Welcome

Mom Life Navigator – Finding your way through the metamorphosis of mothering

Where are you in your journey of mothering?
Preparing for it?
In the thick of it – growing with your kids?
Winding down – launching them from the nest?

Wherever you are, motherhood has probably changed you. Your life, your thoughts, feelings and beliefs have undergone a metamorphosis. You are a different person from who you were before. I know I am!

My journey has gone from infertility and miscarriage to a full house …
From a career focus to a heart for my home …
From a self-serving life to a grateful serving life …
From over-the-top expectations to a realistic marriage …
Through good times and bad …
From health to sickness …

Motherhood — the journey of a lifetime!

For me, I never initially planned on it.
I was born in the 1950′s and cut my teeth in the tumultuous 1970′s where I learned to value a career over all else in life. In the halls of liberal universities, I was taught that to become a mother would be a grave misuse of my time and talents. Education was the only valuable pursuit in life.

And I pursued it wholeheartedly, ultimately graduating from law school. My legal career was exciting and challenging. I loved being in a courtroom and arguing my position. Yet in the background was the persistent ticking of my biological clock.

In my early 30′s, motherhood fever hit hard. It was now or never. It almost didn’t happen.

After minimal infertility consultation, I conceived and miscarried. Imagine my surprise when we were blessed to adopt our first child a mere two weeks later! Then, to prove the infertility experts wrong, I again conceived and delivered a healthy baby seventeen months later. Two kids in bottles and diapers and trying to manage even a reduced legal career was a bigger challenge than I ever anticipated.

Something had to change. The “thing” needing changing was me.

Becoming a mom was the beginning of a significant metamorphosis in my life. It has been a roller coaster ride of joy, pain and personal growth.

With my first two babies in tow, I chose to “lay down the law” for a season and become a full time mom. My Mommy Sabbatical lasted about fifteen years, and included the adoption of two more kiddos and a lengthy season of homeschooling. Whew! It has been a complete turnaround from my early self-absorbed, pleasure-seeking days. It truly was a motherhood metamorphosis – maybe more accurately described as the Lord giving me a good whack upside the head.

So many changes! From infertility to four kids, from career obsession to homeschooling, from self-absorption to mothering.

Much of what I have learned in my metamorphosis was on-the-job. Both my parents had died when I was a teenager. My own family life was dysfunctional and I learned little about good parenting. To add to my self-education, I had an early, ill-advised marriage which served to further sour me on family life. When I journeyed into shaping my own family, I had a lot to figure out on my own.

There is a Jewish saying: We make our plans and God laughs. When I stopped fighting the hand of the Master sculpting my heart, my soul, my life – I found peace.

That peace has been far from peace-FUL. Life has thrown us many challenges, including my husband’s cancer and issues with the kids that we were totally unprepared for.

I’m still standing and continuing to place one foot in front of the other each day. My path has been rocky – strewn with promises and perks, with potholes and pain. Can you relate?

I’ve been blessed to share my life through books and articles I’ve written. I’m blessed now to be practicing law in a position that perfectly intersects my faith and my abilities.

I’m so grateful you have stopped by. It is a privilege to share my stories and my experiences along the way. My prayer is that they always point to the Holy Spirit, who is my mom life navigator.