July 24, 2018

How to Pursue Excellence Rather than Perfection

July 24, 2018/ Heather Margiotta

Criticism is something I’ve battled my entire life. It came from extended family members, friends, acquaintances, leaders, and even strangers.

My earliest memory dealing with it was as a small child. Being criticized for being a female while all my cousins and siblings were males was constant. Growing up in a family where my extended relatives praised males was challenging. I never felt enough, no matter how hard I tried.

As a young adult, I worked under a leader who didn’t fully agree with women in ministerial roles. I found myself receiving the same sort of criticism I did as a child. Nothing I did was ever good enough, and every time I opened my mouth, I was told I said something wrong. I was given clear instructions, followed them exactly, but somehow I was still critiqued. It was constant, and it was heartbreaking. It crushed my spirit.

Proverbs 15:4 says, “Gentle words bring life and health; a deceitful tongue crushes the spirit.”

During this season of criticism, my heart developed a struggle with perfectionism. I felt like everything I did, everything I said, and everything I sought after had to be perfection. If it was, then I wouldn’t hear the stinging words of criticism.

April 25, 2018

I'm Impatient with My Kids {Because I'm Distracted}

April 25, 2018/ Erin Cox

I want to openly admit that I've been completely distracted lately—by an overwhelming to-do list, endless obligations, spreading myself thin, and spending WAY too much time on social media. It has resulted in my being irritable and impatient with my kids.

The insane amount of time I spend on my phone is one of those things that I've been aware of for some time, but it's also something I find myself making a ton of excuses about. I work online, so I need access to my email, my blog, and my social media. Plus, I'm a stay-at-home mom with littles, so I don't get out and have many adult conversations. I have friends and family who don't live close by, so I need to keep up with their lives too. And of course, those same family and friends want to see what we're up to. RIGHT?

With many life changes going on right now and various tasks popping up left and right... my mind is overflowing 24/7. My brain is an internet browser with 4.7 million tabs open at all times.

March 14, 2018

How to Cultivate the HABIT of JOY

March 14, 2018/ Erin Cox

We make thousands of small decisions daily, my friend.

Should I get out of bed?
Should I work?
Should I cook breakfast?
Should I shower?
Should I drive safely?
Should I respond to this text?
How should I respond to my husband?
When should I respond to my whining child?

Opportunities to decide come relentlessly. We make so many in a day that we develop habits to overcome the overwhelm of the constant thinking required for all of these decisions. We don’t consciously think through every single decision. At some point, we made a choice in the past, and it went well, so we settled into following those ruts. That way we no longer have the stress of having to remake that decision every single time.

Our habits help us cope with the sheer magnitude of the everyday.

Basically, we set our lives on auto-pilot, and we do this despite the fact that our habits (pre-decided decisions) change our lives.

The truth is this:
Our habits don’t just change our lives; they are our lives.

March 08, 2018

Confession: I Am NOT an Encouraging Mom

March 08, 2018/ Erin Cox

I've recently admitted that I yell at my children... and it's all because I'm lazy. I'm confident I'm not alone in that, and so far the internet hounds have not come baying at my door. So, just to be fully transparent, I thought I'd also confess that I'm not an encouraging mom like I once thought myself to be. And this realization has hit me like a ton of bricks.

March 01, 2018

The Secret Hidden Inside Contentment

March 01, 2018/ Erin Cox

Joy, joy, joy- count it all joy. Choose joy. Joy has become a chant of the faithful as the ultimate side-effect of living a Christian life. John Piper refers to it as Christian hedonism in his book, Desiring God.

But what IS this pursuit of joy? How do we tackle it in the rough seasons- the desperate seasons- the I AM DONE seasons? How do we even get started pursuing it? For Pete's sake- where is the joy!?!

February 22, 2018

I Yell Because I Am Lazy

February 22, 2018/ Erin Cox

How many times do I become sinfully angry with a child because they need my hands-on redirection, and I don't want to walk across the room? How many times do I raise my voice when I should have just raised my bottom off the seat I was in? How often have I lost my patience when I simply didn't want to be bothered from the comfort of whatever I was doing at the time?

Let’s get really honest. What are some of my greatest failings as a wife and mother?

