It's A Single Mom Thing
Welcome to “It's A Single Mom Thing”, the show for single moms by single moms.
Being a solo momma and present parent is hard work and it’s easy to lose your focus when you forget your faith. The good news is, that you are not alone, you were singled out in this season, and together we can work on what’s not working for you finding Christ in the crisis! Whether you are listening early in the morning or late at night, we are here for you!
Be encouraged. Get inspired. You can do this, momma.
Stay tuned as each Monday we will feature fresh and fun content and conversations as we join you on this journey from solo momma to solo momma. We promise not to take too much of your time and thank you for spending it with us. It may be a single mom thing, but it doesn’t have to be the single thing that stops you!
It's A Single Mom Thing
Storm of Change
In this powerful episode of It’s a Single Mom Thing, we reflect on the inevitable storms of life—both literal and emotional—and how they force us to confront change. Drawing inspiration from Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl, we explore what it means to find growth and meaning in the most challenging circumstances.
As my community reels from two back-to-back hurricanes, I share my personal experience of navigating through these storms, the heart-wrenching decision to leave behind my firefighter son, and the lessons God has been teaching me through it all. Sometimes, when we can’t change our circumstances, we’re called to change ourselves.
This episode is a reminder that even when everything around us feels uprooted, we can find strength in faith, trust in God’s plan, and the power to rebuild—not just our homes, but our hearts.
Join me as we discuss how to face change head-on and lean into the purpose God has for your life, no matter the storm you’re weathering.
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It's a Single Mom Thing, Not the Single Thing That Stops You!
Welcome to it's a Single Mom Thing, the show for single moms by single moms. This is Sherri, your host, and I am happy you are here today. Remember it's a single mom thing and not the single thing that stops you.
Speaker 2:As a single mom, you know what it means to face uncontrollable storms, am I right? Whether they come in the form of life's challenges or in the literal sense of nature's wrath, sitting here at my desk just five days after the second major hurricane has come through my hometown, it's not just about surviving the storms. It's about facing the reality that when everything else changes around you, the real work well, it begins in changing yourself. There's something about I don't know back-to-back hurricanes that makes you feel powerless. Two weeks ago, hurricane Helene changed everything. And then here comes another hurricane, more powerful than Helene and anything that we have seen in my hometown since 2005. Helene and anything that we have seen in my hometown since 2005. Now you can rebuild houses, but you also have to rebuild something inside, where control feels like a distant dream. I have found that change is one constant, yet it is also the one thing we all resist. As single moms, you know, we hold tightly to what we can control, because so much is already out of our hands. But maybe, just maybe, change isn't something to fear, or maybe it's not even something that we need to try to control. Maybe it's something to embrace. Welcome back and, by the way, I am so happy to be back on another episode with you of it's a Single Mom Thing, change as the only constant.
Speaker 2:Well, like I said, it's been five days, maybe six days now, since Hurricane Milton the second most intense Atlantic hurricane on record, to be precise blew through my hometown. As I sit here, I find myself reflecting on what there is to learn from two powerful storms that have not only changed the landscape of my community but fundamentally changed the community itself. Businesses that had stood for 50 years or more no longer exist. One school, completely flooded, is temporarily closed, leaving 1,400 students and teachers scattered across two different campuses. These campuses have had to adapt to double sessions just to make room for the displaced students. Boats that once peacefully rested on the water are now scattered across lawns, looking like toy boats children play with, and the roads. They're covered in beach sand, giving off the eerie resemblance of a snowstorm. Resemblance of a snowstorm, as one resident so kindly pointed out.
Speaker 2:All of these changes, these overwhelming shifts, if I'm honest, they have left me thinking about the nature of change itself, the one constant we are promised in life. Yet it is also the one thing, if we're honest with ourselves, most of us struggle with the most. It is during this time that I am reminded of a quote and if you've been tracking with me for a while, you've heard this quote from Holocaust survivor. Listen to me Viktor Frankl, who survived four concentration camps. He had this to say about change when we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. There's nothing like a Category 5 hurricane barreling down on your state and your state of mind, bringing to the forefront the inability to control or change the situation, but rather the need to change yourself, facing uncontrollable change. As a single mom, I have had to face many situations where I simply couldn't control the outcome, but nothing like this. I tend to think this was true, really, for all of us who live here.
