Mom Talk #31: The Last Mom Talk (just kidding)

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for the introduction and index of the posts in this 31 Days series, click }here{

WELL ... this 31 Days series, begun in October of 2014 in conjunction with The Nesting Place's annual blogging challenge, officially comes to an end.  I didn't intend to drag my series out beyond October: speaking so publicly in a voice of authority became intimidating and I lost my momentum.  And honestly, I got a little bit tired of my preachy/bossy self ... which was a valuable lesson in parenting :o)

If you've been reading along with me as a parent, maybe you've been gratified to know you're not the only Mom who tends to step up on the soapbox.  Or maybe you're proud of yourself that you don't.  Or, if you're just starting the mom journey, maybe you gleaned some food for thought on the kinds of things that will go into your mom speeches.  I've been parenting 21 years, but I think I'll always be curious about what other parents preach to their kids, how they do it, and what topics are common to us all.  And I wonder what things I haven't said that I should have.

My kids, upon reading that last sentence:  "Nothing!  Nothing at all!!"  :o)

I'll wrap up this series with just a few more motherly words, because although I've posted 30 Mom Talks, I still have more to say.  That's all of us moms, isn't it?  just    o n e.    m o r e.    t h i n g.   to say. 

What I want to emphasize the most, Awesome Children of Mine, is that the greatest venture you can embark on in life is to grow your relationship with God and cultivate a thriving, healthy soul.  This is the reason you're alive and the very reason for your being.  It's the answer to the worthy question "What's the purpose of life?"  If you make growing your relationship with God your primary goal, everything else that's important will follow.  When you need it, you will have strength beyond reason, peace beyond understanding, wisdom beyond your years, delight in the bigger plan, and a sense of security that nothing else can bring to your soul. 

I hope that you remain humble and teachable your whole life long.  Being teachable blows the doors off the limits to what you can do with your life.  If you're teachable, you can change, and if you can change, you can grow.  Always strive to be learning something, all of the time.  Your brain is a muscle and needs stimulation and challenge to stay healthy; you're responsible to feed it and keep it active.  A positive by-product of this is that if your brain is active, it tends to keep your heart happy.  Don't forget that.  Keep reaching, keep learning, keep challenging.  Until the moment you draw your last breath, you are a work in progress.  Stay teachable.

Sometimes we tend to get so heads down in our own worlds that life passes right by without our even noticing.  Every once in a while, remind yourself to come up for air ... just stop for a minute to appreciate what's going on around you.  No one else has your vantage point - what you are living is wholly unique to you, and you're the star of the show, so be present.  Take center stage.  Throw yourself completely into enjoying your run as top billing.

And while you're enjoying life on center stage?  Dream big dreams.  Think about where you want to be in five, ten, twenty years from now and beyond ... dream about the stages of life and how you want them to be.  You've heard the saying "if you fail to plan, you plan to fail."  It's the same with your life - it's going to happen to you whether you plan it out or not, so if you don't want to live someone else's idea of what your life should be, or wake up at the end of it and realize it's been mediocre, you've got to generate some dreams.  Don't worry about making them reasonable ... you may not end up living in a castle on the side of mountain, but if that's your dream and you invest your heart in it, there will be elements of your life that resemble life in a mountaintop castle.  

After you dream up your big dreams, take responsibility for them.  Don't just dream them and put them on a shelf to be admired and taken down to hold once in a while ... see what you can do to push toward them, one little step at a time.  The journey toward your dreams is often as important as - and actually may be more important than - attaining the dream itself.  Albert Einstein says it best, "Never give up on what you really want to do.  The person with big dreams is more powerful than the one with all the facts."

This crazy beautiful life comes in seasons.  Some are joyful, some are sad; some are social, some are lonely; some are tedious and hard, some are action packed and exciting.  Sometimes those seasons of life happen simultaneously.  You may be terribly sad but deliriously happy at the same time, and that's okay.  If that's where you are, be both.  Embrace the season you're in, experience it to the fullest and learn everything you can from it, because you can't go back. 

There will be times when you're discouraged and you'll face seemingly insurmountable situations.  Fight for it. Never give up.  Take that next step.  Try again.   Prove them wrong.  Get back up.  Keep hoping.  Hang on.  Do the next thing.  Keep going.  There's no problem that can't get better.  Everything really will be all right. 

In fact, everything will be better than all right.  It's going to awesome.

Thanks for reading!

for the introduction and index of the posts in this 31 Days series, click }here{

thanks for reading!