100 Days of Motherhood Archives - Page 2 of 3

Better With You Here

The plan for the day improved greatly with one phone call Jeff made this morning. He needed to pick up some building materials from a friend, a friend who happens to have three giant trampolines lined up in a row in his backyard. The first one is directly under his roof.

You have no idea how fun it is to have three trampolines lined up in a row just inches from the corner of a roof unless you’ve tried it, or unless you’re under the age of ten and can imagine it.

“I’ll tell ya what,” Gary said when Jeff asked if he could drop by. “You can come on over as long as you bring the family and stay for some lemonade.”

It was settled.

The only trouble was, I’ve been fighting some fierce kid-germs, and they’re still “winning me.” I thought about this as Jeff announced the plan to the kids.

“Yahoo!” they screamed. “We can jump on the trampolines!”

“I don’t think I’ll be able to go,” I said through my stuffy nose. “I’ll probably have to stay home.”

“Even better!” one of the children shouted gleefully.

The words sliced through the air and made a direct hit.

Even better.

Even better if you don’t come.

Even better without you.

It was said carelessly because even very small children can toss heavy words about as if they weigh nothing at all, as if they mean nothing at all.

But they meant something to me, and I felt myself bleeding out right there in the middle of the kitchen because those words cut deep.

Those words were not the words of my child; they are the words of my Enemy.

They are dark words, and deep like the depths of the ocean. When all the house is asleep and the moon brings in a tide of self-doubt, I feel myself getting sucked into the currents and drowning into that ocean. It tells me that I am not enough, that I have messed it up, that I am not cut out for this. It gurgles up in me and I hear the rush of it in my ears: they all would be better off without me.

My child does not know that I have heard these words before, and often, in my own heart and my own mind. He does not know how they leave me clinging to the rocks and chanting to myself, “It is not true. It is not true.”

This child does not know how it cuts me to hear in broad daylight the words I fight in the dark.

Those words hang in the air between us and for an awful moment, I am swept out to sea by a sudden wave and I cannot breathe. It is true. All my failings, all my shortcomings, all my inadequacies: every single one of them is true. They would all be better off with someone else.

But wait…

They are not true, and they are not the words of my child. They are the words of my Enemy. I come up for air, grab hold of a bit of craggy rock, and see it for what it is. How dare my Enemy use my child’s lips to utter his lies! How dare he tread on that holy ground.

Because this calling is not my own. I did not bear these children out of my own desire, nor was I given them out of my own goodness or ability. A thousand women with empty arms deserved this more. I know it. I think of Mother’s Day, looming large on my calendar, and I weep for them because I feel so undeserving of the gift they desire. Why me? Why not them?

It is a whirlpool that easily sucks me in. I can drown in my inadequacies and I can grieve the probability that another mother could do it better, but it doesn’t erase the fact that God gave me a name I did not earn.

He called me mother.

It is a grace-calling. And grace-callings are the hardest ones to answer, I find, because they never-ever-never-ever fit right.

Because if it fit right, it wouldn’t be grace.

If it fit right, it wouldn’t leave me stumbling and tripping over my own mantle like some kind of misfit, or wrestling with doubts and uncertainties like a kid who can’t figure out how to put on her own dress.

If it fit right, I wouldn’t have to trust that God knew best, despite how I perform…

…despite what my kids think of me…

…despite the fact that I am impatient…

…and also selfish.

Despite the fact that I can’t get my arms in my own sleeves–despite all of it.

I was not called to be a mother because I was going to be good at it.

I was called to be a mother because God could make something good out of it, despite me.

I am wet and dripping, half-drowned and inglorious, yet God bends to whisper in my ear,

“It’s better with you here.”

I struggle to believe it.

It is better with you here because I AM the One who called you.

That is the truth I need to hear, and often, a truth that speaks in a whisper but shouts above the waves.

It is better with you here.

100 Beautiful Days of Motherhood: 41

I’m for Childhood

I’m for skinned knees,

Grass stains,

Sweaty foreheads,

And Band-Aids.

I’m for ice cream drips,

And soggy cones,

For Popsicle stains,

And Icees.

I’m for campfires,

Sooty hotdogs,

Lightning bugs,

And stars.

I’m for blanket forts,

Bedtime stories,

And flashlights.

I’m for sleeping close.

I’m for swings under trees,

Daisy chains,

And dandelion fluff.

I’m for touching the sky.

I’m for wide fields,

Deep woods,

And All Things Scary.

I’m for adventure.

I’m for Good Guys,

For super-hero capes,

Stick-swords,

And muscles.

I’m for King of the Mountain,

Tag,

And Hide-n-Seek.

I’m for playing.

