Our Blended Chaos

I Love Jesus and I Have Anxiety

I love Jesus. But some days I struggle with my mental health. Looking back, I can’t ever remember not having anxiety. It didn’t go away when I got saved. And these past several months of being blindsided by my (then) husband and then the legal system time and time again has made that anxiety rear its ugly head a lot. But I still love Jesus.

I can look back and see all the ways that God prepared me for the road I am currently walking long before I actually had to walk it. But some days my mental health is still a struggle. I can see all the ways he is blessing me and loving on me and protecting me. But some days my mental health is still a struggle. I go to church. I read my Bible and I pray. But some days my mental health is still a struggle.

A strong relationship with God and struggling with your mental health are not mutually exclusive. So many times we hear “You should pray about it more” or “You should have more faith” or “Don’t you know God will take care of it?” or my favorite “You should just stop worrying”, but those things aren’t really the issue.

In most blended families, everyone has experienced hurt of some kind. Everyone has some sort of trauma they have had to walk through. Whether that was a death or a divorce or something else entirely. And God can bless every single bit of it! But we still have to walk through the hurt and we have to understand that some days our kids might struggle with their mental health too. And that’s ok! What’s not ok is to make ourselves or our kids think that they just don’t love Jesus enough.

My favorite ways to walk through my anxious days:

Music

Spending time outside

Cleaning the house

Going to town even to just window shop and be around other people

Read

And most importantly, telling someone else so I don’t feel alone

And I do see a natural dr who has me on a supplement for my anxiety that works wonders!

My favorite ways to help my kids walk through their sad or anxious days:

Loving on them a little extra

Music

Getting them outside

Going and doing something fun as a family

Reminding them that they are not alone and they have so many people who love them

Being there for them to talk to without judgement

What are some of your favorite ways to walk through your mental health days?

A Lesson in Carving Pumpkins!

We carved pumpkins last night. Y’all. This is one of those holiday activities that is just not my favorite. Like not even on my list of Top 100 Favorite Things To Do. Cleaning house ranks above carving pumpkins. So after surveying all the stencils that my amazing husband bought, I drew, what he called, a Mrs. Pac-Man face and cut it out. This is the level I am at.

However, we are working really hard with our 17 year old to learn how to do hard things. He is a typical teenager who takes the easiest route possible and then tries to make THAT route even easier. So he was super proud of himself that he picked the most difficult stencil in the book. Y’all. This is where, as a mom who hates this activity anyway, I wanted to be like “dude…why??? Here is a spider”. But before I could open my mouth, my husband (who actually loves this activity…obviously) said “Good job. You are learning to do hard things. That was a good choice”. Every part of my inner self died in that moment because I knew that I was not getting any sleep tonight. This was going to take FOREVER. But he was right, and I had to keep my mouth shut and let him learn how to do the hard thing.

Then…after 2 hours of poking and tracing and prepping…he cut a wrong line and gave up. OH NO SIR. I am not missing sleep so you can give up after one wrong line cut. Nope. Take a breath, walk around, go get some fresh air…but I did not just spend 2 hours watching you poke and trace to watch you give up. So he went outside and his dad followed him, because, let’s face it…I’m better at calling you on your crap and he is better at encouraging along. This is why we make a great team (most of the time)!

Who knows what happened out there…I do not pretend to know the ways of men…but the 17 year old came back in ready to give it another shot…and accidentally cut THE ENTIRE HAUNTED HOUSE SCENE OUT OF HIS PUMPKIN. Y’all. Bless it.

Dad…and lots of wood skewers…came to the rescue and we ended up with SOMETHING. It was not at all the original plan or design, and lots of pieces were lost along the way, but you know what? Our kid didn’t give up. He learned that he could push through and come up with solutions. He also learned that just because something doesn’t work, it doesn’t mean it can’t be saved or reworked.

Our journey as parents, especially with teens, is rarely easy. Sometimes it is downright hard and we just wing it and hope we are making a difference because we have no idea how to handle what we (or they) are facing. But sometimes, by some miracle, you happen to get it right. And you better relish in that moment, because it might not happen again until the next harvest moon!

A Snapshot of Our Blended Story!

Our story is crazy and complicated and not entirely mine to tell.

First off…Hi! I’m Monica! I got married when I was 19 and adopted 2 amazing kids a couple years later. A few years after that, we had a little girl. That makes 3 kids and what turned out to be 17 years of marriage. This past February some things came to light which ended my marriage and left my kids with their dad in jail for the rest of the foreseeable future.

Enter Quintin…I had his little boy in the nursery at church and most of the time he just stayed and hung out with me and my (then) husband. A few weeks before all the events of February took place, my 17 year old started working with him. So when everything went down, he was my first phone call outside of family.

That perfect love story is another blog post, but June 13, 2022, we got married…yep, about 4 months after my world turned upside down…We are both movers and shakers and don’t waste time making decisions!

So we are now a blended family of 6 (5 of which live at home) with 4 dogs and lots of chaos! But I wouldn’t change one bit of it!! We fight big, love big, and have lots of big issues we are working through, but we do it all together and somehow make it work!