“I just wanna be her so bad, it hurts so bad, it hurts so.”

I’ve been humming the tune of this catchy country bop by Ella Langley since I started writing this article on friendship. This little line in particular keeps popping into my head. Most people, including myself, have a misconception when they first hear it. You immediatly think it’s about wishing she was someone else, or wanting to become someone else. To my surpise, I learned the song is not about jealousy. She wrote it wanting to become a better version of herself. She envisioned who she can be, who she wants to be, what she would want her life to look like. And she’s describing wanting to be her, a woman who has grown, evolved, changed over time, and matured in her life.

If you’re a millennial mom like me, we were raised on movies like Mean Girls, Bring It On, and John Tucker Must Die, which taught us a great deal about how to take each other down and almost nothing about how to be the friend somebody needs.

Now those girls are grown, and we’ve stepped into the season of starting a family. Our life becomes full. There’s a lot on our plate, from work to marriage to parenting and learning how to do it all. And suddenly one particular aspect of motherhood can feel very lonely.

So we start to look around. At the mom who is fifteen years into homeschooling and somehow calm. At the family whose grown kids still come home and want to bring all of their friends with them. At your own mom, who has had the same group of women around her since before you were born. At the friendships online that look effortless, on the highlight reel where everyone has it together. The moms group. The girls night out. The birthday celebration. We’re watching it all.

And something in us says it. I just wanna be her so bad. I want friends like hers. I want to be like her.

I have found myself many times, whether I was a mom yet or not, with a longing in my heart for close, meaningful friendship. That ache is real, friend. The isolation of motherhood is real. Maybe your friendships have changed. Maybe you’ve moved. Maybe you’re in a season where you have tried, really tried, and community just hasn’t come yet. Every woman I know wants a good friend. Every single one.

Today I want to ask you a question that may require some personal reflection. It’s a question that has helped jumpstart the process of bringing meaningful friendship into my life over and over again. It’s not, how do I become like her? How do I elevate myself to be included? How do I copy someone else’s life? That’s not the right starting point, but we all get tempted to go there. It’s taking our eyes off of all the external and shifting internal: “How do I become the friend that I wish I had, the friend God is calling me to be? How did God intend for friendship to look in my life?”

These questions stop us from chasing worldly friendship standards that always leave us disappointed, heartbroken, or unfulfilled, and they point us toward building meaningful, godly friendships that stand the test of time.

Because sometimes the community we’re aching for is on the other side of us becoming the friend we always wished we had.

I have had seasons of looking around at people I love, people who have been in my life for years, and realizing that what I was hoping for was not there. Friends who talked about someone to my face and about me to someone else. Friends who repeated things that were never theirs to repeat. Friends who were close when it was easy and hard to find when it wasn’t. That kind of disappointment has a way of making you wonder whether the friendship you’re longing for even exists at all.

“A contrary person spreads conflict, and a gossip separates close friends.”

Proverbs 16:28

Let me tell you about my best friend who thinks I eat like a sad person

My best friend Julia and I met in Bible college sixteen years ago. Despite seasons of long distance, our friendship never waned. We could go weeks without talking and pick right back up mid sentence. Never miss a beat.

What might surprise most is how completely different we are. I am what most would call a “crunchy” friend. I live an anti inflammatory lifestyle, gluten free, sugar free, dairy free, and just about all my meals are made at home. Julia, however, is a private chef. Every meal of hers is a top tier experience. She often looks at my food choices, with love, and considers my entire way of eating a complete tragedy. ( she will be laughing so hard reading this) She jokes that my food choices are a sad, limited prison compared to her palate, and she still offers me taste tests that would wreck my body for a week. We definitely don’t see eye to eye on one of the things that is a pretty big deal to me.

People on the outside might look in and wonder how two women this different bring such value to each other’s lives. But here’s the thing, what holds it together is not that we have to agree with each other on everything. It’s that we tell each other the truth. We have the conversations that are real and raw and occasionally uncomfortable. She sees my blind spots and says so. I do the same for her. We celebrate each other, each other’s children. We show up on the hard days. We treat each other like family. She watches my kids when my husband and I need a date night. Her home feels like home to me when I’m in it and that speaks more of the friend she is than the cozy decor. The foundation of our friendship has always been our love for Jesus that shapes what it means to then love each other. We aren’t holding each other to a standard, we are aware of the standard we hold to ourselves first. That is what has kept it life giving all these years.

“The wounds of a friend are trustworthy, but the kisses of an enemy are excessive.”

Proverbs 27:6

“Oil and incense bring joy to the heart, and the sweetness of a friend is better than self counsel.”

Proverbs 27:9

The friend who only ever flatters you is not the safe one. She’s just the comfortable one. The friend who uses her words to talk about other people in front of you is likely doing the same about you when you’re not in the room.

When becoming the friend I wish I had, I have to look at the way I’m using my own words. This was different for me at first, there was a time I wasn’t the greatest friend and didn’t use my words well. Things changed after I fell in love with Jesus. I wanted something different. I asked myself: is the overflow of my heart creating a river that genuinely uplifts, encourages, and speaks life giving truth? These kinds of words are the building blocks for loyalty, trust, and lifelong friendship to take shape.

The eighteen months

A few years ago, Julia walked through one of the hardest things a woman can walk through.

I talked to her for extended amounts of time on the phone every day for about eighteen months. Despite having three children, one of them a newborn, and many reasons not to show up, there was no way I wasn’t going to show up for her. Many of the phone calls just needed a listening ear, someone to help with decision making when she felt like she couldn’t think straight, and to encourage her that she could trust herself again.

This is the part I don’t want you to miss: We did not live near each other. I wasn’t able to stand at her front door with a fresh cooked meal, sit at her table, and be physically present.

I was on FaceTime. I was sending an Instacart order to a doorstep. I was sending flowers. I was finding every virtual way there was to say I am here, because the only thing I couldn’t do was be there in person.

We have all been on the receiving end of a text message that I’m sure was sent with good intention, but it ends with something like, “let me know if you need anything, okay?” The hard to hear truth is that a friend in crisis or in a challenging season is more than likely not going to “let you know.” They’re not going to expect their freezer to be filled with meals even though they need it, they’re not going to ask you to send an Instacart gift card, they’re not going to ask you to drop some playful activities for their toddler on the doorstep so they can have a moment of relief, they are not going to ask you to pick up their children from school and watch them for an afternoon. Do they need it? Yes. Or maybe no. But that’s beside the point. A friend who loves at all times is not one who waits on her back foot for someone else to fill a need. She is actively looking for ways to lovingly show up in whatever way she can before anyone has to ask.

Regardless of whether your friendships are long distance or close up and personal, we live in a modern world that provides creative ways to show up and demonstrate love to your friends when they need it.

So how do we become her?

We have moved a lot, which has naturally brought lonely seasons where I was genuinely unsatisfied with the lack of friendships around me. I kept opening my home anyway. Moms I met at the library, women from church, friends of friends who heard I had a group and asked if they could come. It really didn’t matter who. I had decided my door was going to be open to anyone who wanted to be there.

My husband and I decided when we got married, when we were starting out in full time ministry, that we would live with an “open door policy.” Later in life, we discovered that ministry does not stop when you are no longer being paid to do it. I tried not to allow my personal preferences to get in the way of who I was inviting over. Is she like me? Does she have my same interests? Is she a homeschool mom? Is she a Christian? Sometimes we just have to get out of our own way and be open minded to whoever the Holy Spirit brings into our day.

