Leaving a Creative Legacy

My grandmothers left me a rich creative legacy, and I asked Dena Dyer to share how she leaves a creative legacy in this Family UPGRADE.

"Leaving a creative legacy is something I strive for," Dena says.

God created all things (Colossians 1:16; John 1:3), and we are designed  in His creative image. I [Dawn] get sad when I see families where parents or grandparents fail to help their children and grandchildren develop creativity. It takes time and intentionality to nurture the gifts God places in the younger generation.

Dena continues…

On my mother’s side, I come from a long line of “creatives.” Which is a nice way of saying our family is a little whacked-out.

My great-grandfather Pappy wrote many unpublished short stories. His daughter Nanaw was an artist and writer. Her husband Dadaw was an amateur inventor, and my mother is a talented stained glass artist, children’s music teacher and decorator.

Each of my late relatives lived life with panache and turned ordinary moments into memorable experiences.

Pappy allowed his pet parakeet to drink coffee out of his cup in the mornings. Nanaw and Dadaw danced to the Muzak in the grocery store, much to my mother’s chagrin. While they waltzed around the frozen food, she hid behind the stacks of canned goods, praying no one would see her. Their defense? “We can’t let this good music go to waste!”

Once, the stories embarrassed me. Then they amused me. Now, they inspire me.

In fact, a Dyer family motto is “Why be normal? It’s so boring.”

I long for my kids carve their own paths, instead of following in the footsteps others have forged.

I’m grateful that my husband, a professional musician, shares my philosophy of parenting, and I’m also extremely thankful for grandparents and teachers who’ve come alongside us.

My younger son’s drama teacher, who took a break from the classroom for several years, told us, “The main difference I noticed when I came back was that the kids were much less creative. They didn’t know how to use their imaginations.” She attributed the change to a rise in electronics use, overscheduled families, and school curriculum which elevates standardized instruction over discovery-based learning.

I found that incredibly sad … and disturbing.

In our family, we love our computers, tablets, and smart phones as much as anyone (and they can be great tools for both discovery and expression), but we try to balance non-creative electronics use with active play.

• Often, creativity is as simple as changing a routine: “Put some music on while we clean.”
• It might mean instituting a silly family tradition: “Let’s go to Sonic for a cherry limeade—in our pajamas!”
• At times, it occurs organically—after the “b” word slips out. (My boys know that if they say, “I’m bored,” I will put them to work. So they create their own fun as a last resort, just to avoid chores.)

We’ve also arranged our family budget to include funds for art and music lessons, creative experiences, and supplies. It’s more important for us that our sons have memorable experiences than name-brand clothing.

Of course, we don’t always get it “right,” and there are times when laziness or inertia sets in. For those days, I cling to God’s grace.

In the future, Jordan and Jackson might seek therapy for the way we’ve raised them. However, they might also thank us. I’m praying for that alternative.

Luci Shaw writes, “I’m convinced that the whole world is better when we, as individuals, capture and savor each moment as the gift that it is, embrace the challenge or joy of it … and thereby transform it with the magic of creative possibility.”

I think Pappy, Nanaw and Dadaw would agree.

What are you doing to leave a "creative legacy" for your children or grandchildren ... or even some children in your sphere of influence?

Dena Dyer is a wife, mom, author and speaker from Texas. A version of this story appears in Grace for the Race: Meditations for Busy Moms (Patheos). Her newest book is Wounded Women of the Bible: Finding Hope When Life Hurts (Kregel), co-authored with Tina Samples.

Making Your Job Right at Home

I "met" Julie Sanders through The M.O.M. Initiative, a group of mothers who help women walk through motherhood. In this post, Julie helps us UPGRADE our home life by encouraging those of us who work from home.

"If you clock in and out from your own house," Julie says, "it doesn’t take long to figure out it takes work to work from home."

As a stay-at-home mom and then a woman working from her home, I (Dawn) emphatically agree with that statement! Successful work-at-home occupations don't magically happen. It take intentionality and often, creative thinking. That's why I love Julie's approach to working from our homes.

Julie continues ...

There was a time when I left each morning to go to a place I called “work,” a place I left behind each evening. When I took on a new position with the perk of flexibility, I found myself staying at the house to tackle my new to-do list and put in my allotted hours.

