Walking through the grocery store, the amount of fancy ketchup bottles and brands is endless. We as women/mommies are a lot like bottles of fancy ketchup. All sorts of brands, labels, ingredients, origins and prices. The options are endless. Just like the fancy ketchup, fancy mommies are messy, made with an assortment of ingredients that shouldn’t make sense but in the end create a salty, sweet gooey mess that makes it mark against all stain guards.

If you were to turn my bottle around and read my label ingredients: Short Tempered, Loving, Loyal, Insecure, Funny, Mommy, Tired, Fertility Issues, Unemployed, Wife … at this point I’m pretty sure I would be placed back on the shelf, leaving the rest of my ingredient mess to be left unread. I could sit idly by and let my mess be just that … an assortment of ingredients that just doesn’t make sense or I could take a page from the book of the fancy ketchup, making my mess a desirable masterpiece.

As Robin Roberts said, “Make your mess your message”. Not a pity party. Not a status on Facebook in the hopes of getting some attention. What can you learn from your ingredients and the mess they make up? Take your mess and turn it into a message that can help others, in turn helping yourself. Thinking to the women I admire most in my life, are the ones that take not only their talents but also their broken dreams and make them into something much bigger. These women may think themselves ordinary but in actuality they are making the world a better place than the mess they have inherited. They don’t sit by or live in the past. They take their mess, whatever it may be, and they make it a message. A strong message, that builds others up.

I challenge all of you to not only use your talents but also your mess. Get cooking and turn those odd ingredients into some tasty goodness. I’m just skimming the surface of my ingredient list, it’s only been recently that I put on my apron, rolled up my sleeves jumping into my life’s kitchen and combining my talents with my mess.