In fact, when hospitality is mentioned in the New Testament, it is referenced in doing so for people you don’t know, people in need, people who probably aren’t like you. Woah—that’s challenging.

When we as women are sensitive to God’s ways, it’s hardly ever super comfy or convenient. In fact, it’s usually the exact opposite. Being a virtuous friend is going to look different than what we may be used to. But remember, different is good. Obedience to God’s ways make our life look different.

And for us women, sometimes we need a simple mentality shift from intimidation to expectation, because the woman who walks through your open door could become one of the greatest gifts in your life. Future friends need somewhere to land, and somebody has to make the somewhere. We want the somewhere to land, we want the friend to do that for us.. which is totally fine, I do too. What i’m pointing to is God is always wanting to do a work in our hearts, and maybe your new community starts with choosing to faithfully trust God with opening your door first. I have a feeling you’d be surprised with how life giving the outcome of your small gesture will be.

A helpful mentality shift

Two important Biblical aspects of friendship are humility and a servants heart. How many of you know those attributes don’t really come natural for most? A woman with pure intentions doesn’t go into a friendship thinking, what’s in it for me?

There have been times I sat and cried to my husband because I was going through something hard and the friends I had poured into were not showing up for me the way I had shown up for them. I really needed them. They weren’t there.

This is not the wisest time to start cutting people out of our life or to decide they are not a good enough friend. This is an opportunity to practice assuming the best. This is a very normal experience in friendship. I’m sure you could tell me a time you felt this way. We are all uniquely designed and completely different from woman to woman. How I expect someone to show up in my friendships might not be the way another friend hopes her friend would show up. An abundantly graceful mentality, assuming the best, and not keeping score is essential. Because it’s in moments like these that the enemy would love to start festering lies in our heart to separate meaningful, life giving friendships from continuing to thrive. It takes humility to slow down when hurt and assume the best or to apologize when you’re wrong.

She showed up for me, so I show up for her. She did a birthday dinner, so I do a birthday dinner. She posted for me, so I post for her. I cringe typing it, but this tit for tat has made its way to a modern day friendship standard. It’s exhausting. When my first priority is a daily pursuit of Jesus, the need to keep score fades into the back. How I treat you is not based on how you treat me, it’s based on the model I have first seen in Jesus.

Becoming her means keeping no record of wrongs. Being quick to forgive. Assuming the best instead of the worst. Being slow to speak and speaking well of people who are not in the room. Being brave enough to stop a conversation or take it somewhere else. Being the one who schedules the girls’ night and organizes it and tells everyone they don’t have a choice, because somebody has to make the fun happen. God sees it all and He will honor it in your life.

It may mean finding an admirable woman further along than you are, gleaning from her, and asking the Holy Spirit to show you how you could be to someone else what she has been to you. And if you don’t have a woman like that yet, your Bible and a local church will give you every example you need to start.

“Therefore, as God’s chosen ones, holy and dearly loved, put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another if anyone has a grievance against another. Just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you are also to forgive. Above all, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.” Colossians 3:12-14

Becoming a better friend typically looks like you are the one who goes first, for a long time, without much coming back. And then one day you look up and there are women all around you holding your arms up on your hardest days, because you were there building first.

To close up, I’ll leave you with the strongest example I have seen of this. There’s one woman in particular God brought into my life at the perfect timing. Claire is much further ahead of me. She has seven children, and she has graduated four of them, homeschooling all seven. I have learned more about how to be a good friend from knowing her than from anyone else.

The first time I ever went into her home, she had invited me over because a mutual friend told her I was going through a really hard time. I walked through her door and her teenage daughters intercepted my kids at the front door. She asked me to sit with her at her table, after preparing me some water with electrolytes and a nutritious snack. It felt like i was enveloped in a warm cozy blanketed hug from the moment I walked in. I remember being completely shocked in that moment, wondering, is this how your home operates? It’s just understood that your children babysit? Not to mention the immediate disarming kindness, care, love, and support she was ready to shower me in.

Later in our friendship I asked her about it. She said, I taught my girls from a young age that if a mother comes over who needs an afternoon of reprieve, we would all work together to give that to her, including loving on her children.

Every intentional detail of how she thinks about loving others, being a good friend, and showing up for people in need has been a beautiful example to me of a godly friend. The impact it has made might just be one of the most significant in my life. Though her words are lovely, her actions always backed them up ten fold. Her home is always overflowing with friends and strangers in need. She never turns people away. She always seems to have the capacity. It blows me away.

As you’re reading this, you might be thinking, I could never do that. I don’t have the time. I don’t have the ability or even the capacity. I’m not saying that you do or that you should because my capacity is not Claire’s. But I am saying she has walked with Jesus her entire adult life, and she lives with conviction to be sensitive to who God brings into her life. To love them. Serve them. Help them. Pray with them. Never expecting anything in return. Her life, makes me want to be a better friend and has shown me how to do it.

The Joy of Friendship lived out

We live in a town where people have moved in from all over the country, so most of us don’t have grandparents or close family nearby. The friends we have made have risen to the challenge. They operate like aunts and uncles, their children feel like cousins, and it is actually very sweet. We have been here for 21 months and are blown away with the people God has placed in our lives in such a short time. None of us are leaning on family, so we lean on each other, and that takes friendship to a whole new level.

It’s important to remember.. Showing up for one another in the hard seasons is first built in the everyday, mundane, seemingly insignificant delight of friendship. The random phone call to tell her something funny your husband did. The comfort of being vulnerable enough to laugh at yourself when something embarrassing happens. Comparing notes on raising teenagers, what you’re trying, what’s working, what isn’t. Being around someone who never lets you take yourself too seriously, who will have a dance party in your kitchen while you make dinner with the kids, because neither of your husbands are home that night, so you decided last minute to do dinner together.

It’s these little moments that are golden gifts. Treasures. But in order to have them, we have to invite them. We invite the friend over for dinner. We love and consider her children and treat them like our own. There is nothing like walking into another woman’s home and feeling completely at home. Bringing your children over for an afternoon of reprieve, because she feels like home to you. Deciding you don’t need to go out for your birthday this year, and having a friend who insists on making it happen anyway, because the girls need to get together and laugh.

I have a motto I like to reference in hard times. “If you’re not laughing, you’re crying.” So I make it my goal to surround myself with the women who will bring the laughter in the moments where I could just as easily burst into tears. Ones who lighten the load. To be able to do that is the most refreshing gift.

Then, after these friendships start to take root, yes, go on the yearly girls trip, plan the concert, make memories in the big moments together that you can look back on. But what we might need even more are the nights of dark chocolate and sweatpants on the couch, hair in a messy bun, laughing until you cry at how ridiculous it was that you thought you almost didn’t make it through the week.

This is how God meant for us to live, in community with one another doing life together. To laugh, to eat, to celebrate, to take the phone call about being overstimulated, to encourage each other when one of us is down and offer a new perspective. And this does not always look like being surrounded by fifteen or twenty close friends at a time. It often looks like three to five close girlfriends, and for me, my sisters are included in that. But even if you need to step out of your comfort zone to meet just one, and begin to build a friendship with her, it’s worth it. Even if it’s a little awkward.

“One with many friends may be harmed, but there is a friend who stays closer than a brother.”

