Catherine Claire Larson

Sunday was the first day of Advent and a low-grade excitement is bubbling just under my cool exterior. It’s that time of year when we prepare our hearts for Christ’s coming, remembering the first time He came as a tiny baby and looking ahead to the time when He will come again to set all things right. 

As a busy mom, this can be an exhausting time: there are gifts to buy, meals to plan, travel dates to coordinate and celebrations to squeeze into those tiny spaces on our calendars. And sometimes all of that can feel more like chores than cheer. 

And yet, despite the chaos and the consumerism, despite the misplaced expectations and the inevitable disappointments, I love this season. I love the excuse to turn our hearts again toward this story that is the seed of the Gospel. I love the excuse to do what I love to do with my children: weave Jesus and joy into the fabric of our home.

 And so I stay up late and wrap borrowed Christmas books, so we’ll have one to open each day: my cheap little cup of Christmas cheer. I tuck clever little Christmas bucket-list plans into the pockets of our advent calendar: memories made are sweeter than chocolate. And I lovingly prepare our devotional plans to tell afresh the story from creation to cradle.

Throughout December, we’ll gather round to read our Christmas devotional. There will be snuggling and twinkle lights, fights and make-rights, verses about hope and Christmas hymns, there will be longings that gnaw at us and games that distract us, people we miss and places where we feel always on the periphery. There will be cousins and cookies, grandparents and gingerbread houses, sometimes-awful attitudes and advent candles, Christmas choirs and nativity plays. And each day, with the ups and the inevitable downs, into the warp and the woof of all these ordinary days, I will mindfully be weaving.

 I will weave for them the threads that connect the heartache and hope of Eden to the miracle of the manger and the ache of Advent. I will weave into the sorrows of our year, the hope that holds us together: that one day sin and sorrow, death and decay, will be a distant memory because the resurrected Christ will come again to judge the living and the dead, and to establish a kingdom without end.

 I won’t weave this masterpiece perfectly. But I’ll lean into this season’s work, knowing it is worthy. Weaving joy and Jesus into the ordinary fabric of our days, criss-crossing again our sorrows and our failures with the threads of Christ’s coming and His perfections. I know my kids won’t remember many individual days in these blurry years. But I hope they will remember some indescribable feeling of warmth that wrapped them in love in this Advent home, woven in faith. 

Mamas, we are weavers. Can I just encourage you in this worthy work of weaving Jesus and joy into their hearts? Mindfully weave Gospel threads and love into their lives. Advent is the perfect season to start again if you’ve lost the thread. It’s a perfect time to rehearse the stories that lead to the advent of our Messiah. It’s the perfect time to talk about the longing we still have as we ache for the day when He will make all things right. 

        

Today is the big day! My book, Walking in Wonder: A Devotional Journal for Moms of Toddlers, published by Thomas Nelson publishers hits stores today! What a joy it is to see this series for moms completed and getting into the hands of the moms it was written to bless.

This book is a devotional and journal designed especially for moms of toddlers. It has:

short reflections on Scripture to direct busy moms deeper into the heart of God

weekly invitations to journal

monthly developmental guides to help you know what to look for as your toddler grows

Each month’s theme ties into Scriptural themes that parallel both your toddler’s growth and your own spiritual growth. This was such a joy for me to explore and I can’t wait for my readers to experience these themes right alongside their toddler’s growth.

This book is part of a trilogy of books that will come alongside moms in the early days of life:

Waiting in Wonder: Growing in Faith While You’re Expecting

Watching in Wonder: Growing in Faith During Your Baby’s First Year

Walking in Wonder: A Devotional Journal for Moms of Toddlers

I hope there will be exactly the right book to bless a new mom in your life.

To celebrate the release of the book, I have written a daily affirmation for parents. I intentionally kept this daily reminder really applicable to parents of all stages. I hope you can print it and frame it, putting it somewhere so that everyday you can be reminded that you were hand-picked by God to shepherd your particular miracle. I hope this print will bless and encourage you daily to look to God for strength and hope to live out your God-given calling as a parent.

