I am Your Mother

Dear beautiful daughters of mine, Until you are blessed enough to have babies of your own you will never understand, and even then you may never understand the workings of my mind. Just like it says in the children's book I am your mother.  I am not one of those mothers who knew what motherhood was from conception.  I knew that I was woefully prepared for the task even before I met you, but that was okay.  I didn't know what motherhood was until I held you for the first time.  Not until the first time I lay awake at night and cried because I didn't know how to get you to sleep.  Not until we were on about our fifteenth dr.s appointment and everyone in the office already knew your name then I knew what it was like to be a mother.  I was a mother, down in the trenches, ready or not there I was.  Don't get me wrong I remember the feelings with both of you, the first kicks, first ultrasounds, hearing your heartbeats, the hiccups, and finding out you were both going to be girls.  All those moments were magical, but I didn't feel like a mother.  Not until I saw both pairs of beautiful eyes staring into mine wanting me to love you needing me to care for you.  With every hard moment I feel more and more like your mother and I don't think that will ever change.  Every time you are sick and I am the only one who can soothe you.  Every time you feel sad and broken and I can dig down and do something right, that makes me know I am your mother.  Sometimes being a mother is more physically, mentally, and emotionally more than I feel like I can handle.  But somehow I make it through.  You two are the reason I make it through.  Just a smile, an I love you, or a look at you sweet sleeping face no matter how much of a terror you were twenty minutes before.  You have also made me.  Now sometimes I look back and I can't remember who I was before I was a mother.  I know a lot of people say that it's not good to lose yourself in your kids and not live you own life.  But that's not how it happened in me.  I didn't lose myself in motherhood, I found myself.   I found so many things about myself I never knew.  So many different sides to myself.  I also rediscovered my faith with you two.  I feel like being a mother has made me more of myself than I could have ever been without you.  I'm not sure if it's seeing myself with you or seeing myself in you.  You make me crazier than I ever thought I could be, you are greatest thing that has ever happened to me and have been such a big blessing to my life.  Every shed tear (mine and yours), every sleepless night, every fight, every moment where I thought I couldn't do this; they are blessings all of them.  I cherish every moment with you even the hard ones where we both have tears streaking down our faces.  Some are a little easier to cherish later, but these are the moments that make us.  This love that binds us makes us, and you made me.  I am your mother. I love you.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Perseverance and Hope

Romans 5:2-5 And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.  Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.  And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. In my bible reading last night I came across these verses and they spoke to my heart in such a deep way.  I thought that this was just God's way of saying He sees me and life's hard in a very general sense.  We have been studying God's providence in our church bible study and I had no idea I would see it in real life the very next day.  Now this wasn't a cataclysmic day by any means, but it was a lot of life's normal hard all at one time. It started as a normal day one where my child woke my up at 3AM because she didn't feel well and wanted mommy. Then it moved on after I tucked her back in bed where she stayed until 5:30.  It then proceeded to a day where we left the house late and almost didn't make it to work in time for the morning FCA at school.  We did make it though. Then I made it back to my room in time to see real grief.   Some people don't understand what it's like to be a teacher we see a side of students that others don't.  Whether we like them or not they all have a special place in our hearts.  They belonged to us, they remain a part of us.  We are the ones that get to see their true potential buried in there whether we get to bring it out or not.  I got to watch a teacher walk across the hall in tears to ask me if I had heard about the death the night before of a former student of hers.  One that she talks about all the time.  She always reminisces about how cute he was, his smile, and how sweet of a personality he had.  I saw true grief on her face as she tried to come to terms as did many of our students.  I've lost a former student once.  He wasn't even one who I particularly liked.  He gave me such a hard time, but to find out that such youth didn't have a chance broke a little piece of my heart.  That piece that he remained in no matter how I felt about him.  The particular favor a student has with us or doesn't doesn't make us love them any less.  I know that's hard for others to understand. After that all these other issues are mundane, but the straw that broke the camel's back usually is.  I spent about 45 minutes of my planning period making copies this morning, just to get back to my room and realize that I made them incorrectly and therefore didn't have everything I had that day.  And if you work with teenagers you know that they will point out your mistakes to you over and over again all day long.  On the way back to the copy room to copy the one page I messed up so that I could at least teach today I cried.  Not big loud boo-hooing sobs, but silent tears of anger frustration, and melancholy leaked out as I rushed back to the copy room. Later in the day I get paged over the intercom to call the daycare and I knew in my gut what that meant.  I had to go to the other side of campus to flag down my husband so he could go get her.  After a long wait and he dr.s office trip he texted to tell me that she has strep again, poor thing.  After school I had to run around and get plans ready for tomorrow so I could stay home with her while my husband is out of town on a coaches clinic.  Then we had to fight with the pharmacy over the prescription and I had to text the dr. to straighten it all out.  What a day. Sometimes I feel like it's just a normal day in my life, but that's not true.  That's just what you think when you let it get the best of you.  Thinking about these verses that I came across last night is what saved me from my day and brought me to this conclusion about God's providence.  I know this is such a small example, but sometimes we just need him to speak directly to us even in the small ways.  God brought me to this verse last night so that after today I would not lose hope.  So I could rejoice in it and in the sufferings of the day.  I know that my sufferings are nothing compared to those they were talking about in Romans, but I think the intent is still true.  I'm not sure if I can rejoice in this day, but I do know that I can accept it or even be okay with it I know that it's for a purpose, to build my perseverance, my character, and my hope.  This beautiful hope that God has poured into me and that I can testify to the fact that it never disappoints.  I have been through things before and the fact that I have made it here that I have made it back testifies to the power of the hope that he began pouring into me as a child.  HOPE is a beautiful thing.

