235 Choose Car Line

I CHOOSE MY BEST LIFE

Caris Snider shares how we can choose to find sacred pauses even in the car line while waiting to pick up our kids.

Connect with Caris on Facebook and Instagram.

Get your copy of Car Line Mom.

Show Notes:

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: Welcome, everyone. This is Dr. Saundra, and you're listening to I Choose My Best Life. Today, we are going to talk about how we enter the presence of God, even when we have a lot going on, especially if you're a mom with kids and you're transporting them all over the place. I have Caris Snider with me today, the author of a new devotional called Car Line Mom. I want us to talk about that because I feel like there are certain seasons in our lives where it seems impossible to break away and find time for God. But there are always opportunities. Caris, thank you so much for joining me.

Caris Snider: Thank you for having me today. I'm excited to be here.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: I Want to start just by learning a little bit about you. You wrote a book. With a title that I adore because it brings back so many memories of sitting in that car line. I just want to know a little bit about your background. Tell us a little bit about who you are and your family.

Caris Snider: Absolutely. So, I am a car line mom. I have two daughters. I have a daughter. We are in high school. We have entered into that season of life as well. She's a ninth grader. And I also have a daughter who is in fifth grade. So we have a teen and a tween if you will. So we are absolutely in the car a lot going and coming.

My husband and I, Brandon, have been married for 19 years and we live in the great state of Alabama. I have practically literally lived here my whole entire life. So if you hear that accent, everyone, yes, I am. It's that Southern drawl, if you will. But we love living here. We even have a little mini golden doodle.

He's a part of our family as well, but I graduated from the University of Alabama with a child development degree. Over the past few years, I have been speaking and writing and just sharing my own journey with moms and with teens and with any generation that needs to know, Hey, your faith and mental health go together.

God cares about it. And there is hope. And so to have this opportunity to write about it, to encourage our moms who are feeling stressed and overwhelmed, I am just thankful how God, never wastes anything and how he's brought everything together. For good in my life. So that's a little bit of me and who I am and what I do.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: I really wanted to speak with you because I feel like you, you truly get it. And I think that for a lot of us when we approach motherhood, we approach it with a can-do attitude, which is good. We need some of that to be able to persevere, but we also, I find, sometimes we. Almost forget in the process as we're nurturing other people that we have to be nurtured as nurturers of ourselves.

We have to keep that part of ourselves that can reflect on our own needs and the places where we need to be restored and where we need to seek help and assistance. There was a study that you mentioned from a 2023 state of Motherhood survey. And it said that it revealed that the top source of worry for mothers is mental health concerns.

Share a little bit about why that's concerning.

Caris Snider: I think that's concerning because mothers are aware of this mental health crisis that we have going on, not just for our Children and our teenagers, but for ourselves. They are struggling to find those safe places where they can talk to you about what they're struggling with and what they're going through.

I think, for our moms for all of us. We put this expectation of perfection on ourselves to get it right. When those sweet babies are put into our hands, we leave the hospital to know all the answers, to know what to do, and we just don't know. And then we put ourselves on the back burner and we give everyone the steak, the mashed potatoes, the good salad.

And then we give ourselves the leftovers, and moms are seeing. This is not working. They are feeling exhausted. They are feeling burnt out, and they are wondering, is God mad at me? Did he get it wrong? Am I the right person for the job? And so the concern that we are seeing that moms have for their mental health, knowing there's a problem that they are feeling anxious.

They're fearful, with all the things going on in the world, that they're isolating themselves away; they don't have that community. I am grateful that we are seeing the problem, but our moms are also saying to themselves, what are the solutions? What can I do? Because they do not want to operate in this way anymore, they want to take care of themselves, they want to take care of their mental health, but they don't know, they don't know what to do, and they don't know what the solutions are.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: Yes, and that's what I want us to talk about during this time together because I feel like when you know that there's a problem and you don't know what to do next, that can sometimes be even more stressful and I wanted that particular survey even talked about nearly half of the mothers are currently seeking some type of assistance or therapy with over 32 percent of them reporting anxiety as the area of Concern.

