easy pulled pork summer meal!

We had friends over last weekend for dinner and I did this easy Pulled Pork meal that I thought was so summery and fun...so I had to share!

the menu:
Pulled Pork Sliders on Kings Hawaiian rolls (pork made with Campbell's Soup sauce)
Corn on the Cob (the minis)
Cheddar and Sour Cream Ruffles
Hamburger slice Pickles
Mini Crescent Roll hot dogs (for the kids who didn't like the pork)
Summery Green Salad (thanks to my friend Kelli!)
Pineapple and Strawberries
Peach Pie and Vanilla Ice Cream for dessert

Can I get an Amen to this summery yumminess?

Here is what we did:

I happened to come across this sauce package in Target and I had to try it!  Who doesn't like an easy Crock Pot meal in the summer?!

Literally I just popped in my 3 lb pork shoulder and poured this sauce over it and cooked it for about 5 hours.

This sauce was DELISH!!!
(and, no Campbell's did not ask me to say this...i just seriously like it that much!
So...go getcha some!)

confession: we are HUGE fans of King's Hawaiian Sweet rolls around here. I discovered my girls were more likely to eat a sandwich on them, so we use them for everything. They went super well with the flavor of the pork!!

...and pineapple just seemed to fit right in with the meal...love me some fresh cut Pineapple!

It was so easy and so yummy!

I know it doesn't seem like much, but when you are looking for easy summer meals to make for the fam or for a get-together, every idea helps!
Mommying and balancing everything else makes easy meal ideas very helpful for me! Especially when you may not have the time to make a bunch of stuff from scratch...no shame in that, y'all!  :)

oh, and don't forget that peach pie and ice cream! (I just bought a Marie Callender's frozen one, and it hit the spot!!)

ENJOY and happy Summer!!

a few 4th captures

Just had to share these beautiful photos my photographer friend Michelle, just happened to capture at our neighborhood 4th of July parade!

PS she is SUPER talented...if you are in the OKC area and need a photographer, you need HER!!

Check out her website, Magnolia Adams Photography.

#mommyblogger

Yep...Mommy Blogging at its finest right there. :)

(thanks P for this pic!)

Wow I am so honored at some of the responses and emails from my previous post about why I share and why I blog. It makes me happy, y'all. So, thank you.

Man, it's hard to find the time to finish all the laundry piles or make all the snacks, much less sit down and blog or be online. But here I am, making it a priority. Sounds funny maybe, but I just feel like I am suppose to. I feel God telling me it is a season to sit down (literally) and pursue some of my heart's desires, one of which includes pouring into and growing this blog.

Blogging and Instagram has brought so much community to my life, and has opened doors to friendships I only dreamt of having. God is just good like that, though! It has also brought me to resources I never would have found that add wisdom and guidance to my life. Anything from parenting to studying the Bible to scrubbing soap scum off a shower door. :) So thankful for others who take the time to share online.

For me, moving forward, I am hoping to sit down and start writing if not every day, then every other day. How am I going to find the time? Well, I think I just am going to spend the quiet time after the girls go to bed working on this. I keep hearing people say that when you are passionate about something, you are willing to stay up until the wee hours to work on it. And while I am not planning to do that every night or even every week, I am coming to realize that this IS that important to me.

Other priorities are too though. Obviously.

I am a wife, mom and homemaker before I am a blogger. So, learning to schedule and prioritize and say no or say yes... are things I am seeking guidance on from the Lord, from my very-business-efficient hubby, and from other wise counsel in my life. So thankful for those voices.

God has spoken lots of words this year and in this season about us pursuing what He has put in our hearts. And so, I must be obedient.

Have yall ever thought of it that way? It actually just hit me as I typed it out just now...pursuing the things in my heart that God made me to have is actually being obedient to Him! wow.