Proverbs 18:24

We were never meant to be isolated. We were created to need each other. Our own physiology tells us so, laughing with a friend has been proven to lower our stress! We were meant to help carry each other’s parenting load, to take the kids so a marriage can get a night out. Finding women like this changes your life. It’s like healing balm to a lonely soul. But sometimes you may just have to model it first, and with the help of the Holy Spirit become it, and be the friend God is calling you to be.

If you have been praying for friends, if you have looked around and felt the ache of not having them, if becoming a mom changed your life in ways you did not expect and friendship is the thing that quietly slipped down the list, can I ask you something?

After reading this today, could God be asking you to open your door? To clear your kitchen table? To make room in your schedule to be her, and to help the women who walk in become her too?

Who is the friend this week that you could physically show up for, or ask to coffee, or maybe apologize to, because something got between you and you don’t want to let that friendship go? Or maybe it’s another level deep.

Before trying all of the above, maybe you need to pray. Ask God to search and prepare your heart. Ask Him for friends in this season, to help you see the ways you could be a better friend to the ones you already have, to give you the words for an apology that needs to be said, or the courage to initiate a conversation with someone new.

If you can relate to feeling isolated, the first step is allowing God to fill that void with Him. Spending time in prayer, time in your Bible, time in personal worship. And as He begins to fill that void, you will discover you suddenly have overflow, and more capacity to show up for a friend, or to make the new friend you have been praying for.

Because sometimes, in the loneliness of not yet having found our people, God invites us to become the friend we always wanted while we wait.

This week my daughter turned ten, and the emotions of this milestone caught me by surprise.

Every quote that you read about time passing quickly is true. I’ve sat in disbelief that we could already be here. I remember when it felt like an eternity away. Then suddenly, in the snap of a finger, it happened. She woke up ten years old.

In our family, we like to celebrate each other big! Birthdays, milestones, sports achievements, figuring out a new skill, you name it. We find a reason to celebrate.

As I was reflecting on all ten of her memorable birthday celebrations, I really let myself zoom in on all the details, the silly stories, the people who were in our lives, and how special each year was.

If you’re here looking for birthday party inspiration, I’ve got you! All the details are below.

If you’re here for the motherhood reflections, I’m hopeful that there’s something I’ve walked through that could help you skip past it in your own journey.

One. Under a tree in our local park

For my daughter’s first birthday, there was nothing chill or low key about me or this party. I had been looking forward to planning her first birthday for several months. We found the perfect spot under a big beautiful tree in our local park. I decorated her high chair, set up a big table to fill with snacks, hung a string of monthly photos of her first year in the tree branches, perfectly placed balloons all around the party, and we laid down a bunch of picnic blankets. Both sides of our family came in from out of state, and all of our closest friends from our church showed up to celebrate with their kids.

I remember beaming at this birthday party, completely in love with our daughter who had undone us over the last twelve months. While I was pregnant, I prayed every single day that she would bring joy into every room that she walked into. We had been living out the answer to that prayer for the last year, and we have watched it continue her entire life.

Two. The backyard under construction

Two weeks before her birthday party, we had closed on our first house, and it was a full renovation. The exterior still needed fresh paint. There were projects in every room, a full blown construction zone. But I was so excited to have a big backyard for her birthday party that I hosted anyway. Think big tables of food for fifty, a cake that looked like it had melted ice cream on top, friends bringing their own folding chairs, and the previous owners’ old swing set, which was a big hit. This was a party to celebrate our girl, and the family and friends who showed up celebrated this huge milestone in our life too, becoming homeowners. Everything inside my house was crazy, but I didn’t even care. The backyard was absolutely perfect. For the first time, a yard full of kids and friends we loved.

This was the year our Polaroid tradition began. From the time she was two, every one of her birthday parties has had a Polaroid camera. We use one or two packs of film and keep them all in an album for her to look back on her birthday memories.

At two years old, she was so bright, talkative, and learning something new every day. I was looking forward to seeing her become a big sister in just a short six weeks after this party.

Three. The fairy garden tea party

This year was definitely a top favorite for me. My daughter was obsessed with dress up, princesses, fairies, and ballet. So I got a vision. I hunted down some low wooden crates to create a long, low lying rectangle table. I covered it in a lace tablecloth and laid a pink rose garland down the center. Each place setting was butterfly themed, and little butterflies were clipped to each cup. I wanted to create a whimsical fairy garden princess party that brought their little imaginations to life. Each guest was gifted a flower crown, enjoyed high tea snacks, and could have their face painted like a fairy. All the girls came dressed up.

I was really proud of this one. It was simple, girly, and precious to watch. The girls were fully in character the entire time.

I baked her cake for the first time that year, edible butterflies and all.

I asked her that night what her favorite part of the day was, and her eyes grew wide with a smile that covered her face. “The decorations, mommy! The decorations were so beautiful.” A girl after my own heart. I will always remember that.

Four. Ballerina bash on the family farm

It was 2020. New Jersey was locked all the way down, and having a birthday party with friends wasn’t an option. We spent a lot of time on my in laws’ farm that year and decided to celebrate her there, surrounded by cousins.

This year was ballerina themed. I baked a three tiered ballerina cake, she wore a hand me down ballet costume from her cousin, ballet shoes, and a projector screen was set up in the yard, complete with balloons and a tent so they could watch the movie Leap together.

On her fourth birthday, she wasn’t really thinking about the friends that weren’t there. She was just enjoying that this birthday got to be with her family. She has always had a deep love for her family, and being surrounded by her cousins was more than enough.

Five. The mermaid pool party

Like many people, we made some major changes in 2020 through 2021. We sold our house in New Jersey and moved to my hometown, which, as you can imagine, is a lot of change for a little girl. This birthday party was just two months after we had moved. Mermaid pool party was the theme, and the faces surrounding us were people I had known since childhood, bringing their own kids. It felt like a welcome to Georgia party. We got her a little mermaid bathing suit, I set up a photo booth, and we did mermaid plates and goodie bags. I had decided to retire from making the cakes, it got way too stressful, so I hired someone to bake me a cake and I did the decorations.

At five, I watched her bravery. She started kindergarten in a brand new state without knowing anyone in her class. I knew that she was nervous, but she overcame her fears and kept being true to herself. A friendly, kind, outgoing little girl. She thrived all year.

Six. The dino bash movie night

She was into dinosaurs and completely taken with the idea of a sleepover, and we were not doing a sleepover at six. So we faked one. Dinosaur cake, a big welcome sign out front, a balloon arch around the front door. I set up some crafts and games in the backyard, then a movie night followed. We filled our dining room with blankets, pillows, and sleeping bags and set up our movie projector, complete with all the movie snacks. Important side note: I was in the throes of my first trimester, so sick planning this party, living off of breakfast sandwiches, just trying to get through the nausea.

Between five and six a girl transforms. That was the year she made her first true best friend, a girl a few houses down who did ballet with her twice a week, and I got to watch her enjoy friendship for the first time.

Seven. The trampoline park

This year, I had to get creative. I was five months postpartum after having our third baby, and my capacity felt very slim, but that wasn’t going to slow me down from celebrating our girl. We went to an indoor trampoline park, filled it with little girls, and after it was over we popped the trunk of the Expedition and sang happy birthday over cupcakes in the parking lot.

