The Gospel Coalition

When Motherhood Feels Boring

January 13, 2021 by Ann Leave a Comment

This is the start of my newest piece for The Gospel Coalition. You can read the entire article here!

I mentally ticked down the clock until bedtime: nine hours to go. It was only 11 a.m. Already I was fighting ennui—not because I don’t love my children but because the day stretched ahead of me with the same activities I’d been doing for days before and would be doing for days afterward.

I am deeply grateful to be a mother. But if I’m honest, sometimes the work feels . . . boring.

Particularly this year, many of us have been with our children, and only our children, for most waking hours. Days and weeks stretch ahead and behind in blurry sameness. Much of our work as mothers—whether we’re at home full-time or not—requires repeated tasks. Washing bodies and clothes and dishes, preparing meals and snacks and drinks, driving the same routes to grocery stores and pharmacies and school and church, over and over again.

But in this season of mothering, I’ve taken great encouragement from the ways God’s Word helps to reframe what often feels, to me, like boredom.

Sameness ≠ Monotony

From a biblical perspective, sameness does not equal monotony. The Word declares that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb. 13:8), and that every gift we have been given is from the Father “with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17). God is, wonderfully, always the same. He does not change his mind about us. He is consistent in his character and unshakeable in his glory. His law remains, and his truth will endure for all time.

Read the rest of the article over at The Gospel Coalition!

Filed Under: God, Guest Post, Motherhood Tagged With: Ann Swindell, boring motherhood, guest writing, motherhood feels boring, struggling as a Christian mom, struggling as a mom, The Gospel Coalition, what do I do when motherhood is boring

Stewarding Your Passions in the Season of Motherhood

October 12, 2017 by Ann Leave a Comment

This is the start of my newest piece for The Gospel Coalition. You can read the whole piece here!

I love to write; it’s one of the ways I feel most connected to God. Before my daughter was born, I wrote for several publications. But when she came into the world, my writing life was put on an abrupt hold. I often wondered: Do I have to wait until my children are grown to return to my passions?

As Christian mothers, this question bubbles up often: How do we navigate the years of childrearing with our own desires to create and innovate and learn?

While there’s no one response for every woman, it’s important to ask the right questions as we consider how to steward our passions and live faithfully in our current season. Here are four such questions.

1. In pursuing this passion, do I have the support of my family and church family?

When Hunter Beless was still nursing her second daughter, she considered starting a podcast for women, but she hesitated. “I thought motherhood wasn’t the season to explore my own passions and desires, and I feared not having enough time or energy to do something outside of caring for my husband and children,” she recalls.

Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling that this was something she should pursue. “I prayerfully submitted both the dreaming and planning process to the Lord. After developing my ideas, I began to seek counsel from my husband, mentors, and friends. Things continued to align as I moved forward, which led me to ask, ‘Why not?’ At worst, it offered an opportunity to experiment, play, and create while my kids were sleeping, and at best it had the potential to encourage other women to glorify God.”

With the support of those around her, Hunter started the Journeywomen Podcast, which is growing rapidly and blessing women across the country and world. But it began with submitting her ideas to the Lord and her community, trusting him to guide her in the right direction.

2. What’s the ultimate end of pursuing this passion?

There are countless ways to pursue our passions, but we must always reckon with the centrality of the gospel. Is Christ at the center of this pursuit? Is the good news at the core of why I’m doing this? Whether you work a secular job, volunteer at a nonprofit, join a neighborhood committee, play in a tennis league, or serve in your church, it’s helpful to consider how this pursuit will give you opportunities to live out the Great Commission (Matt. 28:18–20).

Dianne Jago started the magazine Deeply Rooted because she sensed a need for something other than what she was seeing in “popular Christian women’s ministry, which unfortunately included a lot of misuse and misunderstanding in the interpretation and application of the Scriptures.” She desired to see Christ exalted in media and to point other women to a right handling of the Word. Jago’s passion is anchored in the gospel, and it has borne beautiful fruit in her life and in the lives of readers.

