Take a moment before reading further, to time yourself and see how quickly you answer this question. What are three things you have taught your children that you never wanted them to learn?

All three of my own came to me in less than five minutes...

(1) That being busy online is a good way to cope with stress for which you have no other solution.

(2) That watching TV is an easier way & more satisfying way to laugh & feel happy than spending time with family.

(3) That you can't count on God to hold you and keep you when it all goes south.

What I hate about my own list is that I don't believe any of them now. But I must have at one time or another, because I have seen my son live them.

Future blog posts will be about trying to undo parenting mistakes, but today, I want to focus specifically, on the beliefs we unwittingly teach our children about God and faith.

Were any of your top three about faith?

The good news is that it is never too late to begin teaching our children what we really want to teach. They never stop taking it in, even when they give us the message that they are no longer listening or paying attention.

But what we do will continue to be far more powerful than anything we say, and the truth will be more apparent to them than it is to us.

So we need to create, build and sustain the mom faith we want them to see and then, learn themselves.

Instead of seeing our worry, they need to see trust.

Instead of seeing our despair, they need to see hope.

Instead of seeing us flounder, they need to see us know where to turn.

It didn't happen until I was already grown, with a son of my own, but I remember a time in my life when I counted on my mom's faith. Not to mention her connection with God.

If something happened that worried or upset me, I'd tell her about it, and she'd assure me that as soon as we were off the phone, she'd pray about it. And darned if those problems didn't transform as a result!

Even during times when I had temporarily lost my own faith, I knew that there was something going on, because of hers. I knew that she was connected to God, whether I was disgruntled enough to decide I didn't believe, at that time, or not.

For most of my son's childhood, I wasn't able to model that kind of faith for my son. I've struggled with chronic PTSD and anxiety for most of my life, and I'm not sure I ever had that basic sense of trust that is supposed to be our first developmental milestone.

Do you struggle with worry, or anxiety, or other issues that challenge your faith?

Here are several things you can do to nurture your faith in spite of them...

(1) Don't aim for perfection, but do aim for God: make a commitment to take every concern you have to God, no matter how small.

Do you need a longer quiet time? Does what you do during your quiet time need tweaking? Plan to spend time in all the ways that help you feel safe, and that make it easier to reach for trust, instead of fear.

(2) Ask for help with your unbelief: ask God to help you feel safe, to give you peace, to help you separate the truth from your own anxiety.

Ask Him how to doubt your feelings. And ask Him to show you anything in your life that is getting in between the two of you.

(3) Make a commitment: to give up anything that doesn't support your faith & take it right out of your life.

I know you do that with your children, but what's going on with you is even more important.

I'll give you an example. I know you can tell from what I wrote in the beginning of this post that I watch TV. And while grappling with my own lack of faith, I decided to give up a few of my favorite shows.

I hadn't realized it, but they had an underlying message that I was taking it without realizing it - that life never works out. That no matter how hard you try, it's not going to work.

I realized that I couldn't afford to let anything feed me that message, no matter how much I thought I enjoyed watching it. In one moment, I was enjoying the sense of well-being that laughter creates, and in the next, I was taking in the message that there's no point in having faith because nothing will work out for me, or anyone I care about.

Are any of your favorite TV shows sending a similar message? How about the books you read?

(4) Help your children separate faith from feelings. Don't let that remain unspoken because that's one they won't get by osmosis.

I began to point out to my son, when he was older, that I might have gotten stressed out about something that happened, but that didn't meat that there was any reason to worry. I'd been in the habit of being glad I felt better, without even thinking about the fact that my son had probably observed my reactions to whatever the stressful event was.

Also, give them plenty of chances to talk through their own feelings. But instead of just giving them suggestions, model what you do.

If you say, "read this passage whenever you feel worried and pray about it," they will believe that you are speaking to them from a place of not having the same problem.

Instead say, "when I feel worried, I look for a passage I think will make me feel more peaceful, and then, when I pray about it, ..."

Then you might say what works. That you have found that whenever you do x, it helps.

(5) Here's what to do if nothing is working for you, yet: throw everything at it but the kitchen sink. Peace can be found in the most unlikely places.

For instance, I have read novels that encouraged me. But for you, it might be singing hymns (I find that so helpful), or doing yoga while you pray, or talking things over with a friend that helps you work through worries or doubts.

Decades ago, when I was in therapy, I wondered if there was a ceiling on healing.