And I know anxiety is a topic that is near and dear to your heart. You've written quite a few other books actually about anxiety. What has been your own personal mental health journey?

Caris Snider: Yes, about 11 years ago, anxiety and depression almost took my life. I was a master of the mask. My husband and I, at that time, were worship leaders at our church.

I had a successful business going on within my home and my daughter, who's in 9th grade now. She was living her best toddler life then, man. Everything on the outside. side looks great and looked perfect, but I was being crushed by the weight of the anxiety on the inside feeling; my heart would race, or I would feel breathless, and I would have those thoughts, those what ifs, you know, the worst case scenarios playing out in my mind that would paralyze me.

In my own life, I was also in a season, if I was being very honest with you, where I didn't think anxiety and depression were real. And if anyone came to me wanting help and advice, my advice would be to pray harder, try harder, do more, and suck it up. And those are not. Those are not healthy things.

Those were not the best things for me to say. And I found myself in the bottom of the bottom wing, maybe a hundred pounds with the weight of the world on my shoulders, thinking that I was hopeless, worthless, and useless, and God couldn't use a mom like me. God couldn't use a woman like me, but at the bottom of that pit, I'll never forget feeling like God just whispered, look up.

And when I looked up, there were helpers. There was a counselor and a doctor, and my church family was there, and I wasn't alone, and I began to realize, Hey, anxiety is very real. Depression is very real. These mental struggles that we face are real, and we're not alone. They are happening to adults and teenagers and our children all across the world.

So we need to bring light to the darkness. I began to realize then, why are we in the faith community not talking about this? Why are we not championing The idea that God has given us practical skills that are connected to his word, connected to truth? And when we can put action and truth together, that gives me chills to think about how powerful that is.

And so that began me on this journey of wanting to learn to study and how to talk about it in a way that we can all begin to practice these healthy, practical action steps that can really be life-giving and life-changing for us. As long as we go through this process it is a process. And I have people ask me all the time, are you free?

Do you ever have anxiety or depression anymore? And I wish I could say yes, but there, I still have days, and I still have moments, but I've learned God has equipped me with what to do when those moments in those anxious thoughts try to come in and steal my life. I'm learning now how to push through instead of trying to push away.

Does that make sense?

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: It absolutely does. And I'm so glad you said that because I think that's a misconception that people have: You arrive at some point in time, and you never feel any of this stuff. And that's not reality. I'm a mom; my oldest son is actually at the University of Alabama in his sophomore year; he just went there.

And so you can imagine when you release your first child into the world. You're gonna have some thoughts that hit your head because they are not in your. They're not in your back pocket anymore where you can know everything that's going on. And so I think it's wisdom to realize that you're gonna have these waves where things come at you.

Life happens. And the tools that you mentioned, that is, I think, is the key. Truth in action. Understanding what the truth is you believe that you can ground and solidify your faith on and then what are some of the practical action steps you can do. So for yourself, what are a couple of scriptural references or even specifics from the Bible?

Maybe it's not a specific scripture. Maybe it's just a concept from the Bible that you have grounded yourself within the truth.

Caris Snider: Yes, I think of three specifically very quickly. First of all, on the anxious thoughts, I go quite a bit to Philippians 4:8 to think about what is instead of what if. Those what-ifs want to loop in our minds, and everybody's what-ifs are different.

So when those anxious thoughts are coming when we go to remind ourselves, what is true? What is holy? What is pure? What is excellent? What is praiseworthy? Let's think about those things and practice shifting those thoughts. That's one thing that helps me take those thoughts captive and replace them with truth.

Second, it is this idea that we need community. Friends, you are not meant to live a life alone. Galatians 6:2 says we are to bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. So, that idea that we have to be isolated that is a lie of the enemy. We need to be surrounded. We need those arm bearers.

When we are going through those difficulties, that'll hold us up and say, hey, I got you. And then, when it's our turn to be the arm bearers for them, we can return that favor. And then the third is gratitude, man. Gratitude is so powerful. When we think of those good things in our life, when we look to those things that we can be grateful for and thankful for, not that we're ignoring the situations and pretending that everything is fine, but choosing to focus on the good.