A memory that stands out to me from this party was how afraid she was to do the big zipline. All of her friends stood under her chanting, Miela, Miela, Miela! She closed her eyes and jumped, and she finally did it! All of her friends cheered for her the entire time. It was the best part of her whole day.

At seven I started to feel like I had a big kid. Our conversations changed, and our friendship started to deepen.

Eight. Cowgirls and puppies

Creatively, this year was by far my favorite! Some family friends of ours had a few horses on their farm, and their daughter hosted parties for little girls on their property. Party number eight was cowgirl. I found pink cowgirl hats in bulk, pink bandanas to match, set up a temporary tattoo station, and even found little cowgirl themed Croc jewels. The girls took turns riding and running around the farm. The icing on the cake, their dog had just had a litter of golden retriever puppies. You can imagine a group of ten little girls and how much excitement that brought to their day. You just can’t plan details like that.

I ordered the cake and decorated it myself, and I showed up with snacks and party favors and nothing else. They had already set up a photo booth with her name on it. This is my favorite party we have ever done, and I highly recommend an on location party, because it takes almost everything off of mom.

What I remember about eight was watching her be so kind. She was becoming such an encouraging, good, little friend to the girls around her. Some moms had even encouraged me with how much their daughters enjoyed being around her. Friendship was a big theme that year.

Nine. A girls night out in Nashville

Three months after her cowgirl party, we broke the news that we were going to be moving to Tennessee for her dad’s job, and she was devastated. She had the most wonderful group of friends in Georgia.

So we started praying. Every day before we moved, we asked God to go ahead of us and provide special friendships in Tennessee that were just as life giving as the ones she was leaving behind. I prayed it passionately, and in my own prayer life, I asked God to demonstrate His faithfulness to her. She kind of prayed it reluctantly, because she did not want to go.

Fast forward to her ninth birthday, a night in a hotel room in downtown Nashville with a new instant bestie from her soccer team, whose birthday was one day before hers. Her mom and I happened to click the same way the girls did.

We went, yes to be with her friend, but also to celebrate a standout year in her life. It was the year that she came home with me full time to homeschool. She was eight months into a brand new state and had absolutely thrived. Our relationship had significantly deepened. She overcame fears and was living in the answer to the prayers we prayed, not only with that one friend, but with the other friends she had made too. Year nine was deserving of a mother daughter night out in the girliest hotel in Nashville.

Ten. The slide park

We started at home. Gifts wrapped on the table, a happy birthday sign, all of us up early to make her birthday morning special.

This year, there had been a significant pivot. All she wanted was to do something exciting with her four closest friends, and the new local indoor slide park was the place she wanted to go.

My girl no longer wants a fairy tea party or to be a cowgirl with a hot pink cowgirl hat. She simply wanted to make really good memories with her people. Yes, she spent the majority of her party running around with her friends, but her dad, her brothers, and I were still in the mix. I am so thankful she still wants us there, and I hope she always does.

I’m not going to lie, the lead up to ten has been very different. She’s talking about more mature topics, asking bigger questions, having bigger attitudes, and is all about her friends on a whole new level. But where some parents begin to feel a distance at this age, thankfully, we have only gotten closer. Both her dad and I have such a special relationship with her, and my prayer is that it only continues throughout the years to come.

Reflections from the last ten years of motherhood

When looking back, I quickly realized that my daughter wasn’t the only one growing and changing over the last decade. I personally have changed so much too.

Our children are a gift. A gift that sometimes keeps on giving in a way we don’t necessarily want at first. Some of our greatest weaknesses and frustrations get revealed, and we are left with a choice, to let the Holy Spirit lead us into growth and maturity, or to stay set in our ways. This is hard.

As much fun as I had doing all of these parties, the first three years I was anything but fun to be around in the lead up to them. I would get flustered, frustrated, and snap at a friend or family member because I wanted the vision of the party executed perfectly. Nothing was going to get in my way. By year three, my mom and my husband would make jokes about how militant on party days, and how easily I became stressed. Everything was a huge deal.

This was something I could have just continued to do. But by year four, the Holy Spirit was really leading me to let go. Let go of trying to perform, to impress others. Let go of everything having to go perfectly and according to plan. Let go of perfectionism that was stealing my joy. Let go of any motive that was anything other than celebrating my daughter and making her birthday HER day. There was a lot going on in me, and God knew.

Sometimes as moms, we can get so caught up in loving our children well that we lose sight of what’s most important. The whole reason I was ever doing this was to love and celebrate my girl. If balloons floated away, if decorations blew away in the wind, if someone or something did not show up on time, (which all happened over the years) the party was not ruined! But in the moment I totally thought it was.

I started to pay attention to the friendships that were life-giving and spend my time around those. I’m not the kind of girl who will cut people out of my life, but if we constantly surround ourselves with people who have nothing good to say about motherhood and marriage, it will have some impact on our soul too. If you don’t like the friends that are in your life right now join a local church, find a small group of women that you can join their Bible study, introduce yourself to other moms at your kids co-op, and start to be the friend that you wish you had. Soon you’ll look around you and see a life-giving group of godly women who support one another, encourage one another, show up on the hard days, and live out what it means to be a good friend. We were never meant to do motherhood alone, Find a way to bring high-quality friends into your life.

In my earlier years of motherhood I used to be an extremely type A mom. But the more kids I had, I realized being a type A girl was still a form of control for me and anywhere I am trying to be in control, operating in my own strength and relying on myself, is not a place where I can be fully dependent and surrendered to God. Letting go and not being held hostage by rigid scheduling, and embracing flexible, rhythms has set me free!

In regards to comparison, just don’t do it. If only it were that simple. I learned over time that what the Holy Spirit is teaching me might not be what He is teaching my best friend next to me, or the mom up the street, or the lady who goes to church with me. My journey with God is mine. I shouldn’t be keeping score, looking to my right or left, or wondering why I’m having to go through hardships and they’re not etc. My job is To keep my eyes fixed on right where God has me, pursue Jesus, stay sensitive to what He’s asking of me, and be obedient. My favorite line is “success in life is obedience to God.” It helps me correct course when I’ve lost my way. When I started living this out, everything else simplified. My marriage is better. My motherhood becomes more patient and discerning. I begin to value my role as a homemaker , homeschool teacher, and the heartbeat of the home. Pleasing others, wanting what someone else has, or performing to be loved becomes exhausting. It steals gratitude for all the good in our lives. But what is never exhausting? Knowing Jesus & letting Him lead your life. In fact, it’s the exact opposite. This is where real peace & contentment is found. I need it every day in my home and parenting.

As far as my reflections on my relationship with my daughter, I could write an entire article. I adore everything about her, about getting to be her mom. But I will say…she is so different from me. Of course we have our commonalities, but we are more different than we are alike. God has really encouraged me to stay sensitive to learning everything about her, how to love her well, understanding her personality, embracing her differences, and learning who He made her to be, so that I don’t expect her to think, talk, act, or behave like me, and instead give her permission to grow into the girl she is meant to become. Don’t miss the little moments. The opportunities to sit at the foot of their bed and talk about nothing. What seems like nothing to me has been the nights it’s been everything to her. I think kids just want to be heard and feel important to us. Small decisions we make every day like putting the phone down and meaningfully connecting goes far. We love to go for bike rides at our local greenway, have girl day dates and get a break from the boys. Right now she shouts GIRL CAR when it’s just us and gets to choose all the songs we listen to. Those. Little. Things. They remind me every day I’m living in the best years of my life. From 0-10 each year really has only gotten better. And yes, I do often wish I could go back to 3 year old Miela for just one day.

