My friend, Eunique Jones Gibson, joined us on Season 2 of Love, Maaden: The Podcast and said this, “At the end of the day, I just want to make God smile.” Isn’t that something? To know that we have the ability to make God — the Creator of all things — smile.
Read MoreMore and more, I have seen the Thanksgiving holiday get squeezed out by stores and on social media for more marketable spending opportunities like Halloween and Christmas with all their decorations, costumes, candy, and gifts to buy.
We all noticed as "Black Friday" started creeping back earlier and earlier into Black Thursday-after-dinner, and stores started decking the halls on November 1st.
For a while, it didn't bother me.
Read MoreHappy fall, y’all! I pray that you had a sweet summer, that you were able to make the best of the season, and that you took the time to rest and reset. I am beyond grateful for long summer days spent digging my toes into the sand, toasting frosé with friends, eating dinner on my parents’ deck, and watching my big girl learn to pedal on her tricycle.
Read MoreWe spent the last week of The Hope Series focused on “waiting well.” The idea of “waiting well” has been such an important concept in my own journey, that I am dedicating this note to describing just what that has looked like for me.
To help it stick, I have organized it into four A’s.
Read MoreAfter an intensely difficult season of losing four pregnancies back to back, and one more since her birth, my daughter is the very real manifestation of hope in my life. She is hope realized.
I would venture to guess that you have also hoped for — or are hoping for — something in your own life. Aren’t we all asking God for something? We’re hoping for healing, relief, answers, freedom, forgiveness, and love.
Read MoreToday is my 38th birthday.
Two years ago, I celebrated my 36th as a brand new mom. After 4 years, and 4 miscarriages, the answer to our prayers was home in my arms. Sore, achy, and leaky I sat at our big wooden table with a handful of my closest friends, determined to celebrate both my birthday and my biggest blessing.
It was at that very table, that I’d gathered over the years with friends to break bread, and to get together and talk. It was at that table, with friends, that I’d process season after season of loss and grief and waiting on my journey to motherhood.
Read MoreI hope that the 21-day challenge for The Love Series was just as encouraging and timely for you as it was for me. I had no idea when I launched the challenge on January 1, just how different February 1 would look than I’d imagined.
Early that morning, I hit “publish” on the first episode of Season 3 of Love, Maaden: The Podcast and practiced my first act of loving God — praise — from a narrow recliner at my daughter’s bedside. My husband and I would spend the first half of the month living and working out of a small hospital room, while nursing our sweet girl back to health.
Read MoreWe hear quite a bit about the importance of humility, the benefits of self-deprivation, and why one should guard herself against self-indulgence. The Bible has been used for hundreds of years to bolster warnings intended to keep us from thinking too highly of ourselves, to help subdue, control and keep us in check. And while messages of abstinence, restraint, and modesty are not inherently harmful on their face ,the sub-text is often that self-care and self-love are selfish.
However, the Biblical text reads differently.
Read MoreToday is January 1, 2021. We are turning the page on 2020. Happy New Year, lovelies. And happy 1 year anniversary to us! It’s Love, Maaden’s birthday!
I birthed this community one year ago, bright-eyed and excited to finally do my thing. The thing that God created me to do. A happy marriage between the things that I care about, have expertise in, and am just plain good at. A sweet spot between women’s wellness, ministry, communication, and gathering people together.
Read MoreIt's December. As in the last month of the year. *insert wide eyed emoji* This has been the slowest-fastest year ever, y’all. I feel like the pandemic has been going on for decade, but also, "2020 is nearly over?" Weird. Do y’all feel the same?
Read MoreIt's Election Day. Whew, chile. As we wait expectantly for the results of this year's U.S. election, and as we move into the final few months of what's been a really tumultuous year, I am set on expecting the best in the weeks and months ahead. Regardless of what the year on the calendar says, or who is in the Oval Office, I am expecting great things.
Read MoreIn this season, especially, I feel led to fall back. Even with a significantly slower paced social life, I still find myself busy, emotionally extended, and living with a chronic undercurrent of stress and low grade anxiety. Balancing home and work all at the same time, being there for others, coping with so much illness and loss, and still making the time to invest in Love, Maaden is taking a toll.
Read MoreThere's no way around it, things are tough right now. No amount of positive thinking, alone, can counteract the heaviness that we're all feeling. There's a lot of loss, and pain, and bad news. A lot of doubt and hopelessness.
Read MoreAt a time when everyone pivoting, I have decide to lean further in to what has been at the heart of Love, Maaden all along. This movement is about overcoming life's challenges by deepening relationships, and about adopting practices, mantras, and rituals that help us to strengthen those relationships.
Read MoreConnecting with people, being vulnerable in conversation, or simply being considerate of someone else has a lot to do with how we feel about ourselves. At the end of the day, how we relate to others begins with self-compassion. Here is how I am working on self-compassion in my own life.
Read MoreMost of us are confined to our homes watching the terror unfold. America's tireless cycle of murder - outrage - injustice - protest. Rinse & repeat. We watch helplessly, we say their names, we scream or cry or both, we take whatever small actions we know how, and we pray for better days.
Read MoreIt's May, the month when we celebrate mamas for all that they've done from carrying and birthing to rearing and raising, for the love, the prayer, the sacrifice, and the consistent selflessness. I salute you.
Read MoreStress, anxiety, boredom, grief, loneliness, disappointment, gratitude, hope. Whatever combination of emotions that you may be feeling from day to day -- or from moment to moment -- your feelings are valid.
Read MoreI know that the spring is around the corner and the mere thought of longer days, wet dewy grass in the morning, fresh air and open windows has me feeling all sorts of good on the inside.
Read MoreFebruary is a good month. It’s the reset after the reset. The tail end of the winter season, and the definitive end of the holiday season.
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