I'll never forget. I was in a school, and we were. Practicing some of these coping skills together and gratitude is one we do. While I was in an eighth-grade class, a young man raised his hand to say what he was thankful for, and everybody was just waiting for him to say something funny to get the class riled up.

And he said, Hey, Caris, I'm grateful for the foster family I'm with right now because they're nice to me. And the whole class, you could see, they were like, okay. We understand what she's trying to tell us. So gratitude is powerful. Community is powerful, and changing those "what if thoughts" to what is again?

This is a process that I go through things that I cling to on a daily basis to go to those tools because I don't want to live in a place of anxiety and depression. I've been there and done that, and it doesn't get to steal my life anymore. So let's all work through these things together and practice these things and imagine a dream and vision about what my life could be like if I tried this on a regular basis.

How could it look different in seven days, 21 days, a year from now?

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: Anxiety and depression do not get to steal my life. I love that when we're looking at some of the action steps that someone can take. I feel like this was where I was just so impressed with your new devotional, Car Line Mom, because the thing that we often hear and that I, I myself, said for many years, I don't have time.

I'm so busy as a mom. And you know what? There is some bit of truth to that. There's a lot of stuff that if you're working from home or if you're homeschooling, the day gets filled up with all the things. There's so much that we need to do to make sure everybody's where they're supposed to be, make sure food's on the table, make sure there's food in the kitchen to put on the table.

So many things, what, if we looked at this in some type of stepwise approach, what would you say would be step one, two, and three that a mom who's looking at her life and she's saying, Caris, I don't know, girl, if I can do this. I don't know if I have time for a devotional.

Caris Snider: I really love that question. And I'm giggling as I think about the rest of my day that I have ahead as a mom of all the things that we have to do. So if we're talking about this, man, we are friends. All of us as moms are coming together here, a couple of steps that I think we could take number one, instead of looking at it in the big picture, let's look at it in the moments, what moments do you have where you can pause and read a devotional, spend time with God, go to God in prayer. When you're in that car line, when you go there for just a few extra minutes, pause in that moment and give that to the Lord, open up that devotional book, if it is car line mom or your Bible or the Bible app.

So number one, let's give it a moment and look at it in that way instead of big chunks. I think that can be helpful. Number two, look at your time. Can you get up earlier in the morning? Are you in a season where you can do that? Are your children where they're a little bit more independent, and so you're not having to stay up late to rock a baby to get up in the middle of the night?

You're going to have to give yourself grace in there. I think that's part of that moment as well. Give yourself grace because these seasons are going to change. If you can get up early. If you're going to bed, maybe a little bit later because you've gotten everyone asleep, take that time when you're going to bed a little bit later to just pause again at that moment to give it to the Lord.

I think that's going to be helpful for us as well. I think, too, for you as a mama, what are the expectations you're putting on yourself? We have to acknowledge this. That's a powerful thing. Are you expecting perfection from yourself? Are your expectations unrealistic? And if they are, let's shift out of that.

Let's put a realistic expectation on yourself. What is doable for you as a mom right now in this season? Are your children in a lot of activities? Are you involved in your church and the PTO? Look at your schedule and put doable expectations on yourself. And finally, and I hope this gives somebody freedom today, Say no.

Where can you say no? Those two letters are so powerful, and they can change a lot of things in your life. No is not a bad word. It is a powerful word that God's given you because you're saying no to all the filler things, and you're saying yes to all the God things that he has for you. So where are you saying yes to please others to fill your schedule where you can finally say no and nope?

That doesn't fit right now for this season, it might fit for another season. But right now, my answer is. No, and that's okay.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: Yes. No is okay. I feel no is the most underused word.

Caris Snider: Amen

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: We really need to practice it more often. Start with just practicing saying no to a couple of things just to get it back into our vocabulary.

I think hustle culture is just the real thing. It's something that it permeates not only. The business world, but it permeates the family now. So I would just love your insights on how you feel hustle culture is affecting just the quality of motherhood, our ability to enjoy it and to embrace it.