I have found so much joy in learning the beauty of who she is. She inspires me. I learn so much from her patience and kindness. She’s so chill, just like her dad. Being her mom, loving her, and watching her grow for these last ten years has been one of the greatest joys of my life. Here’s to many many more years of growing and becoming right alongside her. Together. Mom & Miela.

In my first year of homeschooling, I was that girl. All with good intentions. And I have watched other women get caught in the same mental mayhem at the start of their homeschool journey.

Creating a homeschool space for my kids to learn is one of my favorite things to do in August. I like to be inspired and gather fresh ideas for the school year. Spruce it up, add something new. But I learned quickly that my homeschool space does not have to be aesthetically on point, have new furniture, or even look like the ones in the reels. Creating an environment that shapes the hearts and minds of your children doesn’t have to come with a high price tag.

When designing our space I keep this at the forefront:

It is such a unique blessing to have my children home and to guide their spiritual and mental formation. This is not copying and pasting a public school room into my bonus room. I get to take the time to build a space that shapes their identity, what they believe about themselves, and the person they are becoming.

That is a completely different assignment. When I frame it that way, it gives me a new goal. And it costs me almost nothing. But, how do I do it? What’s important and what’s not?

Today I am going to share what is actually in our very simple homeschool room, and why I put them there. I think the simplicity and intentionality might surprise you. I’ll start by focusing on one little corner that we added for this school year. The space my kids haven’t stopped talking about.

THE COZY BOOK NOOK

Each year I like to allocate some of our homeschool budget to a new, exciting addition to our homeschool room. Im really starting to see it all accumulate in a sweet way 3 years later. Yesterday, I put the final touches on our new reading nook, and my children are busting with excitement about it. It sits in a cozy corner of our schoolroom, and it only took five simple pieces to create. I bet you have these pieces in your home right now.

But before I share what is in it, what matters more to me is why I created it. Let me explain..

Remember when we were kids and we would build a fort, or sit under a little canopy on our bed, and feel like we had teleported to a completely different world? The spaces we created where our imagination could run wild? I have so many core memories in spaces like that. This was the goal for our new book. A place where my children would look forward to snuggle up with a book and get lost reading.

Each of my kids are book lovers who seem to always have one in their hands, or are asking me to read aloud. For this year, I wanted a place they knew was their spot to read. It did not have to be a Pinterest-aesthetic corner. (Which, if I’m honest, is always my preference) It just had to be a place that opens the door for my children to launch into another realm. Build excitement around reading. I knew this cozy book nook would do that for them all year long. It also doubles as a place they will want to be while I’m working with another child on their school work. A win for mom and a win for the kids!

So what is actually in it?

What’s left of this article —The details of our room, the FREE Cozy Book Nook Guide, Craft wall inspirations, and The Family Motto FREE guide— is for all free subscribers to Doing It Differently! I intentionally create resources with this community in mind. I’d love for you to join us here, continue reading, and get access your guides.

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Before I ever started this Substack, I pictured myself sitting across from mothers walking out a road a lot like mine.

By most estimates, the number of homeschooling families in America has grown by more than half in under a decade, from around 2.3 million children in 2016 to nearly 3.7 million today. So I know my like-minded moms are out there. More of you every year.

We start the year wide-eyed and full of excitement, and definitely nervous to take on our child’s education. We’re sitting across from one another, talking about the continual pull we feel, a God-given mom-gut telling us this decision is worth it.

And as that number keeps climbing, it has to mean one bottom-line truth: parents want to educate their children, and they do not trust that the school system is giving them the education they need today. And they’re right.

This decision to bring the kids home doesn’t come without a learning curve. This is a new skill for us parents to learn. We jump in wholeheartedly, then we end the school year discouraged and second-guessing ourselves. I started paying attention to the patterns with other moms in my world, and I realized the discouragement isn’t coming from homeschooling itself. The discouragement shows up when we’re still using the metrics that were built for the classroom, grading ourselves as teachers with a scoreboard that was never meant for us moms at home.

Here’s what surprised me: the moms carrying themselves with a quiet confidence, the ones who seem to be thriving, are the ones who have a steady few years of experience under their belt. They’ve taken the time to discover how to create their own uniquely wonderful homeschool experience. They’ve left the traditional metrics behind for a motherly intuition, and they’ve developed an eye for the true proof of learning.

I know a couple of these rare species of women personally, and I want to share with you what I’ve learned from them. Let’s zoom in together on what metrics we should be using as homeschool mothers, the ones that are different from the school system’s. Because if our children are allowed to develop differently, on their own timeline, then when we bring them home, we have to actually let them. I’m done with my confidence taking a hit from these metrics. And together, we can make the shift into a new way.

I know that some of you reading feel isolated on the journey, and you don’t necessarily have one of these mothers in your life. No one to call when you’re second-guessing. No girlfriends who’ve chosen this same different road. Maybe family who pushes back on your choices, because it’s unfamiliar to them. No one to encourage you when it’s hard, or just sit for coffee and listen.

So if you’ve happened to stumble across my publication, I’d love for you to pull up a chair with me today. Let me be a source of practical encouragement, and a reminder that you get to do this your way.

This is the story of what our kindergarten year actually looked like, and how I found the confidence to make decisions based on what my son needed. Not by looking to the left and right at my friends’ kids, where they were, what they were doing, but by keeping my eyes fixed on my son and what he needed from me.

Sometimes we need to go slow so we can go fast. And I know how wrong that can feel.

Last week I wrote about [deschooling], the unlearning process I had to go through, the one I think is essential for every homeschool mom. If you missed it, go read that first. Today I want to get a little more personal, and show you what it actually looked like for us.

I lean pretty type A. I like staying on track. A lot of the homeschool moms I know are naturally go-with-the-flow, happy to move at whatever pace their child needs. That is not my default, and sometimes it’s my greatest weakness.

When we started, I knew my son had not mastered his letters and sounds yet. So I made a decision: we would spend the first half of his kindergarten year mastering this foundational skill before we ever opened the language arts curriculum. That meant I didn’t start the actual curriculum until after Christmas, my very first year homeschooling full time. And the whole way through, a voice ran in the back of my mind. You’re behind. You should have started in August.

We ran into another unexpected challenge that I feel needs to be talked about more. My son could not properly grip a pencil yet. Every time he picked it up, even with the little finger-grip placed on it, he was frustrated to tears. So we decided, once again, to pivot from typical, and we used his pointer finger instead. I’d draw a letter on the dry-erase board, the one we were focusing on that week, and he would make it “disappear” with his finger. Or I’d place letter cards under the sand in his sandbox, and he’d uncover them with his pointer finger.

Sometimes children don’t naturally master a pencil grip before the age of seven, and that is perfectly normal. But research shows that tracing a letter with the finger lays it down in the learning center of the brain the same way writing it with a pencil does, and the greater resistance of finger-tracing actually stimulates a child’s nervous system, making him more aware of the shape he’s forming.

