Blessed by Rice-n-Beans

Tell me if this sounds familiar: In the midst of doing house work, driving along with a wandering mind, walking on the treadmill, listening to a song or reading something that inspires, you come up with a wonderfully creative idea to teach a life lesson to those you lead in your home.

The day moves on, the moment of inspiration passes and your valiant motivation to teach the valuable lesson vanishes with the next item on your to do list. Next thing you know, it becomes but a fleeting memory and soon you hardly recall what lesson you even thought they needed to learn! Oh well…next time, right?

Recently, that very scenario has plagued me far too often even to the extent of frustration over my general approach to mothering. Before all this family blending, I seemed to seize those unique moments and actually implement them more often (heck, even if it was only half the time!).  But since the numbers and needs in my house have exponentially increased, I’ve truly struggled to strike a balance between meeting young girl, teenage, husband, home and work demands. I mean, I feel like my simple little scale now teeters on an axis with multiple spokes conspiring to purposefully through me off balance.

I’ll admit: I hit a wall, fell off the wagon, lost it a little (whatever you want to call going stir crazy) and I lost myself a little more each day. Finally, I knew it was time to pause and claim my crazy as controlled chaos once again. It was in that paused moment when I finally fell to my knees and let God show me what to eliminate so I could add back the pieces of me that make me feel at home in my own life. And He was faithful…again! More on that here

If you feel a little lost in your own life, maybe you’ll join me down here in the most powerful posture I’ve been able to find in tough times: on my knees.

So, here I am taking my own form of imbalance back! God helped me release a few outliers in my life that left me unable to focus. He’s also reinfused my life with His peace (which I must’ve been blocking) so even amidst a mess of stress, my soul is at rest.

Now back to my mothering. I’ve been starting to seize those creative mama moments again and taking advantage of small snippets of time to make the little things matter most. My relief is still fresh but I’m headed towards steady ground with God holding my hand the moment I roll out of bed!

I want to share one of the life lessons I’m imparting to our family of five girls. It’s one of those lessons I’m sure they won’t really like learning, at least at first. But I’m praying as time goes on, God will take hold of hearts and the gift of genuine gratitude will settle naturally into their souls.  

It started with this book: Raising Grateful Kids in an Entitled World. It’s not a new release but it’s one I’m rehashing and taking to heart. I highly recommend it! Her Biblical and practical way of sharing how we can counter the culture’s selfish style of success with our kids makes so much sense! She shares how her family eats rice and beans once a week as a way to remember their own blessings and how rich they really are in comparison to the rest of the world.

While normally my creative, sometimes unconventional ideas surface in odd spots around my house, this time I decided, ‘why reinvent the wheel!?’  I’m starting where I feel most at home: in the kitchen. Now rice and beans are on our menu once a week, too. What better season to start preparing the heart for the holidays?

I took it a little further with this letter to my sweet family explaining it all. Take a peek to understand better the mighty message I hope simple rice and beans sends.Blessed by rice n beans.pdf

It hangs on the fridge, where I’m also asking them to post a blessing written on a paper leaf each day. I believe practicing thankfulness and daily recognizing our blessings can change the entire atmosphere of a home and the collective attitude in a family. By the way, I’ve created a PDF printable for you in case you’d like to use it to start instilling an attitude of gratitude in a central location at your home. Here’s a BLANK copy in case you want to customize your own letter to your family. Blessed by rice n beans~BLANK COPY.pdf

We’re only on week two of eating this simple, nutritious meal so I’ll be sure to report back as our fridge fills with what we’re thankful for. If you decide to try, I’d love to hear how your family reacts.

For now, I’m focused on seizing creative motherhood moments and nourishing our bodies with real foods as our souls soon spill over with gratitude! 

Blessed by rice n beans.pdfBlessed by rice n beans.pdf