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From Susan Merrill

The Blog

Lessons I Learned

Rahab: Would You be Her Friend?

A few months ago in a previous vlog, I went on a panoptic journey through the Bible focusing solely on women. The study led me to a discovery about two female powerhouses: Ruth and Esther. In my research, I clearly saw how God uses each of us no matter our background. Whether Jew or Gentile, rich or poor, powerful or peaceful–God has a part for you to play in HIStory. In my panoptic wandering, there were so many stories I wanted to dig into deeper. The first is the Rahab story. Rahab, the prostitute, the woman known for housing spies against her king’s orders, the woman who loved a foreign God, the woman who intrigues me. What did she look like? How did she become so wise? What was her personality? If you are new to this blog you may not know that I am fascinated by our personalities and how they play into our story. You can take The Mom I Am personality test here and read about your personality type here. One day I hope to record The Mom I Am speech. It is about God’s desire for you to embrace and be excited about who you are, a woman with …

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Parenting

How to Deal With Toddler Tantrums

If you’ve ever wondered how to deal with toddler tantrums, we have the answer for you—very carefully. Yes, that’s a joke, but it does have some truth in it. The toddler stage can be trying for a mom as her baby turns into a little person with preferences, a desire for independence, and the ability to express himself. The best toddler tantrum approach is one that’s not reactionary, spur of the moment, or born of fatigue or frustration. Here are 5 tips for how to deal with toddler tantrums effectively and lovingly. 1. Stay calm. Let’s just jump right in, shall we? When your toddler has a temper tantrum, rule one for moms is to stay calm. If we snarl at our child or yell at her to “calm down,” it will likely make things worse. Try to identify the source of the tantrum. Is your child tired? Put her to bed. Is she frustrated that her blocks keep falling down? Give her a hug and help her rebuild. Does she want her own way? Explain to her why your answer is no and then move on. Is she just trying to get your attention? Ignore her. If your child’s temper tantrum continues, tell her, …

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Marriage

Is This the Root Cause of Your Marriage Problems?

Have you ever thought that love and hate are two sides of the same coin? I might have at one time, but marriage has taught me a lot about love. Hate is not the opposite of love, selfishness is the opposite of love. And selfishness is killing marriages. It is the root cause of many marriage problems–problems that are ending in divorce. A decade ago the number one cause for divorce was financial problems. Today it is irreconcilable differences. That sounds like selfishness. Our human hearts are naturally bent towards getting what we want, when we want it. Real love requires unselfishness. It requires sacrificially putting someone else’s desires, needs, and comfort before what we want. Today’s culture creates an atmosphere of self-focus. Social media, although great sometimes, is often just a way to compare ourselves to others. We see what others have and we think we should have it too: the perfect husband and kids, the clean house, the fulfilling job. But what we see is not reality. Our head may know it’s not reality but the discontent it breeds in our heart eats at us and grows until our unhappy heart demands — get it right now and to …

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Parenting

What to Teach Your Child Before 12

What is the purpose for your parenting? Before we can parent effectively, our purpose needs to be clear. When we have that clarity, we will be able to train our children to be responsible adults when they leave us. One of the most important developmental stages of children is the transition from preteen to teen. These years before the age of 13 are golden because we can help our children build the moral warehouse they’ll need as they face life’s challenges and dilemmas. Teach them these things before they turn 12. Teach them to make wise choices. Teaching them this will save them a lot of pain from making bad choices. Teaching your children to ask this one question will help them make the best choices. Teach them to discern right from wrong. There are three levels to helping children determine right from wrong—here they are. Teach them a life perspective. What do you believe? What do you want to teach your children about having a worldview? They’ll hear other views, so be sure to share yours. Teach them contentment. Out of contentment comes joy. Without contentment, they will never feel like they have what they want. A lack of commitment will rob their joy. …

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Lessons I Learned

His Narrative: Women in the Word

When my alarm goes off there is just one thought that gets me out of bed. It urgently whispers to my sleepy brain, “Hurry, get up. This is your time!” Yes, my only time. My time is a sweet, short span of an hour during which I creep quietly downstairs, grab hot creamy coffee, snuggle into my chair under a super soft blanket and read about God. It’s just us in the dark quiet before my house becomes crazy busy. The Bible is full of wisdom for those who treasure reading and soaking it in. It teaches us His character, His love, and it teaches us about ourselves. Studying the Bible has become one of my favorite things to do. Every morning it reorients my life as I learn a new perspective. We all have things we are passionate about but nothing makes me more excited than making connections throughout God’s Word. I will pick a topic of interest to me at the moment and start to research it. I start in one place or with one theme but typically end up going down rabbit trails until I find I have discovered something totally unexpected. Time and time again new things …

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Marriage

You Married for Better, but What about for Worse?

