First of all, I want to share a little about this blog and how it originated. Before I started it, I began noticing a trend on social media. I sensed this vibe that women were hungry to read posts that depicted ordinary women, being ordinary moms, going through ordinary problems. Women were craving honest-to-goodness posts that talked about the hard stuff. In a world of easy, why are things so hard? You've probably seen this, too. You've probably even clicked on a few posts.
God laid this desire upon my heart, and thus, Count It All Joy was born.
Y'all, my generation...we simply have too many choices. My maw maw reminds me that life was really hard in her younger days, but the hard stuff made things easy. You didn't worry about getting a birthday board for your child or matching outfits. You didn't worry about eating grass-fed beef. You ate what came out of the pasture. My generation, however, has it hard because we have too many choices...too many resources. Everything is just too easy...too available.
If you'll look around, there's a war going on...a war against time and where we're moving...a war inside every woman's heart. I find a lot of women are longing to go back to when things were hard because they were simple...things like having big families, cooking healthy meals for an army, taking care of animals and the land, and just taking care of your home...simple things you just don't see much of anymore. However, within those same women is a sense of reality we've grown very comfortable with...things like technology, vehicles, supermarkets, and just the pleasures of this world. We appreciate the drive-thrus when we have to be on the road for all our various errands and to-dos. We stalk Pinterest for birthday party ideas. We order it all on Amazon with two-day shipping. We have it all at our finger tips. Anything we want to know, or anything we want to buy is ours. We don't want to give up the easy, but man, we've made life so hard.
We women are split. Balance, a word we learned in elementary school, seems so foreign now. With its cult-like mentality, our culture says "It's all or nothing." You're either a good mom or you're not. And sadly, some of us start believing this lie. There are some women, particularly mothers, who feel like we are split in two: the woman we show to the world and the woman we truly are. Never before has the difference been so drastic.
I might be waxing poetic here, but how can you miss something you never had? How can you miss a way of life that you've never experienced?
We long for an easier, simpler life. I think that's why we click on the mom posts. It might be why you're reading this right now. I believe that's God calling us, telling us to slow down. I think that our genes are calling for us to remember a simpler path when all we had to worry about was survival and being together.
Our culture, the bully that it is, is pulling us in two directions. If we aren't eating organic, do we really love our kids? If our kids aren't reciting their multiplication tables at four, have we taught them anything? Have we prepared them for college? Kids are supposed to make their own choices, dress like little adults, and grow into adulthood before they're in high-school, yet our culture is obsessed with youth and discounts our worth as we age. It doesn't even make sense.
Our culture is a bully, and it doesn't have plans of redeeming itself.
My kids are still little, and I'm just now about to approach 31. I don't have all the answers, but each time a woman shares her story on this blog, there's a woman out there who may be living in a state of depression, anxiety, or disillusionment who will come away blessed, refreshed, and moved by the words she read.
Please keep praying for this blog so that people will be blessed by these amazing women who give up themselves to share their personal stories and testimonies with each and every one of you.
"Commit thy works unto the Lord, and thy thoughts shall be established. Proverbs 16:3"
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