Caris Snider: Amen again to that. So hustle culture is telling us to go do this. This is how you are a successful mom. And the difficult part that I'm personally seeing with that is the goalpost move. And then you, it just adds more hustle in there, and it's I got no hustle left, man.

I don't know where to fit anymore in. And so it's always trying to please to achieve. And the great thing for us to remember is that God. And he is already pleased with us, not by what we do, but because of who he is; he made us, he said, we are fearfully and wonderfully made. And the hustle is taking away these opportunities for us as moms to just stop and see our children.

Being children, it is not just affecting us, but now it's trickling down into our kids, and they feel like their schedules have to be filled. They feel like they've got to constantly be doing things. And I think this plays into why our children are feeling so anxious. There's no rest in there. And I know you could speak great greatly to that, but.

They are feeling that pressure to constantly be doing, constantly be moving, and that's not what God wants for us. And I think something that I have been convicted about with the hustle culture is to put margin in there. We have to have margin in our life and our schedule. If you read a book, there's a margin in the lines for your brain and your eyes to take a break and process what you're doing there.

There are margins in good, healthy businesses, and in our finances, there are margins in our clothes. We need margin in our lives. We need those opportunities where we can have those pauses, and we can have those moments as a family and with our kids to just see that it's okay not to do all the sports and not do all the things to just pause.

And so I think if we will embrace the culture of pause and stillness that can push that idea away that we have to hustle, that we have to do all the things because then we're seeing that we're walking in the way that God truly wants us to walk. And I think there's more, there's peace there.

I think our moms want peace. Don't you? I think that's what they, that they really long for. And when we can put in a culture of pause, that can help them bring in peace. What do you think about that? I totally

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: agree. I think that a culture of pausing, resting, reflecting, being still on purpose. I think that is how we recapture the joy of parenting, recapture motherhood, recapture marriage if we're going to expand it throughout the entire family.

I think it's such; there's such wisdom in what you've shared, and I'm so excited about your new book. We're chatting with Caris Snider. She's the author of Car Line Mom Devotional. And Caris, I want to conclude with this. I would love to just hear your heart to a mother who is maybe even sitting in the car line right now, listening to this, thinking this is all I do all day.

I cart my people from one spot to another. I'm the unpaid chef, cleaner, cook, driver, all the things. How do I get back to a place of just me and God?

Caris Snider: I think about her, I just imagine maybe if she's sitting in her minivan or a car and there's goldfish in the backseat, and there's sweatshirts in the trunk and all the equipment, and maybe she's looking over at her passenger seat with all of her books and her, maybe her purse and her phone is sitting there and her snacks.

I just see her with tears running down her face, just wondering, have I failed? Have I let Kai down? Have I let my family down? Am I up for this job as a mom, and can I just say to you? Yes, you are. God did not get it wrong. He does not make mistakes, and the way that He brought the children into your life, however, that looks, whatever that journey was, He knew exactly what He was doing, and He called you, and He created you for this.

I think of Ephesians 2:10. He created good works in advance for you to do, and Mama, you are in the midst of doing a good work. And I just want you to know that God hears you, he sees you, and he loves you. And he thinks of you as his daughter, and he's right there with you. So just take a moment now, pause, pour your heart out to him, pour your requests out to him, and just ask him for his help to help you. Get in his word to help you take those moments of pause to shift out of hustle and to move in a new way of living a new way of being a mom and being all that he's called you to be and to walk in his grace today. Amen.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: Amen. Caris, I want to make sure everyone knows how to get in touch with you, learn more about the work you're doing, and get a copy of your new book.

Caris Snider: Absolutely. You can find me. I like to hang out on Instagram and Facebook at @carissnider, and I'd love for you to join us on my website and my email list family. That's my name as well, carissnider.com. All my books are there. And if you want a quick place to find Car Line Mom, head on over to carlinemom.com.

And you're going to be able to find it there and all the things, and I would love to just get to know you and just be a part of your journey.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: So wonderful, Caris, to have a chance to chat with you, and we will link to your book, your website, and your social media within the show notes so that people be able to get a copy and begin their own journey of getting closer with God every day.

Thank you so much for joining me. Thanks for having me. Until next time, everyone live fully, love boldly and rest intentionally.

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