And I hope you’ll share these books and this free downloadable print with all your friends to bless other moms and parents you know. From pregnancy announcements, to baby showers, to first birthday parties, these books make great gifts to share with someone you love. And this Daily Reminder printable is a great (free) gift for any parent. Subscribe to get yours.

Celebrate with me by sharing these beautiful resources with others!

        

This week has been all about hospitality: giving and receiving it. Monday, we had a new mama over and I got to nuzzle that sweet three-month old. Wednesday, another mama and son were over helping my boys build a cardboard boat for the upcoming cardboard boat regatta (hello summer). Thursday, an old friend and her boys were in town and we stretched the food in the fridge so everyone could stay late and catch up. And Friday, a lovely friend from co-op had us over to romp around in her beautiful backyard, to show us her lovely garden, and to sit around the kitchen table and slurp watermelon with sticky toddler fingers and hungry teenagers alike. She wouldn’t let me go home until I took some lovely cut flowers from her garden. I added them to a few of the hydrangeas and mint growing in my own backyard and it’s a reminder of the beauty of all this life-giving community, of lives intertwined. The aroma of the mint is heavenly every time I pass by. That’s also the case with these sweet friendships. I know they must please our Savior, an aroma of His good gifts to us, given and received.

Speaking of hospitality, this year I read (listened actually to) The Gospel Comes with a Housekey by Rosaria Butterfield. I’d say in the last 10 years it’s probably the book that has challenged me most. The largess of Rosaria’s faith, expressed in the ordinary generosity of opening her home, is strangely foreign in this modern world. If you are looking for a deep summer read, that will challenge and refresh you, I commend it.

Here’s one more thing about hospitality.. You know the verse which says, “With the measure you use, it will be measured to you—and even more” (Mark 4:24). As I pour out into others, others pour into me. As I reach in faith to bless others, I am in turn blessed. It’s not an absolute. But it so often happens that when we are following in faith, seeking to extend the kingdom blessings, God reaches back and blesses us, like this beautiful bouquet, like the chocolate croissants a friend brought over unexpectedly last Sunday, like that unexpected text that says, “I was thinking of you.” How can you measure out an overflowing cup of God’s love to someone else today?

        

It’s a sitting on the back porch, sipping iced tea, hammering out some work sharing about my soon-to-be released book, Walking in Wonder: A Devotional Journal for Moms of Toddlers, kind of afternoon.

I’ll confess I’m not so good at this part. I love writing. I cherish mothering and the spiritual formation involved. I feel awkward when it comes to marketing. But over the past few years, I’ve had to reorient my mind around it.

I’ve always been a very hospitable person. I love welcoming people into my home and sharing my heart and a home-cooked meal with them. I love the life-on-life discipleship that happens spontaneously in these Holy Spirit moments. And I’ve had to realize that sharing about this book, this series, that I’ve poured my heart and hard-won years of spiritual and mothering wisdom into, is yet another form of hospitality.

I can tell you my heart behind releasing these three books has always been about impacting moms and future generations with the beauty and hope of the Gospel for everyday life. The messy, real parts where you are covered in baby spit-up or crying because you’re hormonal, or scrubbing puréed carrots from the high chair moments—this Gospel meets us in all the unglamorous points of motherhood and infuses purpose and even joy into the hardest parts. Yes, the book is beautifully packaged. It has features that make it accessible and easy for busy moms. Yes, it’s packed with nuggets of practical and useful developmental information, but none of that is what led me to write it.

What led me to write, is a heart eager to exalt Christ at the foundational point in a mother’s journey. So I hope that if you know someone in these early mothering years, you will think of these books and think of my heart to see Christ made much of in hearts and homes.

