Hello! This family picture is pretty much what I can expect to get out of this season of life! It was taken at a Barnes & Noble book signing event I had for my book, “Clean Home, Messy Heart: Promises of Renewal, Hope, and Change for Overwhelmed Moms”. It this point, if we can just get all 5 of us into a picture, that is a huge mom-win!

Right now I’m in the middle of relocating our family from California to South Carolina, so my “hats” have been really cut back. When I’m not juggling a cross-country move, I write for John Piper’s website DesiringGod.org and ThriveMoms.com. Last year, my first book, “Clean Home, Messy Heart” released—which was a total miracle in itself! My personal website is faithfulsparrow.com, but I’d love to connect with new friends at instagram.com/christinemchappell or at Facebook.com/cleanhomemessyheart.

I have three children, a 11 year old girl, 4 year old boy, and 2.5 year old girl. The difference between my girls and my boy is totally night and day! I’m really being challenged to love each child right where they are at in their growth and development, and that isn’t easy. I don’t think I have managed to adjust to their individual love languages quite yet, but the Lord is faithful and gracious to encourage me to keep trying. I think our best parenting moments come when we allow our hearts to be truly touched by God’s grace towards us as rebellious children—seeing ourselves as having received such mercy and compassion from the Lord, even on the days we are acting more like toddlers than we’d care to admit.

I don’t feel like I have mom-wins all that often, but right now I’m really seeing the Holy Spirit helping me fight against the bitterness that pops up in the day-to-day. I often find myself yearning to write, or read, or study, but I simply can’t figure out how to get the time. Especially since we are moving, I’ve had almost zero time at the computer. It takes a lot to surrender the bitterness when the kids are screaming and fighting with each other and all I want is to be doing something different than stepping into their problems or serving their needs. I’m sure we all struggle with this to some degree in motherhood, so to be convicted about the reason why I am growing bitter—and then to surrender my desires in that moment—is actually a huge win for me based on previous failures in that area.

My youngest daughter has decided to hold her poops in. When she goes all by herself—without suppository or enema intervention—we celebrate and give her M&Ms. It sounds ridiculous that this sort of issue is even a thing, but it is. And no one prepares you for it before you have kids. So there you have it, first-time-moms out there: you may very well at some point need to rebuke your child to “let your poo-poo come out!” Words I never imagined I would be saying to anyone. ?

I’m learning a lot of surrender right now. When we start to grow bitter about the mundaneness of everyday motherhood, we start to distrust the Lord as sovereign over our lives. Even our plain days are crafted carefully by the Lord, and he brings the challenges and interruptions we need to learn to lay down our lives for his sake. He knows our gifts, our talents, and our desires, but he also knows the right time to allow us to exercise those things. We can trust him, and if there is something he wants us to be doing for his Kingdom other than attending to our children, he will be certain to give us the time to do it.