These were all personal discoveries I made in real time, working with my own child. So why aren’t these things being talked about more? We have parents just beginning to homeschool, worried their child can’t grip a pencil, or scrambling to keep pace with a curriculum so it’s finished on time by the end of the year, instead of teaching to mastery. Both of those skills came in their own time. No worksheets needed. And both of them required a teacher willing to meet their child right where they’re at in their own development, and happily throw away the school-provided standard.

So I took my time. And everything in me hated it. But that six months was my deschooling. And the discomfort of learning outside the lines began to fade when I saw that it worked. I had to trust that if I gave him exactly what he needed first, he would soar after.

That is precisely what happened.

The metrics weren’t mine to begin with

Here is the truth I needed then: a worksheet is not proof that learning is happening. A stack of completed work is not a measure of success, or of your child retaining new knowledge.

A classroom teacher needs worksheets. Sometimes it’s to fill space, give busy work, or to see if anyone is lagging behind in the group. She has thirty children and one set of eyes, and she cannot sit with each of them long enough to know what they know. The worksheet, in a lot of ways, seems to solve her problem. But that method was never meant to come into my homeschool.

So I traded those metrics for better ones. Mastery. A love of learning. Real excitement to sit down and begin. A child moving forward and genuinely understanding, even when a concept that takes another child a day takes mine three weeks.

A close friend of mine put it perfectly. She doesn’t do much formal testing until her kids are older, so one day I asked her, how do you know they’ve understood a certain concept? Read closely here. Don’t miss this. She said: when they start actually doing it. When they use mental math in real life without being asked. When they tell me all about the book they just read. Or, in the early days, when they pick up a book on their own and begin to sound out the words, their eyes lighting up with the joy of reading all by themselves. When they suddenly announce what time it is from looking at the clock on the wall.

Genius, right? This was a lightbulb moment that hasn’t left me.

She said, I’m with my children all day. They’re taking tests right in front of me. I don’t need a worksheet to grade them.

He was never worried about the calendar

I look back at that year now, and I don’t see a lost semester. I see a mother learning a very critical lesson. I brought my child home to go at his pace and meet his needs so he could thrive. He’s not taking tests with a pencil. He’s showing me everything that he’s learning as he applies it right before my eyes. I get to do this the way that is best for him.

God didn’t call me to this and hand me a curriculum. He gave me my child, one I have the honor and privilege of raising in full dependency on Him. And God was never the least bit anxious about whether we opened a book on time. I was the one panicking. He knew all along it needed to be this way.

A man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord determines his steps.

I planned out the school year. But the key for me was allowing the Holy Spirit to be my guide. I need to be willing to pivot. To go slow even when it feels counterintuitive. To pay more attention to my child’s learning process than to a calendar or a plan vying for my attention.

While my son was learning to read, God was teaching me to quit keeping track of time.

I write this today because I know, from my own experience and from so many mothers expressing their self-doubt and their frustrations with homeschooling, that some of you reading this right now have felt the pressure from outside sources to hold your child to the metrics and standards of the public school system.

If you hear anything, hear this. From the time we rejected those metrics, and I met my children right where they were in their own learning process, it launched them into advancing well beyond their grade. And even if that hadn’t happened, I have the freedom to go at the pace they need. That is the gift.

I like to think we are having a lot more fun than a room full of kids sitting around doing worksheets. We are actively learning together, and I get to do it with the children of my dreams, in the life of my dreams. I am home. I am the one teaching them. This is not a chore I’m getting through. It is a genuine delight to watch them grow and develop right in front of me, every single day.

That’s why it saddens me to see parents robbed of the joy they already have and don’t know it yet. They brought the children home, but they’re still captive to the metrics. So for goodness’ sake, please stop. It is getting in the way of you having fun in the midst of all of this.

Because half the time, when a mother isn’t enjoying homeschooling, it isn’t the homeschooling. It’s the constant comparing. It’s the measuring by a standard you were never meant to pick up in the first place.

So be free, momma. You get to do this your own way. And when you do it your own way, you are not doing it wrong. You are doing it right.

Then go looking for all the ways you get to have fun with it. Because the more fun your children are having, the more they are actually going to learn.

The fun is in the process, not in the completed work. And the completed work was never the stack of pages anyway. It is a well-formed relationship between a mother and her child, one that carries you both through the whole school year, where you each walk into your days with confidence.

I always come back to two questions. Are my children able to apply, in their everyday life, the things they are learning? And am I, as their teacher, willing to deviate from the schedule, the plans, the calendar, the pace I thought we would be on, to spend time with them going at their pace?

Sit with those two questions for a minute. Not with guilt, but with honesty. Because the mother willing to ask them is already the kind of teacher her child needs.

Now let me clarify. I am not telling you to let a sixth grader sit at a third grade level. I am not excusing laziness, or a neglect of structure, or the intentional, focused time that lessons require. What I am hoping to do is set you free from the prison of borrowed metrics, the ones holding your child captive, and your headspace too. Because the beauty of homeschooling is exactly this: it releases you and your child from measuring against every other child in the room, and lets him thrive at the pace God gave him.

And one more thing, mother to mother. When we gather with other homeschool families, can we make a quiet agreement with each other? Let’s stop talking about our children in a way that stacks them side by side, getting puffed up when ours is more advanced, or completely deflated when he wasn’t moving “fast enough.” All of it, the pride and the shame based on where our child lands, is thinking we’ve been conditioned into. And it is contributing to the cyclical problem.

Let’s replace it. Instead of asking each other about test scores and grade averages, let’s talk about the things that actually matter. How we’re cultivating a love of learning. How we’re nurturing a heart for creativity. How we’re giving our children the time and space to figure out a hard concept in their own way. And let’s encourage one another on the discouraging days, because those days come for all of us.

That is who we can be for each other. Not scorekeepers. Just mothers, supporting one another, cheering each other on, and embracing every curve and loop along the way.

Let me leave you with a few questions to reflect upon this week:

1. What metrics am I actually using to determine success educating at home? Where did they come from?

2. How can I notice the beauty in my child’s learning process that a test would never show me?

1. Am I enjoying this? If I am not, is it the homeschooling or the comparing?

The schooling is for them, about them, and we all want to get it right. I’ve found in order to do that, I have to realize it’s about me too. The one steering the ship. Leading the way.

I’ve had friends text me when they’re about to start their first year of homeschooling, asking for curriculum advice, or the details and tips for the kids, where to begin. I can’t help but grin. Because as fun as it is to talk curriculum and swap recommendations, that wasn’t the most impactful part of our first year of homeschooling. What impacted my kids the most started with me.

It’s a process called deschooling — the stretch of time between traditional school and home, unlearning the classroom, discovering a new way to learn. Everyone talks about it like it’s for the kids. And it is. What no one told me is how much of it was mine to do.

Because whether we realize it or not, the school system conditioned us. School has to look a certain way, feel a certain way. Achievement has markers. There are metrics to keep. Thirty kids, one teacher, one pace. That’s the room I grew up in, and my homeschool doesn’t look anything like it.

Here are the four ways deschooling changed my teaching — and I think it’ll change yours too.

1. A one-size classroom doesn’t fit anyone.

It didn’t take long for me to see that my son has a completely unique way of learning, and I started catering every concept to the way he understood it.

This had me thinking about every child sitting in a classroom who doesn’t happen to learn the way the teacher is teaching. They take the test without mastering the concept, the grade isn’t ideal, and the class moves on anyway — without the foundation they needed to stand on.