Were there limits to what was possible? Some ways in which I might not be able to heal from my difficult childhood or past? Struggles I had at the time that had no solution?

I was convinced that for quite a while that there wasn't much I could do. And now, I wish I could go back and tell that self to do all I could to cling to hope because it would help me to heal better and faster.

What would help you cling to hope?

Finding ways to hold on to your mom faith, and model trust for your children will bless you and your family for generations. I'm cheering all of us on!

Love, Jeanine

I chose this book, not because I am interested in biblical womanhood. I am deeply interested in who I am becoming as a woman of faith, and deeply interested in my journey with God.
But not interested in that argument.

I believe that it’s possible to see the Bible as the word of God and still believe that women can be pastors. That husbands and wives should submit their marriages to God, without one of them submitting to the other. That I can choose any haircut I want. Etc.

And that’s all settled for me, to be honest, so I didn’t read this book to take it all out and look at it all again.

But having read two books by Rachel Held Evans before, I knew that I could expect to learn more about her relationship with God and her faith. And she’s such a good writer, it was bound to be interesting. I was right about both those expectations.
 

In one part of the book, Rachel talks about her difficult quest to become more gentle. That women should be gentle, and that she, herself, was not.

I can well relate to the idea - because it is what I believed in my 20s and 30s - that I needed to bring something other than my sassy, and sometimes snarky personality to my relationship with God. I was too much, let’s face it, and I needed to change immediately.

The Christian life, in my opinion, was about becoming someone else. Someone God could really love.

Crazy talk, right? I think that now, decades later, I am about 90% convinced, most days, that that’s not true. The other 10% is a work in progress.

Mind you, I do believe that we become more of who we were created to be as we fall more and more in love with God. But I don’t believe we are meant to become someone else. Or something else, either.

So a book where Rachel Held Evans talks about being loud, snarky, and sarcastic? A woman who swears and has a contention jar for those moments when she gets out of line? I was all over it.

I don't agree, anymore, that it’s not really me that God wants. That we're not wanted just as we are. But I used to believe that with all my heart.

I also loved reading about her homemaking efforts.

I didn’t learn to cook until I became a mother. When my mother came home from work each day, exhausted, and ready for her first drink as she began to throw something together for dinner, the last thing she wanted was my company in the kitchen.

Having anyone else need her in those moments would have been a bridge too far after a day spent loving all of her college students in one math class after another.

Without even realizing I had made that decision, I stayed away and eventually decided that cooking was not for me. That I couldn’t be good at it.

I didn’t learn differently until I found The Food Network and its late afternoon cooking shows one week when I was sick, bored and in need of comfort. My son and I curled up on the couch & were fascinated to watch several women cook dinner.

Maybe I could do that? And I did.

I recovered from that illness and began to expand my repertoire of meals that I could cook, learning & experimenting with my son in the kitchen with me. Alcohol not included.

So, I loved reading about Rachel’s own experiments with homemaking in ways she hadn’t felt comfortable with before writing the book.

Now that you've taken a listen and had a peek at what the book is about, what are your thoughts? Is this a book you would be interested in reading?

And I’d love to hear, in the comments, if you can relate to the idea that you should become something or someone else in order to be okay. Or any homemaking struggles you have had or overcome.

See you tomorrow!

Love, Jeanine

P.S. Rachel Held Evans passed away on May 4th. I am so grateful to have known of her. She felt like a friend I hadn't met yet. I'll miss her, but am so glad we had her for the time we did.

Let's start with what cozy aromatherapy is, in general. In addition to doing its regular aromatherapy job, cozy aromatherapy has a side hustle. It creates feelings of warmth, safety, comfort and coziness.

Cozy morning aromatherapy offers essential oil blends to help you transform & personalize your morning routine. But it also sweetens your mornings by helping you create warm, cozy feelings, too.

Here at Meet Jeanine, I want to help you use aromatherapy to create a cozy, slow morning routine that helps you make mornings easier & better. Using essential oils can be among the best things that a slower lifestyle makes time for, and they can be a powerful help with mornings.

Here are five ways to use them...

(1) For waking up fully and becoming more alert.

(2) To banish morning crankiness and have cheerful mornings, instead.

(3) To create a more grounded, centered and peaceful morning routine.

(4) To be more present when you're spending time with your children.

(5) For staying motivated, focused and on task when you're working on a morning project.

For more ideas about how to use morning aromatherapy to empower your mornings, read my ultimate guide to creating your ideal morning routine.