That just opened up a whole new perspective for me!
I want to be obedient to His heart in mine. That is so confirming that He really does meet us where we are and gives us the desires of our hearts. He MADE us that way. Or has formed our desires over time to match His destiny for us.

Now, I am not saying that the season always allows for us to be obedient to pursuing our dreams (there is NO way I could've sat down and blogged a bunch at the end of my pregnancy with Isaac or in the early weeks...hello, sleep deprivation!).

BUT, when we do feel released and feel the grace to do it...why not!?

This blog has evolved so much through the last 4 years...it was once called Racing Towards Joy, then Our Hope Reclaimed.
Now...Brave and Simple.
And I have loved every season of it. It has allowed the chance to share anything and everything I want to or feel led to. From recipes, to stories of loss.

In this new space, I have some new (and old) things to share (you can see those at the topic menu up there!)..including our journey through miscarriages and grief, a topic page about my Nest, which will include homemaking stuff and recipes and things of that nature, and even a page about the new Homeschooling journey we are about to embark on this Fall!
I cannot wait to put it all out there and build even more community.
And one of my favorite new pages of this blog? Hubby Writes.
This is going to be a space where my man Parker can write his heart too.
Yall will be so blessed by it, his heart and mind and writing ability is incredible!! He is currently working on some posts to put up!

I have tried to make things a little simpler (pun intended :) ) by organizing all those topics.
I will write the main blog posts in "the blog" part, but will link up the related posts to each topic page, just making it easier to find and read.

So much to share and say and do, and I am excited!

All this to say...here I am.

Looking so forward to this journey here!! Thanks for listening to my little blurp today. :)

"From Their Perspective"

I am honored to be a contributing blogger over at Thrive Moms a few times a month!
That community is INCREDIBLE. If you don't follow them yet, go do it. Their website and blog is full of amazing encouragement to mothers.
Also their Instagram @thrive_moms is something I look to daily for encouragement in this adventure of motherhood!

This week, I wrote a post about seeing things from our little ones perspectives...

picture by Thrive Moms

"It’s actually something that has been on my heart lately…to try and see things from their perspective more. The other day I literally knelt down to my daughter’s level in our kitchen, to see how she sees it. And wow, it seemed so different from her little height! She can barely see over our kitchen island, and it honestly floored me to see what she sees. Her lunch plate was right at her eyeball-level, and her cup of water looked really tall. Her climb up the bar stool seemed like a big feat, and her place mat looked huge.

It made me stop and think how their whole life is really seen from a different perspective than mine. And while that is so cute and makes me love their “little-ness” even more, it also tells my heart that this is something important to remember: what seems small to us as mothers, may seem huge to them as our children."

......you can read the rest of the post here.

why I share so much

Since I started blogging a few years ago, I have been given several opportunities to answer the question about why I do it...why I blog. Why I share my life so openly and honestly in such a "public" way.

Some of those questions have come in the form of pure curiosity and even a little admiration, but some have come in the form of judgement or shame.

So I felt like this was a good time to address it, at least in part. I will try my very best to articulate my heart about this!

The main reason I share my story here?

this:

God's love is so intertwined in the journey and story He gives to each of us personally, that He promises to USE it in the overcoming of our enemy! WOAH!! That is so powerful, y'all.

The testimonies He has given you, and given me, that speak and point to His glory...they are weapons! Weapons of warfare that destroy the things which are not of God. Just think about that for a minute. It really does make sense.

Have you ever been in a room of people, and someone shares a story of encouragement? (it could be anything from just a positive outlook, to a testimony of personal healing)  Most likely after that person shared, the level of faith in the whole room spiked up a notch.

I can recall times I have been in settings where a person had some breakthrough about an issue...and then suddenly others started having breakthrough because of the faith they were able to grasp just from witnessing the testimony of another.

Simply sharing our testimony OVERCOMES our enemy.  That alone is enough to prompt me to share my story!

But still the question remains of why I choose to blog the things of my heart and life, and share them on social media for "everyone" to see...