This one, Walking in Wonder, is available for pre-order now, but comes out officially July 9th. Meanwhile, Waiting in Wonder: Growing in Faith While You’re Expecting and Watching in Wonder: Growing in Faith during Your Baby’s First Year are already available wherever books are sold.

        

 “When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these’” Matthew 10:14 (NIV).

The half-drunk cup of coffee is a running joke in our family. At the end of many a day, my husband will find my half-empty cup of coffee sitting cold on the counter. With six children underfoot, the morning ritual was of course interrupted by the baby’s cry, by the toddler needing help at the potty, by the fight which needed breaking up, and so on.

There’s a glorious inefficiency to motherhood. It doesn’t seem to matter the task, there are always ample interruptions.

There are points in my day where I do nothing but hold. The baby needs holding because he is fussing, the toddler wakes up from his nap grumpy, the seven-year old skinned his knee.

By the time the day is done, the tasks are still half-done, like my half-drunk cup of coffee. Maybe you are no longer in this stage of motherhood, but how often we all find this tantalizing satisfaction “of finishing” that eludes us.

When it comes to motherhood, perhaps it is because the work of raising children is so abstract, that we long to complete anything. But in our lust for completion, the actual people in our lives—the relationships—can come to be seen as impediments to progress.

I find the story of Jesus and the little children so helpful in this. Notice how in the story of Jesus and the children, how the disciples are carefully trying to protect the teacher from interruptions. Jesus obviously has important work to do; he doesn’t have time for this! But Jesus rebukes them.

So here’s another perspective: maybe the most important work is not what we think it is. Maybe finishing the grocery list, answering a client’s email, or even (gasp!) completing every question in our personal or small group Bible study isn’t what God wants us to attend to at the moment.

One of my favorite quotes about Christ’s transforming work comes from artist, Vincent Van Gogh. He wrote: “Christ is more of an artist than the artists; he works in the living spirit and the living flesh, he makes men instead of statues.”

Perhaps, mothers (and all those who mother spiritually) work with Him in this same domain. This spiritual work of discipleship doesn’t thrive in the world of efficiency. Sometimes it’s a work we don’t even know where to begin with it or when exactly it’s done. It happens along the way. It is a work which happens in cooperation with the Spirit of God and only through His empowering, but it requires our action and focus, nonetheless. It is a work which does not belong to us, isn’t completed by us, and yet somehow, we get to participate in it.

Did you have to stop loading the dishwasher to teach a child to share? You work with Christ in living spirit and living flesh.

Did you have to put a pause on supper to help a teenager acknowledge his wrong and say he’s sorry? You are working with Christ shaping souls, not statues.

Did you do “nothing” today, but hold a baby, comfort your sick six year-old, or help your senior work on college financial aid forms. Maybe it’s time to realize that our love, and the life of Christ we can share in the midst of even the seemingly most mundane mothering tasks are not the interruptions, but the work itself. Maybe it’s time to realize that you are working with Christ in the realm of something which will outlast time itself.

Lord, help me to see my children or the people you have providentially placed in my life as the masterpiece and not the interruption. Help me to see my cup, not as half-empty, but overflowing with opportunities.

For Deeper Study

^”For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago” Ephesians 2:10 (NLT).

How does knowing that human image-bearers are masterpieces change where we see value? Does it help to know that God has already planned every good work he has for you?

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For a beautiful gift for any new mom, check out Catherine Claire Larson’s new devotional journal: Watching in Wonder: Growing in Faith During Your Baby’s First Year or for expecting moms, Waiting in Wonder: Growing in Faith While You’re Expecting. Devotional entries lead moms closer to God, while journaling prompts offer a unique way to treasure milestones, jot down prayers and love notes for one’s growing baby.

And to follow along with Catherine Claire Larson’s writings follow her on Instagram, Facebook or her blog. As a bonus for joining her mailing list, you’ll find 7 free beautiful Scripture art prints, suitable for framing for a nursery or playroom.