I loved being free to toss in a load of laundry, and my family loved knowing I was available, but the benefits soon turned into burdens.

I worked harder than ever to keep up with family needs and to perform well at the job that sent me a paycheck. Before I knew it, signs of my employment turned up all around the house, and my flexible work from home position started to engulf my time and energy, as well as my joy of being at home.

Surely I could contribute to family finances, use my abilities, and enjoy family life while being employed from home in a way that honored God and my loved ones. After all, I was doing my best to do my work “in the name of the Lord Jesus” (Colossians 3:17)—to “do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men” (Colossians 3:23).

Something had to change.

Four decisions made the difference.

1. Accept your limitations.

You may be doing new tasks from the comfort of your home, but added work means added time, energy, and concentration.

An industrious woman may envision herself with bottomless resources to match her motivation, but we all have our limits.

God is honored and our families are loved when we recognize the portion God has given us and use it wisely. This means we must accept our limitations.

2. Be realistic.

Though your added work takes place where your family lives, employment tasks are distinct from and in addition to routine needs.

The entire household needs to adjust their expectations of what mom’s day includes. Everyone benefits from a clear understanding of the job description and requirements.

3. Communicate your needs.

If working from home is going to work, clear and complete communication between family members is essential.

• How does the schedule look?
• What assistance do you need?
• What boundaries are required?
• How does everyone need to flex?

No one will know the challenges, and you won’t know your family’s feelings, unless you all communicate.

4. Do yourself a favor.

Instead of envisioning a seamless transition to work life at home, do yourself a favor and intentionally plan to take care of yourself, your family, and your spirit. Recognize potential stressors and counter them by making the care of your own spirit and body a priority.

Identify your family’s needs so they don’t get lost in the paperwork or quotas.

A host of benefits come with working from home, so don’t let the challenges intimidate or overwhelm you. With a little effort, your job can feel right at home.

What would your family life and work life look like if working from home was a success?

Julie Sanders works from home as an author and Women’s Ministry Director. Mother of two nearly-grown children, she enjoys opportunities to minister overseas with her husband. Her local and global ministry to women has made her passionate about the issue of human trafficking. Discover more about Julie at her blog.

Photo in Text: adapted, Image courtesy of David Castillo Dominici / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Reframing What 'Drives You Nuts' in Marriage

I "met" Laurie Wallin on a post at The M.O.M. Inititative, and had to laugh when I saw the title of her book, Why Your Weirdness Is Wonderful. My kind of author, I thought. I asked Laurie to share two posts. This first post, a Marriage UPGRADE, addresses how we can deal with "quirks" in marriage.

"When our quirks clash with someone else’s," Laurie said, "asking the right questions can take that relationship beyond survival mode to thriving mode."

A personal story about burned biscuits come to mind, but I [Dawn] will save that for a post of my own. Suffice it to say, I had to learn to dwell with my husband according to knowledge, and learn how to be kind and prudent! (Ephesians 4:32; Proverbs 8:12)

Laurie continues ...

Years ago, my husband walked into the kitchen when he got home from work and said something that almost blew up our marriage: “Honey, let’s rearrange the kitchen cabinets. What if we put the glasses in this one? And—”

The spatula whizzing by his face interrupted him.

Wiping my hair out of my new-mom, when-was-my-last-shower face, I took mental inventory: dinner on the stove, preschool World Wrestling Federation ensuing, a crying baby wrapped in a sling around my torso, and the man wants to add a task to my life? His suggestion seemed so insensitive, so clueless, so hurtful to a mom of two then foster kids who was still trying to figure out which way was up.

It was that tense place where my love for knowing and living our personal strengths was born.

On the recommendation of a friend that same week, I’d done some reading and work to figure out my strengths. And that’s when the miracle happened: I realized my husband must have strengths too! (Yeah, I know. How can that be, with the comment about the cabinets?)

But it was true. And that moment—that realization—saved my marriage. It opened my eyes to the two questions that can make any relationship great:

• What strength is my partner trying to live right now?
• How can I see it so we’re on the same team? (What did that look like practically?)

To start, I had to figure out which one of my quirks was annoyed at which one of his. By following my resentment trail, I found the culprit. Each time he brainstormed ideas and shared them with me, I was automatically thinking, I have to do that. Right now.