(such a good quote, right? Love me some Brene Brown.)

Well, first of all I want you to know this: I DON'T share everything. I am very conscientious of only writing when and what the Lord tells me to. It's so important to me to be careful of that. Not in a religious performance type of way, but in the sense that I believe things have a specific timing and purpose that i cannot see, and I would not be honoring God's plan for those things if I just sat down a wrote without being led. I desire so much for His voice and His hand to guide me in the sharing of my story. It is for HIS Glory anyways, so why would I not want to be fully led by Him about the details?!

There are some very personal things I have shared here, like about all three of my miscarriages, about the loss of my Dad and how I grieved, and even about my health and some strongholds I was delivered from. (you can read about those here).

But there are also a ton of very personal things, tragedies, traumas, etc. that I do not nor probably ever will share in this space. Not for a reason of hiding or not being transparent...but for the simple fact that the Lord has not released me to share those things. And some things between me and the Lord are just that...between me and Him alone! And I am totally okay with that. Because remember, it is HIS story anyways! And if He ever did say, "Sarah it's time to share this or share that.", then I will be ready!

One of those very intimate things I have blogged about before is my battle with a spirit of Shame.

Shame has had a grip on me for many years, and while I am still battling for freedom from it, it is not something I am fully delivered of. YET!

I love Brene's words above about Shame, and can basically sum it up by saying that for me, (someone who battles with Shame and Unworthiness sometimes) the WORST thing I can do is stay quiet! My enemy wants me to wallow in feeling not good enough or lonely. But I have a weapon, remember?!

And that goes back to the scripture above...that I can OVERCOME Shame by the word of my testimony. Speaking about God's goodness and His presence in my life makes Satan just cringe and flee, exactly what I want him to do.

What specific dagger from Satan could you repel by sharing your own testimony? Ask the Lord, and then let Him guide you even if it feels unknown. Your victory will be greater than you know, I promise!

Another reason I share? to bless others.

It's not like I set out to have some great "ministry" or "calling" to blog so that I can help others, but a beautiful thing has happened in it.

I started blogging 3 months after my first miscarriage (my very first blog post is here), as an outlet for me. I had NO idea I would have friends (the few that knew I had started a blog, ha!), either come to me with their own miscarriage story, or pass my info on to their friends who had been through it.

God's kindness was SO great to me just after one post. Just after being vulnerable with my grief and my pain and my story, He started surrounding me with women who could relate. And for that, I will always be grateful.

And since then, as I have felt led to share more things, like about my deliverance from fear and my healing from Fibromyalgia, I have had the privilege of building some incredible community of friends who can relate, or who want to know more of my story, and share theirs with me. What an honor for me, and what a blessing to the Lord for His Glory to be shared!

And one more reason I will mention right now...blogging and putting myself "out there" has helped me love myself more.

Let me try to explain.

EMBRACING the journey God has given me, Sarah Elizabeth Lowe...that He hasn't given to ANYone else...I can't help but see and appreciate the uniqueness of it. The personal fingerprint of God on my life.

And that perspective is life-changing. It draws my mindset from feeling sorry for the tough parts, and brings me back to realizing that He so beautifully crafted my story to be uniquely mine. And that He wants to use me, and use my life.

And so, I share.

I blog, I instagram, I tweet, I facebook, I email.

It may sound silly to you, and that's totally fine. I know the Lord has not drawn everyone to put pen to paper (or finger to keypad, in this case), and write out their story. And that's ok. You don't have to share it like I do, for it to be powerful in your life!

My desire would just be that you would remember that your story MATTERS. Whether anyone else ever knows the inner parts of your testimony or not...it matters.

You, and your heart and your testimony, are part of this beautiful tapestry He is weaving. The perfect story He is writing.

That's all for now, I am sure I will have more thoughts on this another time.

I want you to know how grateful I am that you listen.

You are a part of my story.