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Category: Melanie Shankle

Melanie Shankle

But my personal favorite words of wisdom came from Gulley during the last thirty minutes of the trip, when she broke up a backseat scuffle by declaring, ‘When you lick the person sitting next to you, there’s a good chance you’re going to get punched.’I believe the only reason that gem is missing from the book of Proverbs is because Solomon must never have traveled with three kids in the back of his chariot.

humor, kids, parenting, solomon

Melanie Shankle

God gives us these raw, little people, and we have to form them and mold them and teach them how to operate in society. And if we get a glimpse of all the ugliness that lies right beneath our own polished surface? Well, then, there’s a humbling lesson too. It’s those moments when I realize I have to extend grace to Caroline as she figures these things out by trial and error in the same way God lavishes me with mercy, even as I make the same mistakes over and over again.

grace, motherhood

Melanie Shankle

Not one thing we’ve done changes that we are his. That he created us and loves us with a love more fierce and loyal than any we will ever know. He isn’t looking for perfection. He’s looking for humble hearts that know we are nothing without his lavish grace.

christianity, god, grace, humility, love

Melanie Shankle

And you know what I realize now? That we’re all waiting on something, no matter where we are in life. It’s the human condition.

christianity, waiting

Melanie Shankle

…motherhood is the thing in a woman’s life that catches her by total and complete surprise.

Melanie Shankle

Real motherhood is different. It’s better and it’s messier and it’s more complicated. It will break your heart and make you laugh harder than you ever imagined. You find yourself alternating between feeling like your friends talked you into some sort of pyramid scheme so you could share in their misery and thinking this is the most fulfilling thing you’ve ever done in your life.

humor, motherhood

Melanie Shankle

I watched her with the crab as she ignored all my admonitions that the poor crab just needed to be set free if he was to have any chance of surviving. And God showed up there on that beach to teach me a lesson. Nothing survives when it’s being smothered. Life, real life, requires being free to move about in the great big ocean, not being cradled in little hot hands that will stifle independence and creativity. We can’t keep our crabs (or our kids) in a bucket and expect them to go far in life.

kids, letting-go, motherhood

Melanie Shankle

Which is why we have now added a vow to our friendship that we will never ever “Do You Want to Build a Snowman?” each other. That at we will always talk things out and never allow miscommunication to derail our relationship. But the whole conversation made me think about times in my life when I’ve felt that way, like I’ve been dropped with no sign that it was about to happen. And I think Gulley is right- it’s the worst feeling in the world because it leaves you feeling completely helpless.

friendhip, loss

Melanie Shankle

Sometimes you can look back on times in your life and know that God was guiding you even when you didn’t know you were supposed to be listening.

Melanie Shankle

You hear so many people talk about finding their soul mates only in relation to who they marry, but I think that, as women, our real soul mates are often found when we recognize some version of ourselves in someone else.

Melanie Shankle

Of course there was no way my mind could have comprehended all that this friendship would become. There are probably only a handful of times in our lives when someone who will change us forever walks in– when we find someone we can love with our whole hearts, who will challenge us and shape us and make us feel like the world is safer and brighter just because they are in it. A person who loves us for exactly who we are, yet teaches us to be better because of who they are and how they live their life.

Melanie Shankle

Some roads we travel in life can feel like the ones that might break us, but that’s why God surrounds us with people who will cheer us on and wipe our tears and listen as we pour out our hearts. Because often, it’s not what you say but what you do that really matters.