That response revealed the offended quirk: my “get ’er done” strength. It was mistranslating his think-of-ideas strength as a demand and a plan of action. On top of it all, my make-a-difference strength was offended because when he offered a suggestion for organizing the kitchen, I was hearing that as “You aren’t a good organizer for our family.”

From there, away I went on the crazy train!

That’s where the second step came in. I asked myself, How can I see it so we’re back on the same team? Even asking the question put me in a posture of noticing and working with our commonalities instead of being run over by our differences. Turns out if I asked him, “Is this a fully baked [that is, get ’er done] idea? Or is it still pondering?” his ideas didn’t get on my nerves nearly as often!

It shocked me how many times he answered the latter, and I realized how often my get-it-done assumption was getting us in trouble. Over time, I learned to relax when he thought out loud, to see it as his mind and heart working as God designed: a beautiful gift of creativity and imagination.

When our quirks clash with someone else’s, asking the right questions can take that relationship beyond survival mode to thriving mode.

Next time your spouse’s quirks rub you the wrong way, isn’t it worth holding off throwing that spatula long enough to ask these questions that help the “yours, mine, and ours” weirdness to be wonderful together?

Which of your spouse’s quirks most often clash with your own? How might you use the questions above to shift from “me versus you” to “us versus issue” next time conflict arises?

NOTE: To enter a 5/16/14 drawing for Laurie's book, Why Your Weirdness Is Wonderful:  (1) Share how God helped you overcome your own marriage quirk ... OR (2) share how you and your spouse (or co-worker or friend) learned to operate in each other's strengths (for better teamwork).

Laurie Wallin is a Christian speaker and certified Life Coach. She's helped women worldwide regain joy and confidence by letting go of energy drainers and using their God-inspired strengths.  Her new book is Why Your Weirdness Is Wonderful. Laurie, her husband and their four daughters make their home in San Diego.

A Mom's Extravagant Love

Rebecca Barlow Jordan is an encouraging story-teller, and I wanted her to share this special Mother's Day UPLIFT as an example of a mom's extravagant, forgiving love. 

Rebecca begins with a scripture about the greatest love of all.

"But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8 TNIV).

She continues ...

Much of my husband’s childhood years he spent on a lake in West Texas where his parents and grandparents owned a fishing camp. Like all boys, Larry loved to play “buried treasure.” The sand around the camp offered multiple opportunities for realistic pirating adventures.

But one fateful day, Larry learned a powerful lesson he never forgot. Here’s his story: 

“At the fishing camp, people were always coming and going: stocking up on groceries, searching out the best fishing lures, and renting campsites nearby to set up tents. Mom kept a small file box in the house in which she saved silver dollars.

One day I spied that box and saw ‘Capt. Kidd’ and ‘Treasure’ written all over it. I opened it up and counted fifty shiny coins—not much in today’s economy, but a huge sum to my parents in those days—and definitely a realistic treasure for a pirate. I thought it would be cool to ‘bury’ that treasure box, so I took it out to an empty tent behind our house where I was playing with some other kids. We had great fun pretending we were burying our treasure inside that tent.

“But as boys often do, I got distracted and forgot about the box of silver dollars. Two or three days later, Mom asked about the box. Suddenly I remembered that I had left them in the tent. So I hurried out back, confident I would be the pirate hero and retrieve the buried treasure for the ‘damsel in distress.’

“But when I looked in the tent, there was no box. I pawed through every corner as sand flew in every direction. No box. No treasure. No silver dollars. And no pirate hero. I returned to face my fate from a mom who was now greatly ‘in distress.’

“I’ll never forget my mother’s words. She didn’t punish me. She didn’t chew me out. She didn’t take away my fishing or pirating privileges. She said two things that left a dramatic impression on me. With obvious disappointment, she said, ‘We could have fed our family for a month with that money.’ She let her words hang in the air for a moment, then reached out to hug me. Then she said, ‘But I forgive you.’

“An enemy pirate couldn’t have sliced me any deeper. Another ‘pirate’ had obviously stolen the treasure, but the responsibility lay directly in my hands.”

Through a mom’s forgiveness, she has the divine opportunity to model Christ’s own love to her children.