And it isn’t only academic. It’s a quiet hit to their confidence. A child might start to believe he isn’t as bright as the child beside him, when the truth is he simply needed the concept explained a different way. Or one more month on the same reading level for the light to come on. But the classroom has to keep pace.

The school system has all of these unique learners, each one individually designed by God, in one room with one way of learning. Hoping they keep up. What I’ve found is the opposite: when you teach to the way your child actually learns, he doesn’t just keep up. He flies.

2. I know my children best, and I’m in the driver’s seat.

This one felt almost silly, because of course I know my children best. Better than any teacher ever could. And yet I’d been ready to hand over the reins to the most formative part of their days.

In case you’re second-guessing yourself, let me remind you: no one knows your children better than you do. If you’re drifting away from the public-school version of a day and stepping into something that looks a little more like what you and your kids actually need, and it’s got you wondering whether you’re doing it wrong, hear me. You’re doing it right.

Everything you knew before, everything you sat through — your child doesn’t have to inherit any of it. You are the one who gets to build your days from start to finish. And that is exciting, because that’s the thing that makes a child love to learn.

Not every day, of course. There will be mornings nobody wants to open a book. But the overall current is excitement, because it’s built around your child and around you, the mom who figured out how they learn best. You’re not measuring yourself against a classroom anymore. You’re in the driver’s seat, and your kids are learning more, and faster, than they would in that room. Plus you get to fold in the things that matter most: self-governance, discipleship, critical thinking, how to manage their money, how to ask good questions. I get to decide what I want my children to carry into the world when they leave my home — and I get to be the one who helps them become that, every day. And I believe in my heart that this intentionality, hard as it is sometimes, is always worth it in the end.

3. Learning isn’t confined to a desk.

Most people picture homeschooling as everyone gathered around the kitchen table, and when the work is finished, the children get up and go play.

In our home, learning happens everywhere. My children take in so much more when they’re moving, building, doing something with their hands. There’s a name for it — kinesthetic learning — and the research backs it up: engaging the body lights up more of the brain, and the concept settles into long-term memory instead of being easily forgotten.

So we do multiplication facts on the trampoline. We trace letters in the sandbox. We incorporate our hands and bodies as much as we can. I noticed my son began to hold on to so much more of what I taught him the moment I gave the whole body an opportunity to get involved.

There are still mornings we’re all at the table, and things that need sitting and focus. But the freedom isn’t something to waste — it’s something to maximize. You can turn almost any lesson into a game. And if you or your children are caught in a cycle of frustration, adding some whole-body movement to the day is the first place I’d start.

4. The Holy Spirit is our Helper.

I’ve always wondered how people parent without a relationship with God. Now I catch myself wondering the same thing in a different way: I don’t know how anyone homeschools without the daily help of the Holy Spirit.

This belongs on the list because it’s the thing that set me free: I do not have to feel equipped for this. It has nothing to do with my own education, or the grades I made. If God is asking me to teach my children — and I believe He is — He will make it clear, and the Holy Spirit will be right there to help me.

It starts before the children are awake, a few quiet minutes to pray and invite God to be my Helper. Some of our most important moments didn’t come from a curriculum. They came from a gentle nudge to teach a concept differently, a pivot I needed to make, or an answer to one of my prayers over my children. They came from what the Holy Spirit showed me about one of them — what they needed, or the moment I ran out of patience and needed to turn around and apologize.

One morning before we started school, I followed a prayer prompt that asked: what is something that might seem insignificant, that you haven’t prayed about, that you could pray about today? The first thing that came to mind was my son. He had been struggling with mental math, and we had been sitting in that struggle together for a few months.

So I prayed. I asked God to help my son learn to do mental math without his abacus, and to show me anything new I could try to help him.

That day when we got to math, we worked a few subtraction problems on the abacus. Then I took it away and told him to imagine the abacus and try some in his head. And right there in front of me, he began doing mental math.

I don’t tell you that to say God will answer every prayer the same afternoon. I tell you because I was undone by how He met me. The Holy Spirit wasn’t only helping my son with math. He was reminding me that nothing is too small for Him, that He wants to be invited in, and that I should never stop bringing Him the little things.

This was a pleasant surprise — a kiss from heaven. I don’t only get to teach my children their letters and their numbers. I get to show them what it looks like to lean on the Holy Spirit as our Helper — to ask Him for help out loud, and then watch Him be faithful. And slowly, that takes root in them. I get to watch my children ask God for help themselves, and watch Him answer.

Once you’ve found your groove — that slipstream where you’re listening for the Holy Spirit and you’ve settled into a rhythm that works — the magical moments start to come. You watch your child read his very first word, with your own eyes. You are learning right alongside them. And as you have these moments, you grow in confidence, the Holy Spirit confirming: yes, you’re doing the right thing, and yes, there is reward for your obedience.

And that’s it. That’s deschooling. You’re in the room — the one who knows this child better than anyone in the world, guiding the learning, walking the whole journey beside them, saying no to what doesn’t work, and reworking their education into what’s best.

It is hard. There will be days your patience runs thin, nights you lay your head down and wonder if any of this is even working. And then the fruit starts pouring in.

A simple but powerful line from one of my favorite authors, Abbie Halberstadt, has stayed with me every day: hard is not the same thing as bad. Even on the hard days, God is with us. He is equipping us to do this holy work.

If you’re on your own deschooling journey, I would love to hear how it’s going — what you’ve learned, the changes you’ve made, how it’s shaped your family. And if this was helpful to you, tell me. I’d love to know.

But I walked into that evaluation as if I had been divinely prepared beforehand, already knowing somewhere in my heart that it wasn’t going to be what was best for him. Several months before walking into this evaluation, my son had been diagnosed with a rare autoimmune condition that causes brain inflammation, which meant he would need more of a tailored-to-him classroom environment.

He was in the room with another teacher for about fifteen minutes. The principal, someone we knew well because of our daughter, stepped out with the teacher, and before she said a word, I read it on her face. That soft, half-apologetic smile of a person about to hand you news that you’re not ready for.

I wasn’t ready for it.

This academy wasn’t going to be the right fit for him. I could try again in first grade, she said kindly, but for now, I needed to find somewhere else. The decision made and the reasons behind it are his, and they’ll stay his. But I had heard them, and we left for the car.

I don’t have much memory of walking to the car, but I remember sitting in it. As I glanced in my rearview mirror, I saw my carefree five-year-old was buckled in the back seat humming about something and me in the front with the heaviest heart, finding myself figuratively parked at a crossroad that I didn’t want to be standing at.

In that moment, the two options that I had were clear to me. I could put him in a local public school, which went against nearly everything I believed about how I wanted to educate my children, or I could do the one thing that I had felt God nudging me towards for longer than I wanted to admit. I could homeschool him full time for his kindergarten year.

Let me be honest. At the time, I did not want to homeschool my son.

This is a pivotal part of our story that I can’t leave out because I think it’s where a lot of mothers actually begin, not in confidence, but in resistance. I had told myself for years that I was not a homeschool mom, that I didn’t want the whole weight of my child’s education on my shoulders. This was not the plan I had pictured for myself. But, isnt that life? The plan not going according to our plan.

Sitting in that car, I began to do what I’ve always done when I felt overwhelmed and directionless. I began having internal dialogue with God. I didn’t have a lot of words to say. I think all I could muster up at the time was… Okay, God. I know that You’ve been gently pointing me towards this, but right now, it feels like I can’t do this.

