There is a lot of pressure placed on moms to nurture and care for our families. Add the responsibilities of a full-time job on top of that and it easy to see why being a mom is called the hardest job in the world.
My friends Causha Jolly and Stacey McCabe share about life as working moms and the difficult balance they maintain everyday. I love how they share their hearts about being obedient to God’s assignment for them to work outside the home even in the difficult season of mothering little ones.
As a community of God-centered moms, we’re called to cheer on our sisters. It’s my hope that this episode will encourage you to bless and support other moms as they obey God.
Remember who you are in Christ, remember that you are called, remember that you are a daughter of the most high and never doubt that.
(STAY TUNED. . .later this week I’ll release a blog post with more practical ideas on work/life balance from Causha)
What we chat about:
- Causha and Stacy’s motherhood stories and why they chose to work outside the home
- Why it’s harder for moms to travel and not worry about your kids vs. husbands traveling
- How to respond when we fear we aren’t enough and struggle under the weight of expectations placed on moms
- The difficulty of finding care for your kids while you work
- The false internal judgement of good mom to bad mom scale
- Feeling a divine assignment from God to be in a certain job
- How it’s necessary to say, “No” to a lot when you have limited family time
- The need to show grace for yourself so that you can have grace with your kids
- Moms can’t be there every moment of every day, but Jesus will always be there
- Teaching our kids to turn to Jesus to meet every one of their needs
- Dealing with moments of insecurity as a working mom
- When we judge a mom for her choices then we miss out on the blessing of supporting her in her obedience
Links Mentioned:
- Kat Armstrong –Motherhood, Career and Identity [episode 171]
- Courtney Smallbone–The Day Fear Died
- Pine Cove Family Camp
- Freakonomics by Steven Levitt**
- Whisper by Mark Batterson**
- Experiencing God by Blackaby**
- Discerning the Voice of God by Priscilla Shirer**
**Amazon Affiliate Links
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How to listen to the podcast:
1.Listen on the blog. Click through to GodCenteredMom.com and click the play button at the beginning of this post.
2. Listen on your smartphone, iPad or iPod Touch – There are a lot of great podcasting apps. Apple has a free one (that I mentioned) in the app store, there is also one called Downcast. It allows you to search for shows, subscribe to them and even speed up the audio. If you don’t have an iDevice, you can listen via Stitcher.
3. Subscribe to the Podcast – access the podcast in iTunes (Click here to access via iTunes). You can also search for it on your smartphone app (like the ones listed above) and subscribe.
Thank you for this! I was a working mom with my first and am now a very part time mom with my second baby and the advice both practical and spiritual rang true for me! I actually find I have become less intentional than I used to be with my time now that I’m home more.This is a wake up call and reminder to assess how I’m spending my time!
I am, however, looking for work to do from home. You mentioned being a virtual assistant – is there a company you recommend for this?
Heather & Friends! Thank you for sharing your hearts and experience with working full time while parenting littles!
My husband and I adopted our two foster sons (almost 3 and almost 2) last year. Before adopting, I felt called to my current job, and still do. However, with my now adult daughters, I was a stay at home, home schooling Mom & the struggles were not the same. I have found myself struggling with many of the same issues you all discussed. What a relief to know, “such as is common” and I’m not alone. But even better was the encouragement to lean into the Lord, trust HIS leading and be okay with setting boundaries that protect family time! Praying God’s blessing on each of you and your families.
THANK YOU for doing this podcast. Full time working mom/home balance really isn’t talked about much and i so needed this encouragement! It’s a constant struggle for me to pray against the guilt satan tries to dangle in front of me and give my situation to God alone. It can be overwhelming at times trying to juggle it all, and not even working in my dream job full of my passions, but working to help pay the bills. If this is you, there is GRACE in that too!
Setting boundaries for your family is a great reminder.
Again, thank you for this encouragement and for always pointing back to Christ.
ThankYOU ThankYOU ThankYOU. I’m not a ‘corporate’ mom, but I am a working mom. I needed to hear so many things that you ladies talked about on this episode.
My mind and my heart are always torn or at war trying to find some sort of sanity daily in my relationship with God, my husband, kids and work.
SO SO good!! Nourished the heart of this first time, working mom. We need to be talking about this more in the church! Loved the practical and spiritual guidance too.
This was wonderful and really reached my heart. I recently returned to work after our second son’s birth. This has really been hard and truthfully still discerning what God is planning for our family. As beautiful as many podcasts are, they feed the guilt I feel as many are stay at home mom’s. This really helped me feel some validation! Feeling very blessed with all that God had provided!
Thank you so much for this – I just got a chance to listen to this but it was so encouraging to this mom’s heart. I just went back to work about a month ago from 9 weeks off with my third boy (so maybe that is why it feels so hard because we broke the 2 kid barrier, haha!) I am still constantly struggling with am I supposed to still be working or at home – it is a daily battle/wonder of where I should be/want to be. Thank you also for saying how lonely it can be. My husband also works a lot, and because I have 4.5 year old, 2.5 year old, 3 month old I am home alone a lot in the evenings and weekends and don’t have the energy to get out alone with the three of them much. So I constantly feel like I am missing out on life and friends – it is very lonely. I don’t want to mom alone, but I feel like I have been searching for “my tribe” or mom group for so long, and keep coming up empty. I have tried to start working mom support groups (mostly through our church) which was first met with resistance, but then I think just hard to make it work because working moms are so physically busy with time constraints. I need to just keep praying and trusting God and make my mom and sisters (who live states away) talk to me on the phone all the time! This podcast makes me feel like I have a little community, but I would love people connections in the same stage of life. Also, Heather that was an incredibly sad story (and probably hit me harder because my kids are the same ages) but yet such a great reminder to trust God in everything. Anyway, thanks for this and I will try to keep creating what I need and hopefully something will stick 🙂