Badgering, abusing, screaming, berating—these are not God’s tools. They’re more like “enemy” pirate behavior. Certainly, appropriate discipline is needed when outright disobedience challenges parental authority.

But Larry’s mom wisely understood how to drive home the consequences of a boy’s foolish mistake and childish behavior without wounding his character. Her words stung, and made him realize the extreme carelessness of his actions. But it was his mom’s forgiveness that taught him the most about extravagant love.

Only God can teach that kind of love. He is extravagant love, personified.

Almost two thousand years ago, he saw the extreme “pirating” of his world. The ones he created didn’t understand their true purpose and instead chose their own way through sinful behavior. The cost to God was overwhelming. He knew the ultimate consequences of sin. He didn’t excuse it. But he took his most extravagant, expensive treasure—his own Son—and offered it as a gift to his world in distress. And with a holy whisper of grace, he said, “What you’ve done is not acceptable. But I forgive you.”

And those who still hear him and receive his extravagant love and forgiveness will never forget it. They will never be the same again.

In what ways did your mom show you extravagant love? How have you demonstrated forgiveness to your own children? How has God shown that kind of love and forgiveness to you?

© 2010, Rebecca Barlow Jordan, Day-votions® for Mothers (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan), All Rights Reserved. Used with Permission.

Rebecca Barlow Jordan is the author of 11 books, including the Day-votions® women’s series, and 40 Days in God’s Presence. Her book, Day-votions® for Mothers, is a great gift choice for Mother's Day or any day! She has also written over 2000 articles, devotions, and greeting cards and writes an encouraging weekly blog. As a minister’s wife she lives in East Texas and has two grown children and four grandchildren. Find out more about Rebecca at rebeccabarlowjordan.com.

Graphic of Silver Dollars from RandPeckAntiques.blogspot.com, used with permission.

The Woman I Call Mom

I've watched my niece, Jamie Thompson Wood, grow from being my sons' childhood playmate to an incredible woman of God. She's a God-fearing young woman worthy of praise (Proverbs 31:30b). I know this transformation doesn't just happen. In Jamie's case, her parents played a huge part in her development.

I asked Jamie to share this Mother's Day tribute (Proverbs 31:28a) to her mom, Janice Thompson - an UPGRADE Partner who writes about finances. I know Jamie's brother David would echo the same kind of love and respect for their mother, but I want you to hear Jamie's heart.

She wrote ...

When I think of my mom, I think of:

• heart-to-heart talks over hot tea,
• kneeling down together by my bed each night growing up to read Oswald Chambers’ My Utmost For His Highest,
• a silly song that when played over the radio instantly connects us across the miles and time zones,
• crawling into her bed late at night as a teenager to share details, details, details after returning from a date, and
• a woman who singlehandedly embodies the picture of wisdom, intentionality, and a life lived in faithful obedience to God. 

Mom is a woman on a God-ordained mission with an unparalleled tenacity to live into the fullness of what God has for her. 

She has modeled for me what it looks like to hear from God and then follow His leading. 

She taught me though her life what it looks like to: love your spouse well, put your family first, plan for the future, see money as a tool and not a master, and balance the many hats a woman wears with grace and strength.

To many, she’s a sought after business professional, to others she’s a confidante and a source of wise counsel, and to yet others, she’s a friend. 

But I am one of two on this entire earth who get the high privilege of calling her "Mom." 

I pray God gives me the strength and faithfulness to walk in a way that honors her model and maybe someday, I will hear someone say, “You remind me of your mom.” 

That will be a very good day.

If you are a woman, you are likely a "mom" to someone, by parenting or by influence. Are you living worthy of a tribute? Your daughter (or spiritual daughter) is watching your life. May God encourage all of us "Moms" to be careful as we shape young lives.

Jamie Wood was born into a Pastor’s family and desires to disciple women for Christ. She has served as a conference planner for Anne Graham Lotz at AnGeL Ministries, as the Women’s Spiritual Life Director at San Diego Christian College, and on staff in the Women’s Ministry Department of Shadow Mountain Community Church. She has traveled to 36 countries and loves teaching others how to study and apply God's Word. Jamie, her husband Jeff and their baby son, David, live in San Diego.