I am quick to anger.
I yell in my anger.
I am impatient.
I want things to go the way I wanted or expected them to.

What are some traps I commonly find myself snared in?

I grow weary of being touched.
I grow weary of always pouring into everyone else, and it never seeming like enough.
I grow weary of the noise and chatter.
I grow weary of someone always needing something from me.
I grow weary of doing the same tasks, that are immediately undone, day in and day out.

And so what do these sins and these traps have in common? Laziness. Put another way: I often lack the self-discipline to do what I ought to do rather than what I feel like doing.

January 27, 2018

What happened when I stopped being "on fire" for God...

January 27, 2018/ Erin Cox

I came to slowly know Christ just over a decade ago. He came to me in the darkest period in my marriage and let me know that despite having failed in every way imaginable, I was still loved. He humbled me and brought me into his fold where I have safely and confidently resided ever since. Since my marriage to Christ, we’ve been in a sweet honeymoon period—for literally a decade.

Jesus saved me from myself and let me know I was loved without fail when I was absolutely unlovable. He changed my heart, my mind, my priorities, my perspective, my marriage, my parenting—literally almost every ounce of me has been made new in Christ (except my potty-mouth, but He’s still working).

I have passionately loved Him for it and pursued Him with fervor—most of the time. Some of the time, I have not. Some of the time, I am overly confident that I can handle things on my own. Some of the time, I feel like everything is going fine, and I don’t need Him quite as much. Some of the time, I forget just how sinful I truly am.

January 23, 2018

Favorite Books for the Joyful Mama

January 23, 2018/ Erin Cox

I absolutely LOVE books. I love a book that leads me to the Cross, reminds me of God's abundant grace, convicts me of unrecognized sin, and helps me love my husband or children better. God's Word is always my go-to for all of those things, but there’s something special about hearing experiences and lessons from other people who are walking this same journey of faith. Their words feel like a warm cup of coffee with a trusted friend—comforting, challenging, and motivating. (By the way, here’s my very favorite note-taking Bible. I’m an ESV girl through and through.)

Over the years, I’ve read a lot of Christian books, but only a few have left such a deep imprint on my life that I still talk about them years later. I prayed hard about which ones to share here, and I narrowed it down to six books (and one journal) that I truly believe every Mama could benefit from. These books have been lifelines to me in different seasons, and I want to give you a quick rundown of why I love them so much.

January 16, 2018

Restoring + Redeeming Your Marriage

January 16, 2018/ Erin Cox

I love my husband. We've been married for over 15 years and together nearly 25 at the ripe old age of 36. He's literally sewn into my existence. We are like peas and cornbread—absolutely inseparable. Except back when we were separable—back when we were making our own rules, following our own feelings, and generally doing life (including marriage) our own way.

Way back when, we were stuck together but we both had some strong moments of being ready for that to not be the case. I'll never forget those days. Those long nights of fights and tears—when he finally decided enough was enough. Those are raw, unshakeable memories for two reasons. Obviously for the immense pain entrenched in them for both of us, but even more so for the unspeakable redemption and joy that came out of it all.

We often have a habit of looking at someone else's marriage and saying they have something we don't have. They're lucky. They don't fight, or their kids don't cause distress, or they don't have financial issues, or they haven't sinned against one another, or their husband does this one thing—or he DOESN'T do this one thing. But the fact of the matter is that almost every pristine-looking marriage that I know of has been on some seriously shaky ground. Loving is HARD work.

January 04, 2018

It's OK to be a Mess {joy in the hard days}

January 04, 2018/ Erin Cox

It’s ok to have brokenness, unfinishedness, and to be out of control. Messy floors, broken fences, unhung doors—not having the time, energy, money, or mental fortitude to fix every little thing. It’s ok.

Jesus was born into a mess because the gist of all of us is just that—mess. We ARE ALL A MESS. His presence in that mess was the greatest gift—the greatest joy. He walked right into complete disarray, stink, and brokenness and made it all new.

But the angel reassured them. "Don't be afraid!" he said. "I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people." —Luke 2:10

We don’t need to fix the mess, perfect the mess, or even hate the mess.
We simply need to invite Jesus INTO the mess—so that all of our messiness doesn’t matter anymore. Because He is the only mattering thing.