My grace

I've been hearing a lot about grace lately.  I read about in a book I was reading, the pastor preached about it Sunday, I keep hearing songs about it on the radio, and I even read a blog post about it this week.  This is a super busy week for me and I have way too much going on for me to even fathom, but looking at myself in the mirror at almost 9 o'clock I had a revelation and it was so big I had trouble sleeping last night.  In his sermon the pastor talked about how all grace is His grace.  That it all comes from God.  I am not disputing that, but I do think that sometimes grace comes directly from God and sometimes the path of God's grace is a little more indirect.  I think that we can give a portion of the grace that God has given to us to others.  We can show others the great power of God's love through the grace that we show others.  I also believe that any grace we show others we on,u have because God gave it to us to share.   I am a very self aware individual I have many flaws and I know what they are.  I know how hard I can be to get along with.  I also know that I have strengths and attributes.  Now I will admit that I tend to be much harder on myself than I need to be.  Also I have always had a lot to compare myself to.  I have four sisters.  I have never felt like I was the pretty one.  I have never felt like I was the personable one.  I am smart, but so are the rest of my sisters.  Girls are about comparisons.  Then I found myself looking in the mirror with my big crazy hair, my dark circles, the extra weight I never managed to lose after #2, and a full days exhaustion, and I saw something that I had not seen in a very long time.  There was some beauty in that face.  I have never been particularly fond of my own looks, but I don't know if it was seeing all the memories of my father in that face, seeing the beauty of being a mother finally, or if it just had to do with finally giving myself a break.   I am my own worst critic and I never feel good enough at any of the thing that I am trying to accomplish, but in that moment it was different.  What I realized is I've got to give myself a break.  I've got to let myself have some of that grace God is trying so desperately to give me. The preacher commented on how we can be perfect for now.  Perfect at this stage.  I don't know if I will ever wrap my head around that, but I think I can come to term with being what's needed.  I am the mother that my girls need right and God willing as they need something else I can be that too.  I am the teacher that at least one of my students needs right now.   And that doesn't always mean that it has to be good or easy.  My new revelation was put to the test this morning.  I had crying and tantrum throwing left and right while my dear hubby was not here.  At one point I had to just put my three year old in her room to cry, but when I stopped and took a breath I gave myself a little grace.  It stopped me from that old trap of telling myself I was a terrible mother.  I was the mother she needed right then even if that meant she had to cry for a little bit.  Whether you want to call it giving yourself a little bit of grace or just letting you have the grace God is trying to give you it is the same sentiment and it comes from the same source.  It may not work for me every day, but for today it not only worked, it was profound.  And it makes me want to ask when was the last time you gave yourself a little grace?

Memory Lane

Lately I've spent a great deal of time traveling down memory lane.  I'm not sure what has made me so introspective as of late it is probably some combination of my baby girl being sick, my oldest starting to plan her 4th birthday party(and when did four get so old), and the fact that my 30th birthday is right around the corner.  I am not in the middle of a mid life crisis, I promise.  So far this trip down memory lane has been good and I think I had forgotten that sometimes it could be a good and beautiful thing.  It has been overshadowed by so many hurts for so long.  I've been remembering some good and funny times with my dad as a child.  Like when he would try and do my hair and my little sisters until I was old enough to do both of ours.  His love for fireworks.  The way his nature seemed to completely change when he was with the two of us.  He was different with us that everyone else.  It was like the grizzly turned into a teddy.  One of my students sparked the memory of when my hubby gave me my promise ring before I off and left him for college.  Reminiscing about what it felt like for three small town kids who graduated together in a class of about 80 to ban together at the big university to take on the world.  And man all the feelings of being pregnant the first time and then bringing that baby girl home with me.  Then all the faker and celebrations that came with my second pregnancy.   Sometimes it's good to remember, even when it's hard to forget.  Sometimes I get so trapped in all the things I've had to push through that I never just stop to smell the roses and remember that there were some beautiful moments in there too that helped to make me who I am.  Even the Phoenix who rises up from the ashes didn't have all bad days.  I think that particularly with all that is going on in the world and in my life it is even more important to stop every once and a while sip the hot chocolate and remember.  Not to get stuck in the past, but to remind myself that no matter how hard things may seem there is always beauty there.  Look for the beauty and savor it.  Memory lane is a two way street and tonight I'm walking on he sunny side of it.