A Worthy Life

i am mama

Until last night, I had almost forgotten how necessary I am.

Finding myself in a week full of insecurities about my lack of academic credentials and my long list of professional disqualifications to fight on the front lines of injustice, my role in this world seemed so very small.

My wake-up call came right before lights out. We were transitioning one man child from snuggles in mama's bed to a full night's sleep in his when his belly erupted in fits and bursts.

Bent over toilet, rinsing soiled sheets where no muddy fingers or wrinkled toes would ever touch, I realized this was a uniquely mother skill. Without pausing to think or ask about the hows and wheres of taking care, I just moved in the rhythm of mother.

Hours earlier, I had extended an impromptu invitation for my youngest's inaugural sleepover and I helped foster friendship for a lonely daughter.

Pulling kids from under beds retreating from their world to sulk, I had breathed confidence and possibility back into deflated hearts.

Listening through insulated walls for the rise and fall of congested chests, I am mama with superhero powers.

Bending low to rest her head on mine, patiently I teach the crunching of numbers so there is no punching of walls.

Good mothers have these skill sets, but these are not set skills.

The learning curve is exponential, on-the-job training an ever constant education. They are no more intrinsic than they are limiting; they are strengths and gifts sought out and applied to young hearts and lives, the continual birthing of life metamorphosing into beauty and strength within the bosom of a mother.

The world needs us, the world needs mothers such as you and me. Growing wee ones by our professions of love, we offer into world the fruit of our profession...

We are, I am...mama.

Joining here today, in 5 minutes writing on what comes to heart and mind when I consider Identity.

a reflecting pool

While her siblings skateboarded down hills and climbed up trees, she sat here quietly, lost in a world all her own. I'm not sure what drew her, the beauty of the water or the stillness that invited her in. She sat there a long time, not fretting about what was going on around her or what she might be missing out on.

This was her moment, this was her peace, this was where she recharged and reflected.

My reflecting pool is often here, when I take the time to look up at a screen that soon fills with letters tapped in coming to life before me. I get lost in the blank page, it's bare beauty beckoning me to sit for a while, to reflect and then to write.

The thoughts that swirl, the questions that weigh, the joys that I live...they all empty themselves here at my reflecting pool. Once thoughts become words and cares become expressed they are somehow easier to carry, easier to understand.

And the joys, oh the joys! The moments and the faces that spiral together through my days become the DNA of my life. I won't forget them, they are cherished here.

Here, the place where I reflect...out loud.

In 5 Minutes, on Friday.

ache

Upon my pillow, the ache overflows it's banks and pours unhindered down my cheeks. The day, all of it, was too much as now perceived in the fatigue of the evening.

This mama heart feels too much, fears too many, and, in the moments of weakness and weariness, trusts too little.

For the hearts and souls under my tutelage, how will I win them? What words, what masterful plan can break through the stubbornness in theirs to trust the love in mine? How can I prove that all that I do, all that I ask of them is but momentary ache for the sake of forever joy and eternal peace?

I remember how my own father, tortured in the moment, would tell me that giving the consequence as means of instruction often hurt him as much, if not more, than it did me. I never believed it then, doubting that this imposition to what I wanted, this punishment that prevented me from continuing in my own way, could ever hurt another as much as it was ruining my young life.

Today I believe him, a belief forged from steps walked in this parenthood way. Words I believe but never use when correcting my own children.

How could they ever know the brokenness of a mother's heart when they are yet only child? How could they see the future the way that I have lived it and swallowed the bitter end of the choices I once made?

Their innocence blinds them to the cost of their rebellion, it is my love that must gently and patiently open their eyes to the reward of obedience.

This task is heavy, the consequence and reward life-altering. It is too much for them to know now all that I do, too much for me to try it alone.

Tears remained but for the night and sweet joy came in the morning. Opening my eyes to see what my God had for me, I found this truth...

"the same Lord is Lord of all, and is rich enough for the need of all who invoke Him" (Rom 10:12)

Rich salve for the anguish of a mother's heart.

Joining (late) here.

delight

Of all my children, you are the one who needs me the most. You are the one who wants me desperately near and available every second.

And yet, even in those moments of closest proximity, you are the one most likely to push away, to build a wall, to refuse to talk about what is troubling you.

Yet again at the closing of every day, it is you, bone tired in sheets all around, who begs for my kisses, who must share a prayer.

This week it became clear to me that those God has surrounded me with - husband, children, family, friends - often wink of His great love for me, how each serves as a personification of the eternal, undeserved grace and love God extends to me.

I see His wink in you too, my precious Eden, but even more that twinkle in my Father's eye when I roll my eyes heavenward in desperate demand for some help learning how just to love you so.

He knows just what He put in you, a little of me at that age with my love for folly and penchant for trouble. In you I see so much of me, so many of the same struggles I wrestled with at your age and I recognize the strong desire to do what is right even when all the while choosing what is wrong.

Look in that mirror, baby girl. It is you and me.

You while still in the struggle.

Me always by your side as a promise that God does grant victory and that He will use those eternal ingredients He gifted deep inside of you to make something beautiful of you, more precious some day because of the refining He is doing in you, and in me, today.

You are heaven's delight and so too are you mine.

Joining with Embracing the Camera and Five Minute Fridays.

real

They are the ones who see the real me, the everyday mama me.

The wake up puffy face, let's-text-this-picture-to-our-auntie scary face me.

They don't read my words here; they read my lips, my what-I-really-do rather than "what I aspire to do".

They know only a little of my impact outside of our home, little of my role as anything other than mother.

If mama is strong and patient and persevering and hopeful and grateful and respectful, so go my mini-mes.

Where I flounder and waste and resent and blame and fake, there are my students studying their teacher, wondering if this is to be learned or avoided.

If I gain all, and diminish and dismiss and defer my responsibility to show love, to give love, to teach His love, I have lost the truth of who I was created to be right now in this place on this planet to these four.

It's time to get real.

with 5 Minute Fridays...

tender hearts

Her heart is warm, her smile gracious, always inviting you in, asking you to freeze this moment in time and remember her. She longs to please, her countenance sensitive to her mother's tone. I long to build her up, assure her that she is loved just as she is so that no fragility of heart remains, only a place where tenderness makes it's home.

This discovery was hers, a remnant of once warmer days, newly clothed in icy waters. The beauty here was that the past still serves us in this our present; what once dressed and imbued our dinnertime salads now awakens us to the allure that still blossoms even in winter's harsh grasp.

Her words, a love letter weeks too early for the yearly holiday, came right on time to a mama who just this afternoon balanced precariously on the edge between firm teacher and fiery preacher. She knew nothing of my need to write today for 5 minutes, nothing of the word that spoke the challenge. Just as she tries her best, so I try mine. As her words bring sweet reward to my weary feet, so I trust my example provokes hers to follow where Jesus' trod.