{"id":2022,"date":"2017-10-12T20:49:53","date_gmt":"2017-10-13T01:49:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/?p=2022"},"modified":"2017-10-12T20:54:10","modified_gmt":"2017-10-13T01:54:10","slug":"stewarding-your-passions-motherhood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/2017\/10\/12\/stewarding-your-passions-motherhood\/","title":{"rendered":"Stewarding Your Passions in the Season of Motherhood"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"How<\/a><\/p>\n

This is the start of my newest piece for The Gospel Coalition. You can read the whole piece here<\/a>!<\/p>\n

I love to write; it\u2019s one of the ways I feel most connected to God.<\/strong> 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:\u00a0Do I have to wait until my children are grown to return to my\u00a0passions?<\/em><\/p>\n

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?<\/p>\n

While there\u2019s no one response for every woman, it\u2019s important to ask the right questions as we consider how to steward our passions and\u00a0live faithfully in our current\u00a0season. Here are four such questions.<\/p>\n

1. In pursuing this passion, do I have the support of my family and church family?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

When Hunter Beless was still nursing her second daughter, she considered starting a podcast for women, but she hesitated.\u00a0\u201cI thought motherhood wasn\u2019t 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,\u201d she recalls.<\/p>\n

Still, she couldn\u2019t shake the feeling that\u00a0this was something she should pursue. \u201cI 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, \u2018Why not?\u2019 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the support of those around her, Hunter started the\u00a0Journeywomen Podcast<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n

2. What\u2019s the ultimate end of pursuing this passion?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

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\u2019m doing this? Whether you work a secular job, volunteer at a nonprofit, join a neighborhood committee, play in\u00a0a tennis league, or serve in your church, it\u2019s helpful\u00a0to consider how this pursuit will give you opportunities to live out the Great Commission\u00a0(Matt.\u00a028:18\u201320<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Dianne Jago started the magazine\u00a0Deeply Rooted<\/a><\/em>\u00a0because she sensed a need\u00a0for something other than what she was seeing in \u201cpopular Christian women\u2019s ministry, which unfortunately included a lot of misuse and misunderstanding in the interpretation and application of the Scriptures.\u201d She desired to see Christ exalted in media and to point other women to a right handling of the Word. Jago\u2019s passion\u00a0is anchored in\u00a0the gospel, and it has borne beautiful fruit in her life and in the lives of readers.<\/p>\n

Read the rest of the article here, at The Gospel Coalition<\/a>!<\/p>\n

\"Still<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is the start of my newest piece for The Gospel Coalition. You can read the whole piece here! I love to write; it\u2019s 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2023,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,21,7,96],"tags":[668,959,745,957,960,958,846],"class_list":["post-2022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-god","category-guest-post","category-ministry","category-motherhood-2","tag-ann-swindell","tag-can-i-do-anything-else-in-motherhood","tag-deeply-rooted-magazine","tag-journeywomen-podcast","tag-motherhood-and-passions","tag-stewarding-passions-in-motherhood","tag-the-gospel-coalition","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/How-to-Steward-Your-Passions-in-the-Season-of-of-Motherhood-e1507859213730.jpg?fit=450%2C675&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2022"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2022\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2026,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2022\/revisions\/2026"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}