What No One Tells Weary Moms

It’s not glamorous. There, I said it!

There is nothing Facebook-worthy, or Instagram pretty about spagetti strung all across the kitchen floor. Cherrios lingering in the corners of your home, urine lined-toilets because little boys can’t aim, or a teenager assaulting you with language heard at school….

Not. glamorous.

Yes, there’s nothing Hollywood or hopeful about diarhea crawling up a toddlers back, or therapies and treatments for children with ADD, autistism, or a thousand other behaviors.

Where Motherhood is concerned….There seems only to be silent heroins.

Wonderwoman takes the screen, hard-bodied athletes promise “getting fit” is the answer to our dreams…

But reality is, baby fat, baggy clothes, and powdered shampooed hair, have no praise in the real-life “Mommy-world”.

Yet, every one of those thirty-thousand times you wake up at night to feed your nursing infant, put heat on your back from the sling you’ve been dangling your children in…Every time you bend a knee to pray for your growing men or women…God sees.

Yes, He sees and He is near.

And what I think we fail to tell our mothers, the stories and truths about the honest pathway we try to decorate, polish, sugarcoat, or deceive about…Is that the road to raising children isn’t easy.

The journey to exceptional parenting doesn’t just come with “hopes” or “wishing”, but a fierce tenacity to give yourself away, day after day, hour after hour, in sacrificial surrender to the little eyes peering up at you.

And every home-run, has countless strike-outs, every great success story, is often laced in a thousand tries and failings.

Because, this journey is far from any perfect, clean, t.v. series. It’s challenging, yet beautiful, requires guts, strength, courage, and fearlessness…

And we must each wrestle with our own personal demons, letting kindness win, grace and humility be our champion…not pride, praises from men, or letting our own egos win thousands of untold scars.

We must fight against the temptations of jealousy and doubt when “perfection” smiles on Instagram, other families are offering only their perfectly edited photos…

I suggest we dig deep into our own past, and shovel out our own ugly, because there is nothing like children to surface what’s been dormant in us, hiding…

And children are gifts from heaven, they don’t need us to show them hell on earth.

And what I think most mom’s really don’t realize is…

It is o.k. to be unseen and heard, to lock yourselves away, spending lazy Saturdays wearing pajamas, playing music, and dancing wildly to Disney.

• It’s o.k. to let your kids make you feel young and silly, play games of peek-a-boo, taking the adventure into their imaginations of tea parties, theaters, and stories made up from puppet shows.
• It’s o.k. to let your children remind you of laughter, simplicity, silly songs, and easy listening.
• It’s o.k….and even wise…to speak less and listen more, to let your kids tell you what they love and who they are (As long as it is in the context of Scripture)
• It’s o.k. to not be in a thousand activities, chasing some neighbors idea of perfection, being like the family who has careers and achievements and their children leaving to sports and events every night of the week.
• It’s o.k. to play an unstructured game of kickball, take a long, calm stroll along the sidewalk in your neighborhood…
• It’s o.k. to bypass fancy dinners, where everyone feels stiff and rigid, and instead let spaghetti string from the high chair, while everyone smiles, laughs, talks and prays together.
• It’s o.k. to be friends with your adult children. When they are grown, your roll changes, and parents can step back intentionally from commanding and demanding, to simply being a sounding board…someone safe, and welcoming, and non-judgemental.
• It’s o.k. to let your children fall, to let them own their mistakes, to make them responsible to pick up the pieces from the things they’ve done….
• But, it’s also o.k. to encourage them when they most need it. It won’t make them weak, soft, helpless, or dependent.
• It’s o.k. for YOU to get a hot cup of tea, turn on cinnamon and orange slices to simmer….just to make it through another day.
• It’s o.k….in fact…it’s vital for your children to hear scripture, through worship songs, age-appropriate Bible reading, through play and your testimony. Always making room for random conversations you never expected, because the Holy Spirit prompts you….
• It’s also o.k. to sneak away for dates with your husband. To find a few hours where kids enjoy babysitters, so your relationship can be the strongest, most loving relationship your child ever sees.

But most of all, above all, I hope you hear….What you are doing isn’t wasted. This moment, this hour, this weary-second your spending is forming history, shaping, molding and creating a legacy…

You are defining and refining, pruning and dispensing His grace and purposes, building cathedrals which will one day rise up and be something beautiful. Yes, God will one day multiply the fruit of your hands….

Don’t waist this moment. Don’t look around and wish the grass was greener, somehow more full….your children were wiser, or brighter, or even somebody elses.

Let thanks be the fragrance of your lips, gratitidue and praise flow effortlessly from your soul, even when your floor is scattered with toys, your eye-lids dip and your face sags from your desperate lack of sleep…

Friends, won’t you put away your phones and laptops. Stop for these years and look into your child’s eyes. They desperately need you…

These moments will not last. For even mom’s can’t turn back time.

And one day, the door will close for the last time. They’ll be leaving for college, walk down the isle, and you will look back and long for simpler times, when fingerprints litered your window, cherrios sprawled across your floors.

And I promise…

You won’t want any regrets. You won’t care then, who posts what on the internet…

All you’ll want is to look back with no regrets, remember those moments you had, craddling your little one with the arms of love they longed for…

And all the degrees and successes and athletic achievements won’t matter…

What will matter is the type of relationship you had with your children…if there was time and care, and respect for one another…

Yes, mom’s…it’s o.k. if we aren’t perfect. If we are worn out and weary and can’t remember what day or time it is….

Because all little fingers long for, is gripping, little hearts need is the reflection of who they are, in whatever sweet whispers you sing to them…

And in just a blink of an eye all this will pass. Dear tired, weary mom’s, this season won’t last…

And in the end, it won’t matter how much spagetti spills on the floor…

For they will remember, yes, likely the only thing your children will ever remember…is the time you spent, the things you said, and in every small, quiet moment…

How you made them feel.

Don’t miss these moments, mom. Your job is a gift, it is important. Your work isn’t in vain…

You are molding the Universe….

And that’s a job worth every weary muscle, a job worth exonerating.

Hi Moms! Life is pretty busy right now. However, I have been so touched by all the moms out there! All you do, really is worth CELEBRATING!! 

After 24 years of parenting, nearly two dozen kids, God put it on my heart to write a list of the “MUST-HAVE’S” that our family has found useful in our own personal home. Please check back soon, clicking the page that says “Family Matters” and discover some lists of products that we personally have discovered to make this kid-raising-journey so much easier! 

Also, there will likely be many more practical parenting and family posts in the future! I am all in, up to neck in this amazingly wonderfuly, incredibly joyous, over-the-top delightful job of parenting, right now!

Blessings to each of you! 

~ Love from a Mom who is simply on a Jesus Gazing, Savior Seeking, Glory Giving, God pointing Journey Along with you