coffee. I don’t like coffee when it has sat cold and been reheated 4 to 5 times. So enjoying that first cup while it is still hot is one of those little luxuries that makes me feel refreshed and calm.

So, choose something similar for you, something you know is doable and would bring you to a place to be able to worship for the rest of the day and then make the commitment to do it. 

Now, there are a few nuances to this challenge:

1. This is not a time to spend on your phone or on social media. We encourage you to use a physical Bible as opposed to a Bible app to read your Scripture. It is easy to start there but then you get a text that you need to reply to or see a notification and next thing you know you have spent your quiet time in a digital vortex, not feeling any more refreshed.
2. Getting up early implies that you also have to go to bed early. I will admit, this will be hard for me. I am not one that goes to bed before 10 or 11 (or 12) often. But in order to feel rejuvenated and have an active mind to spend in the Word, you can’t sacrifice sleep. This is self-care, and getting good rest is key.
3. Some of you have newborns and are working on 5am feedings, so getting up any earlier than that would actually be a step back from self-care. Totally get that. In that case, we would just encourage you to take you quiet time sometime before 9am. Maybe it is during a feeding, maybe when they have gone back down, maybe when they are happy in their swing.

Good luck this week ladies, we are so very excited to start this journey in taking care of our selves even with all that motherhood throws at us. We hope to encourage you in this and that you do feel refreshed and rejuvenated doing something for yourself and your relationship with the Lord.

Hello friends!

We are super excited to start this accountability group for moms taking healthy steps in self-care. If you haven’t already, please take a look at the “About Mom-Care” page for what this whole accountability/challenge group is all about. Each week we will have an activity or exercise in self-care that we challenge everyone to participate in for the whole week. They will be simple and free and hopefully leave you feeling refueled as a mom. Every “challenge” will always be a healthy principal in treating your body and mind as a temple, or strengthening your relationships with your heavenly Father and families.

Please join our Facebook group for accountability, encouragement and updates on the weekly challenges. And follow us here too, for helpful tips in each challenge.

We can’t wait to participate in this with you!

Abby & Kirsten