Read the rest of the article here, at The Gospel Coalition!

Filed Under: God, Guest Post, Ministry, Motherhood Tagged With: Ann Swindell, can I do anything else in motherhood, Deeply Rooted Magazine, JourneyWomen Podcast, motherhood and passions, stewarding passions in motherhood, The Gospel Coalition

Come and Write Your Story

October 6, 2016 by Ann Leave a Comment

This is the start of my newest article for The Gospel Coalition.
You can read the article in its entirety here!

I’m not gifted at comprehending my own spiritual growth while still in the midst of it. I don’t typically live through trials and victories with my antennae attuned to how God’s transforming me. I wish it were otherwise; I wish I had the ability to see my immediate experiences through the lens of spiritual development. But most of the time I’m just doing my best to love God and my family—and make it through the day intact. I’m not necessarily looking for the big themes or revelations the Lord is weaving into my life in the moment.

But I know God has numbered the days of my life (Ps. 139:16) and that he’s working out all things for my good as he conforms me to the image of his Son (Rom. 8:28–29). I don’t want to miss these things; I want to be able to point to how God’s transforming me “from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor. 3:18) as I walk with him.

I turn to two things in order to help me understand my spiritual growth: my Bible and my pen. via @TGC #amwriting Share on X

So I turn to two things in order to help me understand my spiritual growth: my Bible and my pen. Reading the Word and writing my story—these are how I’ve learned to experience my life as a purposeful whole, even when the days feel splintered and confusing.

Read the rest of the article here–and let me know how you understand your spiritual growth over at TGC!

And, if you’re interested in writing your story, make sure to check out the Writing with Grace: Memoir class that I’m teaching this fall. Registration is only open until October 11th, so don’t miss this opportunity to learn how to write your story powerfully and hear from industry experts! See you there!

Filed Under: God, Guest Post, Writing Tagged With: Ann Swindell, Christian writer, come and write your story, how do I write my story, memoir, The Gospel Coalition, write your memoir, write your story, writing your story

Don’t Write to Get Published

August 5, 2016 by Ann 2 Comments

I have a deep respect for The Gospel Coalition and the work that they are doing online and in the “real” world as an organization that unabashedly proclaims the truth of the Bible. I was able to attend The Gospel Coalition Women’s Conference in June, and just this week I had the opportunity to write for their blog. It was an honor to write for TGC about one of my favorite topics! You can link to the full article here.

And, if you’re a fellow writer, make sure to read all the way to the end of the article at TGC, where I offer a discount code for my Writing with Grace course–registration is open until the 17th of August (and don’t forget to check out the site and the brand-new video I released)!

Here’s the start of the article for The Gospel Coalition:

For those of us who love words, we’re drawn to the clack of the keyboard and the parsing of meaning on the page. We feel alive as we wrangle words into sentences; some of us even feel closer to God as we work out our faith by writing about it. Time spent writing feels important, even holy.

For those of us who love words, we’re drawn to the clack of the keyboard. We feel alive as we wrangle words into sentences. #amwriting Share on X

But for many of us, running parallel with our love of writing is the desire to get published. This desire can be fueled by the culture at large, which says our writing only matters if our readership is huge and our byline well known. Publication is commonly assumed to be the goal of the writing life, and seeing our words in print the truest form of validation for our work.

As an author and teacher of writing, I often have conversations with other writers fixated on publication. They’re desperate to see their work published somewhere. They want to know how to start a writing career, or how to get the inside scoop on writing for a top magazine.

In response to their questions, I have to ask: Do you want to be published? Or do you want to write?

Do you want to be published? Or do you want to write? Share on X

These aren’t the same question, although many of us confuse one for the other. For as much as writing is tethered to publishing, getting published doesn’t make a writer. Writing makes a writer.

Read the rest of the article over at The Gospel Coalition, and don’t miss out on open registration for Writing with Grace!