As we enter into joyful celebrations with our children, we can reflect God’s overflowing heart of grace and delight towards his children.

As we seek true and lasting joy, Christ shows us the way and serves as our example.

Joy doesn’t come from an ideal day of motherhood, it comes from the One who is sovereign over all of our days.

As Christians we know our true source of joy is in Christ. So why are we still grumpy?

It’s easy, as a mother, to let our circumstances steal our joy. But don’t miss the moments of goodness; keep your eyes on Jesus.

Through Christ, God gives us the peace, love, and joy we need to celebrate the holidays with the ones we love, even when loving them isn’t easy.

Whether your days are spent primarily in an office or at home (or in an office at home), you have been given meaningful work to do. The God of creation has given you the ministry of bearing his image, making disciples, and tending your garden.

“When my oldest was three, we had a small concrete pad poured to host our trash and recycling bins. Just as the workers were finishing up, she and my husband, David, went outside to check on the progress, see if they needed anything, and admire their work from a safe distance.

Five seconds of small talk later, the three-year-old looked up at him, looked up at the workers, and took off in a sprint. I need not tell you in which direction.

David reports she ran full-tilt and leaped, arms and fingers splayed, with the slow-mo perfect form angle of an Olympic long jumper, landing three-year-old feet, hands, and booty into freshly-poured concrete.

Now, it’s easy to tell David’s funny story here. It’s easy to laugh, because I wasn’t in it.

But the truth is I’m “in it” a hundred times in a normal day. And I’m rarely laughing. Because I can rarely see in the moment anything beyond the loads of laundry or how many Brawneys it’s going to take to clean this up or whether or not this is going to make us late for school.

Which is why I’m so thankful for my sisterfriends—the women who are also “in it” every day, who still take the time to remind me to laugh and lean into the crazy and not get swallowed up by it.

They remind me that God—not me—is responsible for setting concrete and growing babies, and perhaps I’m freer to laugh than I realized, particularly when my daughter reports she just successfully flushed the potty with her mouth.

When you put your trust in his son Jesus, you find he’s had his arms wrapped around you all along. And just as we whisper into the ears of a tearful child, “I’ve got you,” God’s promises ring true in scripture to remind us of his sovereignty and grace in our lives.

God has us, even in the hard, even in the ridiculous.

So laugh, my friend. Laugh with the abandon of your head tossed back and loud enough for others to hear and with the delight of a daughter.”