A Tree of Hope to Me!

Recently I have had my share of times to cry, with personal struggles and some emotional days. A lot of people ask me how things with my book are going and I seem to have lost enthusiasm to even talk about it. 

Yet, I want to remember that GOD gave me all the ideas for the book that I wrote entitled Mommy’s Inspirations.  I started writing it when my oldest was two and finished after he turned three. I didn’t have any plans to publish my writing until I got further along and God took me all the way to 52 chapters. Once I finished this weekly devotional, I literally stopped writing for four years, and the book “sat.” All I can say is that I had a God-given push to put it into print, and through a lot of prayer, waiting, encouragement from others, hard work, and collaboration with family and friends, it was published in April of 2018. 

Now it’s October, six months later, and my days are consumed with motherhood and homeschooling, all wrapped up in one! It’s hard to find time to write these days, but I try my best. Just yesterday my mom and dad decided to have a special celebration in my honor, to commemorate becoming an author this year. I was touched and reminded that God is using what I wrote. My twin sister was up visiting during the celebration, and asked me to read a few entries to her. While reading, I mentally critiqued myself over things I could change in the book. Perfectionism can be a prison, I have to keep in mind.

Today in the midst of Monday homeschooling I checked my e-mail, and to my surprise and delight found the following letter from a fellow mother. Let’s just say I can’t add to it, so I will end my post with this humbling and uplifting note from her, a friend and mentor along the way. After reading it please remember, as I did, that we in and of ourselves are NOT great, but GOD in and through us can do GREAT things! This is my testimony, please feel free to share yours in the comments and how God is encouraging you through others. We CAN be TREES OF HOPE on a daily basis. Read on:


My dear Krystal,

I read your book this morning from cover to cover. It was a very fitting time for me to read it as I lay resting my aching body trying to recover from a very beautiful night dancing and celebrating at a close friend’s wedding with my husband and our four children. It is rare these days for all of us to come together. And as I reminisce about the highlights of the night before, I am consumed by emotion that comes from all of the uncertainties and gratitude of motherhood. 

I am writing to let you know just how brilliant, brave, and accurate your writing is. You have touched on all of the hurdles and dilemmas most mothers find themselves in, and you have so cleverly offered a new paradigm through which to look at ourselves and our families without feeling inept about our task at hand and hopeless about our abilities to mother the “right” way. Your humility is heartwarming, your suggestions are on point, and you (a young mother) have reminded me (an experienced and much older mother) just how overwhelming those first years can be. I am so wrapped up in nostalgia (often letting its slimy grip get in the way)lol, that I think I may have lost my empathy for the concerns of the new mother. Many of her worries seem to me so distant and unimportant. Sleeping through the night has now been replaced with hoping that my child comes home safe at night. Choosing the right education is now replaced with choosing the right mate, and a clean house is right now not even remotely a concern because calmness and order mean an empty nest which is too sad to contemplate.  

While I may be a “seasoned” mother of toddlers and teenagers, I am still learning how to mother young adults and the challenges (as usual) are ever-changing and yet always there. Every reader will take something special from your book and find certain parts more poignant than others depending where she is in her journey of motherhood. I think as our children get older our goals remain the same, but what we have to work with and what we pay attention to, changes. We all want our children to be happy and whole and use their gifts to make this world a better place, but how we continue to guide them to this ultimate place in their lives is so different for each child. 

While I still feel the precious freedom when I surrender control over an orderly house and see how much fuller life becomes among the disarray, like a first time mom, there are times I feel like I am failing and am uncertain “what standards to try to live up to now.”

You say “grasp hold the season you are in and love it for all its worth, and pray through its challenges.”  More than ever I have to fight not to let nostalgia and emotion cripple my mind and body to the point that I cannot fully immerse myself in and enjoy the progression of my children’s lives. You see Krystal, your messages are everlasting! 

Thank you for our friendship and for your book. I am blessed to have you in my life!

Sincerely,

Linda Grace

Oh Jesus, never let me become desensitized to the needs of those around me, though they be in different seasons of life than I. Linda Grace was my tree of hope today, and I needed it. Who was yours? To whom were you? Let us imitate the life of Our God in Matthew 20:28, “For the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” 

Shine, dear ones, shine.