Speaker 2:Whether you stayed and weathered the storm surge, feeling the full force of over 100 mile per hour gusts of wind, I know the sound of those thumps in the night, the ones you heard echoing on your roof, wondering what debris had hit, praying it wouldn't break through. Maybe you, like a friend of mine, were scrambling to use every towel you had in the house to stop the rising water from seeping through your doggy door. Stop the rising water from seeping through your doggy door. And then, well, of course, there was the dog who had to go out, because you know, life doesn't stop, even in a hurricane. Maybe you had a pet who didn't understand the danger or, worse, one that got out in the chaos. I think about the thousands of pets that now flood our shelters, losing their home and homeowners in the storm, to the I don't know how many people who scattered like ants, whose ant pile got stepped on, now scattered to the highways as they left for safety. These small moments of survival, mixed with the larger, overwhelming devastation, leaves us feeling like we have no control. But when the storm clears, we are faced with a different reality Change. How many of you listening, like me, hold tightly to control about everything in your lives, trying to manage the uncontrollable, like our children's future, finances, relationships. But life storms, well, they force us to let go and I like to say uncle. How many of you had to say uncle in this storm? I'll be honest with you.
Speaker 2:This storm was especially hard for me, not just because of the damage or the fear of what I might return to, but because I evacuated this time and, surprisingly, it wasn't leaving behind my home or the personal items. That was the hardest part. It was leaving behind my son. Now, if you've been tracking with me like a spaghetti model, you know my son is a firefighter. Ladies, let me tell you there is something so unnatural about leaving behind the one thing you have spent 21 years protecting.
Speaker 2:I didn't know when I'd see him again, and that weighed heavier on me than anything else. As a mom, you're wired to protect your kids, but this time it was different. I wasn't leaving to protect myself from the storm. I was leaving because my son asked me to. His words still echo in my mind Mom, please go. The storm is going to be really bad and do unimaginable things. I can't protect you. I have to work and I don't know when I'll be back. And I knew what he meant. He wasn't talking about property damage or downed trees. It was the things his young eyes would see, the things that no mother wants their child to witness. But there he was, stepping into the role of the protector, asking me to do what I've always asked of him to stay safe. You see, something had to change. I had to change Unearthing.
Speaker 2:What's been buried. Sometimes, life well, it gives you circumstances we didn't ask for, but it's how we respond that defines our growth, just like the huge, mighty oak trees that had stood in our community for over a century, completely uprooted by the storm Change. Well, it has a way of unearthing things in our own lives as well. Maybe there are things that you have buried deep, things too difficult to face, so you've kept them hidden beneath the surface. But God, well, he has a funny way of bringing those things to face. So you've kept them hidden beneath the surface, but God, well, he has a funny way of bringing those things to light, not to hurt us, but to free us. Free us from the thoughts, behaviors and old ways of living that no longer serve us. It's in these moments of force, change, when everything around us is uprooted, that we, mind you, have the opportunity to reflect and grow.
Speaker 2:This brings me back to Viktor Frankl. As a high school student, viktor was already passionate about understanding the meaning of life. He went on to become a philosopher, neurologist and a psychologist, but you know, perhaps the most significant part of his story was his time as a Holocaust survivor. Like I said, he was in prison in four concentration camps, but while he was there, he also lost his wife and his father, while watching countless other people perish. You know, what strikes me most about this is that, despite all of his academic achievements and countless papers and studies, it wasn't through his professional work that he truly discovered the meaning of life. It was in the darkest, most unimaginable circumstances that he found it. And isn't that the truth for many of us? You see, sometimes the biggest breakthroughs I have found the moments of clarity well, they come not when life is going smoothly, but in the midst of the storms we never saw coming.