At some point in your wedding ceremony you probably committed to take your husband to have and to hold from this day forward, for better and for worse. I know I did. But I really didn’t think about what it meant. Twenty eight years later, for better and for worse has deep meaning. Our daughter, Megan, got married a year ago. The ceremony was beautiful and Megan’s happiness in those months up to the wedding brought back memories of my wedding day. The unadulterated excitement I had going into my marriage blocked out possible road bumps that would lie ahead of us. For worse never really resonated with me, I just was dreaming about better. I thought the tough part about marriage was finding the right guy. That after the wedding came the easy part, my happily ever after. So many couples don’t go into marriage thinking that it’s going to be difficult. Mark and I definitely were among them. You’re going to be with your best friend every day, what could possibly go wrong? One of the best pieces of advice that I could give to a couple about to be married is to go through pre-marital counseling. Counseling will be helpful …

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Lessons I Learned

3 Lessons I Learned the Hard Way I Wish I Could Teach My Children

An iMOM writer recently asked me an interesting question: what are three things I learned the hard way that I wish I could teach my children. Of course my mind scrambled. Ha, I thought, how about 3 billion things? But what are some of my life lessons, the big picture things? I thought of these three right away, and in the comments section, I would love to hear about some of yours! 1. Time will run out. When I was seventeen, I had a cardiac arrest. I learned the hard way that you never know when you’re going to run out of time. I was cheerleading at a game, and my heart felt like it was beating so fast. I found out later it was doing 220 beats per minute for three hours straight. A couple hours later when I was in the emergency room, my heart stopped. Since then I’ve had about a dozen heart surgeries. I always think when I go into surgery: Okay, is this it? Has my time run out? What have I done with the time I was given? Will I have more time? When I wake up after the surgery, the first thing I think …

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Parenting

What Will Your Child Struggle With This Year?

When Emily (my second child) went to kindergarten she had a totally different experience than Megan (my first child). Same school, same teacher but not the same kind of year. By the end of Emily’s year, I was mildly concerned and asked for a conference to discuss a few of my observations. A good teacher is always teaching and on this day Emily’s wise teacher taught me. I learned a lesson that has served me well. This is what she said. “Susan, you are observing something that I have observed for over 40 years in thousands of students. Every child is different. Megan and Emily are no exception. Children grow every year in four different ways–intellectually, physically, emotionally and relationally. Some children grow quite evenly in all four areas. Other children have rapid growth spurts in one or two areas and then are delayed in others. For example, a 5-year-old child may have the intellect of a 7-year-old, but the social skills of a 4-year-old. At some point in the future, if you as the mother and me as the teacher stay the course by training and teaching, they will all reach their potential. It just won’t look the same.” …

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Parenting

How to Handle Your Child’s “Frenemy”

Have you ever had a “frenemy?” That friend who goes through the motions of being a friend and even says that you’re good friends, but who routinely does things to hurt your feelings, dash your confidence, or stir up trouble? It can be exhausting to deal with a person like that—trying to decipher the passive-aggressive slights and figure out if she is someone you can trust. Can you imagine how much harder it is for your child? That’s why you need to know how to handle your child’s frenemies, Mom. Bad friends aren’t healthy for your child. Sometimes kid frenemies just need to go their separate ways. At other times, it’s more complicated than that. What if the moms are good friends, or the children are trapped in the same class at school? Disentangling your child from the tentacles of a hurtful “friend” may require a bit of maneuvering on your part. I have watched my five children experience friendships of all kinds: some positive, some negative. Here’s what I’ve learned about dealing with your kids’ bad friends. Help your child understand the reasons why. One of my girls had a friend in grammar school who was really insecure. Her insecurity caused the child to react with …

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Encouragement

Anger: Face It, Find It, Figure it Out

In a candid moment around the dinner table discussing personality traits, my kids told me I can be angry. I protested but they had a point and I had no excuse. You see, whether you have one child or five, whether you work in the home or out, we all can get frustrated and angry at one point or another. Anger has a way of sneaking up on us. Somehow small moments of frustration can quickly escalate into anger. Getting to the root of our anger will help us all to deal with the emotions in a healthy way. It can be easy to disregard our anger and push it aside without ever getting to the root cause of that anger, but I think it is important to stop that. We need to take the time to ask, why am I so angry? Not just as individuals but as a society we need to ask this question as well. If we don’t get what we want when we want it, we get angry. Anger is becoming so much more acceptable—think road rage, the political landscape, or battles between law enforcement and the citizens they are intended to protect. Just because something …

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