See you next time!

Love, Jeanine

Have you been wondering about or interested in trying a slow lifestyle, but you're not sure you have time for it? As moms, sometimes the busyness of life seems to happen without any effort on our part, and resists our attempts to intervene.

But getting started with slow living doesn't have to be a grand or complete change. It can happen gradually, with one chosen moment after another.

That way, there's no overwhelm and it will almost make time for itself. Take a look at these three easy ways to slow life down, try them out in the next few days, and see where they take you.

First, call up your general motivating vision for a slower lifestyle.

What is it that might get better or become easier if your lifestyle slowed down? What might you love about it?

Based on that brief visioning moment, choose an area for getting started, in general, and think about what you might do in the next week or so: create a slower morning, make room for an easier afternoon or slower evening.

Or maybe there's something you want to make time for in the next few days, and you can think about what you might move around so that you can do so.

For now, just create the vision. And maybe visit it for a moment or two each day. You're planting a seed for changes you can make in an easier, more organic way.

Once that's done, let's look at what you can do today, to get started...

(1) Take one thing off your schedule...

I have to do this one routinely, because I get so tempted to try to do it all. If it sounds like a good idea, I just add it to the list.

So I have gotten into the habit of looking for the thing  I won't do. It feels better to choose not to ahead of time than to decide, exhausted, that I simply cannot do even one more thing.

I should mention that this often happens when I am prioritizing what I have planned. It dawns on me, often, in those moments that I have way too much planned, and then, I just start taking things off or moving them around.

What could you do that with, today, in your schedule?

(2) Choose one thing on your to-do list and give it your full, undivided attention, rather than multi-tasking...

(3) Our final one today is about stopping to breathe...

Try to take a five-minute breather sometime today, in between one activity and the next.

Catch your breath, and in fact, spend a moment just focusing on breathing deeply and slowly. Let the past moment recede completely and begin to open to whatever is next on your schedule.

But first, just be, during those unscheduled moments.

As your day comes to an end, reflect on this question and journal prompt: how did it feel to give yourself a slow living day?

See you next time!

Love, Jeanine

At Meet Jeanine, August is homeschool month. It's the month I finalize and complete my homeschool planning for the next school year. So I blog more lightly during the month, and sometimes take the whole month off.

This year, I've got at least one blog post planned for each week, and I thought I'd start us off with some tips for other homeschool moms who might also be finishing up your lesson plans for the year. Here are two homeschool tips that could make starting your day a whole lot easier...

Instead of just planning the year's topics and creating the lesson plans, consider planning a homeschool morning routine and a rhythm that will guide your homeschool day.

You already may be choosing certain days for certain topics, but the morning routine goes a step further to set intentions for each morning that make the morning go more smoothly. And if your homeschool mornings go more smoothly, your whole day is likelt to be better.

Here are some reflection questions or journal prompts that may help you get started with envisioning your homeschool routine...

(1) What are the challenges your family faces each morning?

(2) How can you create a routine that solves them or lessens them?

(3) How do you want to feel during your homeschool mornings?

(4) What can you include in your morning routine to help you and your children feel that way?

(5) How would you like for your mornings together to begin?

(6) How would you like to begin the homeschool process?

(7) Is there anything you are doing now that you'd like to do differently?

Jot down any ideas that are coming to mind, and then, read on for a specific idea for beginning your homeschool mornings.

With this homeschool idea, you start the day slowly and gradually, instead of rushing into activity. We start with a cup of tea and now, will be adding the morning basket idea.

What kind of books should you include in your morning basket?

For the morning basket, you are adding to the books you use already as part of your homeschool curriculum. You might choose poetry books, biographies, art books or other kinds.

You can read chapter books to your kids, or if they are older, each one can choose a book to read silently.

You also can use this morning time in other ways, as well. Here are some ideas...

(1) Have a morning quiet time with your children and add your Bible or an inspirational book to the basket.

(2) Write in your journal while your children color or draw and keep it all in the basket ready to be grabbed and used each day.

(3) Tell your children what you'll be focusing on during your homeschool day that day.

(4) Sing songs or read poetry to each other.

(5) Have a cup of tea outside on the porch.

However you choose to use it, having the morning basket as a daily part of your homeschool morning routine gives everyone a chance to wake up fully and transition gently into the homeschool day.

Hope this helps your family's homeschool journey!

Love, Jeanine