Speaker 2:Now, if you're a believer, listening, you've read about countless characters in the Bible whose lives were uprooted, moving them from their comfort zones. Because you know, girl, jesus doesn't leave us where he found us. Our faith, no, our faith, wasn't meant to sit on a shelf or only thrive during the mountaintop experiences. It was meant to be walked out in the valley in the difficult and uncertain moments when we're called to trust him the most. Just like Viktor Frankl, I wonder if this storm is being used to shift our perspective, shift it from being focused on ourselves to looking for the meaning God intended for our lives. You see, god never promised us comfort and he certainly didn't say it would be easy. In fact, he told us in this life you will have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world. Now I don't know if Viktor Frankl ever found his true life and eternal meaning in Jesus, but what I do know is that he found meaning in the small and hard things. Stripped of everything, much like the Apostle Paul, he found contentment in the storm of change.
Speaker 2:You listening right now, you may have lost everything, whether in the literal hurricane or in your own personal storm. Maybe it's your job, your home, your relationship or a deep sense of security. You may know several people around you who have lost everything. Yet somehow, somehow, even with your little, you find yourself in the position of having much to give. Can you see that change in perspective, an invitation to change? Is there something tugging at your heart to change, to shift, because maybe, just maybe, your landscape needs to change? Maybe this storm, as painful as it is, is an invitation to let go of the old and embrace something new, something new that God is calling you into? I want to ask you, girl, is there a situation right now, right now that you are facing, that you have tried to change, a door you have tried to open again and again and it just remains shut. Could it be that it's not the door that needs to open, but perhaps you that needs to change? I'm going to go all gospel here, but listen. Maybe God has another door waiting for you, one that you can't even see because you are spending all your energy trying to force the one in front of you to open.
Speaker 2:If you're listening and you live in my community, think about this. What has been unearthed for you in these storms that you've buried far too long? What has God exposed that he's asking you to deal with, to release or to transform? I can tell you this from my own experience. These storms, these storms, have been an invitation for me to make some changes in my own life. And listen, ladies, while it's hard, I trust that God's plan, even when it includes two hurricanes, has a purpose. It's not for me to figure out, it's for me to follow. Did you hear that I ain't figuring out? I need to follow. He is faithful even when I don't understand the why.
Speaker 2:So here's the first thing that I've been called to change, and it's this to serve someone other than myself. And, honestly, it may be as simple as taking some time to pray for those around me. There are brothers and sisters in Christ who have lost everything. Some have even lost their will to pray. So will you be the one to pray for them right now, just like I am learning to do? Will you stand in that gap when they can't?
Speaker 2:Another invitation for me has been to think about what I'm doing with the time God has given me this life. It is temporary. It is not my home. It isn't permanent, but it isn't pointless either. Not my home, it isn't permanent, but it isn't pointless either. How can I use the pain I am walking through right now to help free someone else, maybe someone who needs to change the way they see God in their own life?
Speaker 2:And lastly, my next invitation for change is community. Now, if you live here, this is a thought that might sting you just a little, but I can't stay quiet about it. We had a housing crisis before these storms hit, and now that crisis is even greater. But you know what we do have right now that we didn't have before we have land. How can we, as a community, build a better community, one that serves us all? Build a better community, one that serves us all?
Speaker 2:That, my friends, is something worth praying about, whether you are a single mom listening, or just someone who needed some encouragement from a friend who possibly shared this podcast with you. So, as I close, change, listen. It ain't easy, but it is necessary. Whether it's uprooted trees, homes or hearts, god well, god is always working to bring about something new, something better than we can imagine. So my question to you today is what is he inviting you to change? What is he asking you to let go of so something new can grow? Is he asking you to let go of so something new can grow?
Speaker 2:And for those of you listening who are single moms living in this area and have gone through the storm, if you're feeling overwhelmed or in need of community, I personally want to invite you to our upcoming class on Tuesday, october 22nd, where we'll be talking about prayer and preparedness. It's a chance to come together, to connect and to find strength in each other as we navigate these uncertain times. You can register for that class at shepherdsvillagecom. Forward slash classes and if you need prayer or someone to talk to right now, please, please, don't hesitate to reach out to our 24-hour prayer line at 855-822-PRAY. We're here for you and you don't have to go through this storm alone. Have a wonderful weekend and remember it's a single mom thing and not the single thing that stops you.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to. It's a Single Mom Thing. I hope you enjoyed our time together. If you have more questions on how to have a relationship with Jesus or need prayer, visit us at wwwshepherdsvillagecom For more information and resources. Check out our show notes.