Bre’anna is a follower of Jesus, the wife of Chris, and the mom of Daniel, David and Cara. Born and raised in an Illinois farm town, she has adjusted well to the Texan life, even adapting her language to include the rampant use of the word “y’all.” She does not, however, use the phrase “fixin’ to,” much to her husband’s dismay. Bre’anna is a stay-at-home mom and the founder of SozoWomen.com. Bre’anna considers it a great privilege to teach women’s Bible studies and minister alongside her husband at Community Bible Church in San Antonio, TX.
Mommy Mondays
I have a little confession to make, and I hope you won’t judge me. Can you promise me that? Ok…here is goes: I can be a really crummy mom. I can be snippy, demanding and mentally absent to the three little people I love most on this earth. The other day I had one of the above experiences. Afterward, I paused and reflected on exactly what triggered my bad-mom moment. The truth is, I didn’t have to think very hard for the answer to quickly appear in my mind: Stress. I realized in that moment that my mind could not [...]
Miscellaneous
If you’ve ever thought God cannot love you because of your past… This video is for you. Love, All of us here at SozoWomen *A huge thank you to our media team at Community Bible Church for putting this together, and to the brave members of our congregation for telling their stories.
Thirsty Thursdays
Imagine you are an artist. You create a masterpiece. The painting is exactly what you want it to be. Each intricate detail has been carefully crafted and flawlessly formed to perfectly fit your vision. It is: beautiful. Now, look at you: A masterpiece as well. You were crafted and formed in your mother’s womb. Wonderfully whole and intensely individual. You are: beautiful. When I look at our society – the way we determine value in appearance and pry into molds to stand out – it crushes me. Not just because this pressure is so weighty, but because it slowly kills [...]
Mommy Mondays
New to this series? Catch up on post #1 here and post #2 here and post #3 here. Ever had times when your fears were so natural that every other emotion became forced? Because even though you wanted to feel laughter, joy, peace, lightheartedness and comfort, your anxieties were heaped so high that it took everything you had to force a half-laugh over your mountain of angst and through your fakest smile. I’ve felt that way, too. And in that time, I read a simple verse that became my prayer. In the middle of my greatest fears, it became my goal. It was about the [...]
Mommy Mondays
New to this series? Catch up on post #1 here and post #2 here. After our three-month-old baby boy went successfully through his surgery, I had a few months’ relief from the weight of worry. But like a lion that figured out how to open its cage door, fear was familiar with the way into my heart. Several months after his surgery, my mind was again filled with turmoil. This time it was different: there was no event I feared (like my son’s surgery) – I just … feared. I feared for my own life, for that of my children, that something [...]
Mommy Mondays
New to this series? Catch up on post #1 here. After David was born, we were in the hospital over the weekend, so we saw a different pediatrician every day – depending who was on call. All three mentioned his head. My OB came in and said, “Did you feel his soft spots? Look – feel here. They are SO small. That’s why we had a hard time determining his position in the womb and really tell what was going on. We could never really feel them.” I asked her if she thought something was wrong, and mentioned that everyone [...]
Mommy Mondays
I don’t remember fear playing a role in my life until I was a mother. Rather than fear, I often took the opposite approach; Some call it a “can-do attitude.” Truthfully, it was just pride. I remember around the time my oldest turned one, I had a friend tell me about her fears – her sleep-intruding, life-pausing fears. As she described them to me, I remember thinking she sounded crazy. There was simply no warrant for her worries, and they seemed so unreasonable – silly, really. I don’t remember how I responded to her, but I hope I was kinder [...]
Female Fridays
Are you like me? Do you look around after Christmas and feel like everywhere you look, there is just … junk? Do you relate? Please tell me I’m not alone. I recently talked to a good friend about this issue, and what she said inspired me so much. Her family – herself, her kids, and her four elementary-aged kids from a good-sized house to a house half its size. I asked how she did it. “We just got rid of it all. We thought that kids would be so upset, but it’s like they didn’t even realize almost all of [...]
Mommy Mondays
In regard to disciplining my kids, it was the single most game-changing piece of advice I ever heard. No, it wasn’t a 300-page self-help book. It wasn’t a parenting class or grand piece of advice from a more experienced mother. It wasn’t a magazine article. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t even a completed sentence. But when I read these words, they lit up on the page. ‘That’s how I want to discipline,’ I thought. Now, at the time, our oldest son Daniel was only one year old. He hadn’t even realized he had the option of disobedience, and [...]
Female Fridays
Every morning when we wake up, Chris and I follow the same routine: As the Eastern sun peers through our window blinds, there are three children who have made their ways into our bed. One typically winds up with us throughout the night, and two typically arrive around dawn. So there we lie, groggy eyed and messy-haired, with little knees and elbows digging their ways around, in between, on top, and somehow even underneath every nook and cranny between us. One of us finally concedes and goes to fetch two cups of coffee (with cream only, please) and three sippy [...]