And there it was, the actual obstacle.

Not the school, not the evaluation, not a curriculum that I didn’t own yet or a schedule that I hadn’t built.

It was a belief that I couldn’t.

At that time, I was believing something that wasn’t true, but if I had let it stand, if I had treated “I can’t” as a fact instead of a fear, it would have quietly steered my whole family in a direction that we were never intended to go.

And then something familiar rose up in me. If you’ve walked with God for any length of time, you know this feeling. The sense that He’s asking you again to trust Him in a way that’s bigger than you currently feel ready for.

I had a whole bank of these, a lifetime of moments where my toes were at the edge of a crossroad, leaving me with the choice to step out in obedience or shrink back in fear. Sitting in the car, I had flashbacks to every one of them. The common thread being the faithfulness of God throughout. He had never once led me to this uncomfortable place and left me there. Like the time my husband and I, after we had been married for a couple of months, moved to New York City with a few hundred dollars to do full-time ministry while working other jobs. The time that we moved our family across states after a really devastating and confusing fallout in life, that led to my husband building a new business and everything at the time financially was unknown. God provided everything that we needed — exceedingly and abundantly. Or I could tell you about the years that I spent needing to figure out how to help my son and give him every resource possible to thrive. In that season, God placed every person in his life that he needed and every resource for tailored care. I could tell you about the time that we knew in our hearts that we weren’t finished having children. And once again, God placed a friend in my life to say that if God has given you a desire for another child in your family, then maybe you should just try. And He was faithful to give us a third healthy, wonderful baby. These stories only scratch the surface of God meeting us over and over again.

And I knew — the way you know something in your Holy Spirit gut before your head catches up — that the same way He had been with me before, He was going to be with me now.

↓ the part nobody is talking about

Here’s what actually changed things. It wasn’t a curriculum. It wasn’t a conference. It wasn’t finally stumbling into the right program or mustering up some pseudo-confidence.

It was the moment I allowed myself to get quiet enough to hear past my own noise.

Because “I can’t” was loud and it had company — the opinions I was bracing for, worrying that someone around me might doubt my ability, the version of my life that I had already scripted, the fear of what other people would think, even the cultural clichés of how people think about homeschooling. But underneath all of it was a much quieter voice. The still small voice God gives a mother to lead her, the only voice that matters. When everything else finally went quiet, that voice was not saying I can’t.

It was saying you can.

I went and sat with a friend. I’ll tell you in detail about her another day because she deserves her own article. And a month later, after following her encouragement, I went to a homeschool conference I didn’t even know existed and came home from it with my eyes wide. My husband noticed that something in me had drastically shifted. You’re a completely different woman, he said, than the one who found out a month ago she’d have to do this. By the time we started school that August, I genuinely felt a complete one-eighty. Like, I was stepping into the adventure of a lifetime. Removing a belief that I can’t and choosing to believe I can, because God is calling me, was a choice that changed my life… and my children’s lives too.

But the conference didn’t do that. It surely helped - but it started when I changed what I believed. That’s the part I want you to hear.

Because here’s the very first thing that I learned right out of the gate, and it’s the reason that this publication exists today:

How I think about and respond to what God has placed in front of me to do has a direct impact on how everything turns out.

“Okay Lindsey, chill that feels heavy. God is with me no matter what.” Yes. He is. But as we walk with him, in time, the way we think, respond, and move into obedience is a direct reflection of closeness to the heart of God.

The way I start my morning, before a single lesson, before anyone needs a thing from me, trickles down into all of it. My patience, the way I teach, how much I lean on God instead of white-knuckling my way through the day, what I believe about myself, about my children, about my ability to give them an education shaped around exactly who God made them to be.

It all starts in my headspace and what I believe before the day even begins. A renewed mind ushers in a renewed perspective. Every time.

The raw truth is there are days my headspace is a wreck. Days that I oversleep, skip the quiet, skip my routine, prayer, meditation, spending time reading the Word, and I start moving too fast. And we tumble into the morning, and I’m short and thin, and it just doesn’t go well. This happens. I would be failing you if I didn’t mention that it’s almost a normal part of motherhood. Grace covers those days too.

But sadly, I’ve watched something happen to so many of us moms, and I don’t want it to happen quietly to you.

We unintentionally put ourselves on the back burner. We lose sight of the importance of daily disciplines that keep us grounded. We hold our ordinary real days up against the standard we scrolled past on a phone, the influencer with the perfectly styled schoolroom, the flawless curriculum, the children arranged in a serene little circle for read-aloud like a furniture catalog.

I can’t even type that without laughing. Can I tell you that is not what my experience has been, not even on my best day?

The comparison game doesn’t make us better mothers, it just makes us quieter. It doesn’t break the cycle of days that we wished looked different. It begins to dim the beautiful God-given light that uniquely shines within us to be the version of ourselves that God has called us to be, and we are meant to protect it from being tainted by all of the comparison around us. And then it turns the volume down on the one voice we actually need to hear, and a mother who can’t hear God’s voice over everyone else’s highlight reel ends up questioning herself and the decisions she’s making.

So let me say the thing I came here to say today.

If you are a mother who has ever felt the pull, not just to bring your children home to educate them, but to do motherhood differently, to step off the path everyone assumed you’d take, and you’ve caught yourself whispering the same thing I did… I just can’t. I’m not that kind of mom. I never wanted this. I didn’t expect my life to look this way, but I don’t have the resources or any other excuse…

I want to encourage you to get quiet. Quiet enough to hear the most important voice.

Turn down the phones, the opinions you’re bracing for, the friends who might find you strange, maybe even a husband who isn’t all the way on board yet. Get down beneath the noise to where that still small God-given voice is, and listen to what it actually says.

If it’s saying you can — then, friend, you can.

And if you can hear that, you can do anything. Because God is with you.

I’ll give you my most unpopular opinion: I believe any family can homeschool if they’re truly called to it — I believe any family can carve their own path of “different” not because it’s easy and not because you’re already equipped or ready for the challenge, but because the God who calls you is the one who equips you. If it means a substantial sacrifice, the joy of obedience will yield greater reward. If it means you feel alone, He’ll send the community that you need to come alongside you. If you feel under resourced, He already knows the exact resources you and how to get them to you. He is not in the habit of calling His daughters to something and then leaving them halfway. Read the stories of the Bible, God leads his people the WHOLE way.

He simply asks you to trust Him, to stop rehearsing every reason you can’t, to stop shrinking back from a life that looks a little different than the ones around you.

This is what I came to this space to write about — walking with God as He leads us to doing family differently, doing education differently, thinking about life and motherhood differently, discipling your family differently, and growing in our ability to follow God as fully as we can, even when that route looks very different from the road most people around us are taking.

When you’re called to something that makes other people tilt their heads, you’re usually not off track. You’re in the slipstream of everything God has for you. Following Him has always meant a life that looks set apart. His opinion of your obedience will always matter more than anyone’s opinion of your choices.

The small yeses to quiet prayer meditation and Bible reading every ordinary morning. The big life God-opportunities standing at the crossroads - willing to respond in obedience. Those are the moments that keep a family from missing the next thing God has for them — the next adventure He wants to take you on together.

And when you finally say yes, it doesn’t only reshape you.

It transforms the children walking it out beside you.

I believe I can because He says I can.

I think you can too.

— Lindsey