Welcome

OK, so I suppose since I dragged you all here, I should probably explain myself and talk a little about what I want to do. First of all, I DO NOT love the name of this site, but finding something that is not taken is, well, difficult. It can be changed, and I figured we'd just start somewhere. Somebody come up with something creative, please!?

Chalk it up to my entrepreneur brain (I have to keep it occupied SOMEHOW), but I think this could be a really great resource, not to mention fun to read and write. The more women who will contribute, the cooler it will be. We don't all have to agree with everything that is said (I'm not going to even try to "approve" everything that is written - that would defeat the purpose), but if we can respect and learn from each other, I call it a success. Here are the criteria I feel are important:

-Point readers back to God as our Source

-Be positive about our kids and husbands - this is not a gossip session, and I will need to remove posts that get into husband bashing or tear down our children in any way. There are lots of Scriptures about this, but I'm preaching to the choir and I don't think I need to go into them. I'm just saying it so it's been said. :) I know some of us have kids or even marriages with certain difficulties, and it would probably be really helpful to other moms for us to write about those difficulties, but we have to be so careful...if your child as a 10 year old was to read your post, how would it affect them? Would your post build up your husband and marriage? We have to be building our homes, not tearing them down. That is what keeps some of my thoughts off my blog. There is nothing secret, especially on the internet!

-I need the help of anyone who contributes to help mediate comments. I'm a little concerned about that part. I do not want a bunch of arguments happening here, but I would like people to be able to interact. Maybe we turn the comments off? Thoughts?

-Let's be real, but... We can have questions, everything does not have to have a happy ending, we can't make life "unmessy," because it's not. But in spite of and during the mess, God is still God. It's entirely possible that non-Christians will read this - I want them to know the hope that we have. Sometimes I think we push our faith to the side in fear of being super-spiritual or offending people. But I think we need to demonstrate that there is a difference between being moms who have God with us, and being moms if we didn't. Can you imagine doing this job without being able to pray and surrender your kids to God when they're sick, to pray for their safety, to pray for strength, to be built up with truth from the Word? I can't. And I want to communicate that difference, even to lead moms to Jesus if we can.

Over time we may learn some things and need to set some more guidelines, but I'd rather stick with the heart of a message rather than the letter of the law, if you know what I mean.

Also, like I said in a comment on my blog, I really really really want moms of all ages and life stages to write here. Lisa Bevere's book Nuture talks about relationships between what she calls the "daughters, sisters, mothers, and grandmothers." Each one of those relationships is worthwhile to the others, and part of the discouragement among mothers, I believe, is related to how little we tend to connect with our peers and moms younger and older (especially much older) than us. Please don't think we don't need your perspective because you're too (young, old, whatever).

I swiped Shelly's Meeup link off her page and stuck it on here as advertising. Lots of us have our own home-based businesses, and I would love to put links to them here, especially businesses that are directed toward moms. In the future when we have HUNDREDS of readers (I can dream, can't I?), maybe we could sell advertising and upgrade to typepad, our own domain, or even pay our writers per entry...I dunno...just brainstorming.

We can also do some weekly blog events - menu planning? Links? (Like, send me the links you find that moms might be interested in and I can compile them and post them all at one time on Fridays?) Uh...it seems like every time I'm with moms somebody ends up telling birth stories - maybe we feature one a week? Would somebody like to take charge of a verse for the week we can all memorize? We could do a companion site with recipes/crafts/projects and post those too. Somebody could be the marriage "contributor," someone else the health "contributor," or you could write on a different subject each time. There's probably a whole host of things I haven't even thought of, these are just things I'm interested in and write about on my blog from time to time.

What makes you unique as a mom? What is in your background that makes you see the world differently? Do you have special training or expertise you can write a post about? Did God recently teach you something about being a mom? Do you have a question you've never been able to answer? Please share with us!!

Email me with questions or suggestions... sarakay [at] Gmail [dot] com.