I’m for road trips,

And “You’re-on-my-side,”

And “He’s-looking-at-me,”

And “If I have to pull over…”

I’m for bicycles,

Going too fast,

And Down-Hill.

I’m for brakes.

I’m for climbing trees,

Apple picking,

And leaf piles.

I’m for pumpkins.

I’m for Grandma’s house,

Sleepovers,

And extra dessert.

I’m for being spoiled.

I’m for stuffed animals,

the Tooth Fairy,

Christmas stockings,

And wishes.

I’m for first snowfalls,

Soggy mittens,

And cocoa.

I’m for marshmallows.

I’m for freckles,

Sticky kisses,

And dimpled hands.

I’m for “I love you.”

I’m for rainbows,

Twirling umbrellas,

And puddles.

I’m for mud pies.

I’m for stomping.

I’m for skipping,

And running,

And flying.

I’m for imagination,

For new crayons,

Fresh paper,

And possibilities.

Crafting

I’m for discovery,

For turning over rocks,

Taking a leap,

Being brave.

I’m for newborn noises,

Kid conversations,

And questions.

I’m for naps.

I’m for growing.

I’m for new clothes,

Birthdays,

And missing teeth.

I’m for time—

For eternal days,

And days that go too quickly.

I’m for childhood.

100 Days of Motherhood, 40

Eight Years of Living

Yesterday, Jonathan woke up to eight years of living quietly slipping into nine. It’s a strange thing to watch it ebb away day by day, leaving so little changed, until one day it is gone altogether and a new year has begun.

This was the year of third grade, of lost teeth and a military haircut like Daddy’s that almost broke Mom’s heart into two. It was a year counted out in 52 one-dollar bills from helping Mrs. Smith with her chores each week, and parsed out in rows and rows of yarn knit together in the sugary presence of a grandmother who ran out of grandchildren before she ran out of cookies.

It was the year of being the man of the house, of counting and waiting and being brave while other boys, bigger boys, got to have his daddy instead of him.

It was an Army year.

Daddy said it was work but there were obstacle courses and war simulations and MREs and one amazing ride in a Black Hawk, and it doesn’t take a genius to know what’s playing and what’s not.

It was a year of bike crashes and skinned knees and chopping down a real tree with a real ax all by himself while Mom tried not to watch from the kitchen window and Dad said lots of words about how it would be fine because there’s nothing better for a boy than chopping down a real tree with a real ax. That’s something a man could do, and being eight, almost nine, is just half-way to being a grown-up man.

Mom turned away when he said it because it couldn’t be true.

But there was a grin on the face of an eight-year-old boy, almost nine, when he hauled that heavy green stump up the hill, triumphant, that made his mother think he was already more a man than she had realized, and a little bit of that baby boy of hers slipped away while she wasn’t looking.

He was born on an Easter, the first-born son of a mother who was trying to be brave about having two children nineteen months apart when she didn’t think she hadn’t quite recovered from the idea of having any.

He was a week overdue, growing fat and heavy inside a mother who felt fat and heavy, and fearful too. She wasn’t sure she could do it, could have a baby in the normal way when the first had been turned upside down and had to come out with the help of surgeons and white lights and room that was all at once pure and mean.

She wasn’t sure she could have another baby when the sutures in her heart were still so fresh. The rawness of dark memories and wicked tears stung her mind, and she wondered if she was healthy enough to love a second baby when the love for the first had just begun to drip in. She wasn’t sure she had enough to spare.

But it was Easter.

And the angels were dancing on a stone that was too heavy to roll away and there was life creeping back in where the stench of death hung low. There was redemption and the miracle of resurrection revealed to harlot eyes.

It was Easter, and that mother was the first to feel the miracle flush across her face.

The nurses placed that heavy baby boy across her chest, and there was no terror and there was no fear because the miracle was too big and there wasn’t any room left. It was pushing out the darkness and sweeping up the remnants of guilt and sadness over what had been and left hope for what was yet to be.

That little boy grew up into smiles that were too big for his face and a laughter that was too big for the room. He loved everyone, and he loved his sister most of all, so much that he filled up some of the love she was lacking for him until one day, she realized she loved him right back. They were thick as thieves, Faith and Jonathan, Jonathan and Faith.

Their mother would hold them together on her lap with story books all around and wonder why God would bother to raise the dead when the living were all around.

Perhaps it is because He is the only one who can.

Yesterday, when eight years slipped quietly into nine, that mother stopped a moment and thought about it all, holding it up in her heart because it was too precious to put down anywhere else. She thought about how some things can ebb away, little by little, so you hardly even notice. Then one day, you look, and it is gone, and something better has taken its place.

100 Beautiful Days of Motherhood: 38

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