For today
Today is Mother's Day, and not my best.
This is a difficult season for me, and though I can point to many reasons, I can't fully articulate all I'm feeling.
This year, I had hoped, would be about restoration. It's my one word. No plan of action, no list of goals, no study focus. Just a hope, at times a desperate longing, for somewhere I'd like to end up. Restored.
But in thinking about restoration, it is a painful and dramatic thing that never happens quickly. In fact, and knowing this firsthand having lived in and through a home remodel, things usually have to get worse before they can get better.
It's where I am, the worse, and I'm not handling it well. I'm not the wife or mother or daughter or sister or friend or Christ-follower I should be. The storm clouds of last year have settled into a fog around me.
Everything is not OK. I work hard every day to maintain peace, to keep our home at least us-nice, to try and invest in the boys, to become more of what God wants me to be. And every day I look around and all I see and hear is failure.
I know it's just a season because I've been here before. Though I think I'm more angry at it this time because the boys are in such a precious place where they are growing up and fun and funny, but they still need us, will still talk to us and snuggle. Time is marching on and it doesn't seem to care that I can't pull myself together enough to be the wife and mother and daughter and sister and friend and Christ-follower I should be. I can't fix it.
What I'm learning, though, slowly and begrudgingly, is that sometimes things just have to stay broken for a while. Oswald Chambers said, "If through a broken heart God can bring His purposes to pass in the world, then thank Him for breaking your heart."
In the brokenness, He is working. He will restore. He is enough.
Besides the irreplaceable handmade whimsies the boys have given me, complete with paint stains on their clothes, there's one more thing I'd like for Mother's Day, from this article that had me at hello.
Today I am thankful for these two priceless boys who call me Mama. Living, breathing, growing, running, jumping, shouting, wrestling evidence of how much God loves me. I could not ask for more.
And today I am thankful for this amazing woman, my Mom, who has poured her life into mine every day for almost thirty-five years. Never could there be adequate words to say thank you for who she is to me.
Happy Mother's Day.
This is a difficult season for me, and though I can point to many reasons, I can't fully articulate all I'm feeling.
This year, I had hoped, would be about restoration. It's my one word. No plan of action, no list of goals, no study focus. Just a hope, at times a desperate longing, for somewhere I'd like to end up. Restored.
But in thinking about restoration, it is a painful and dramatic thing that never happens quickly. In fact, and knowing this firsthand having lived in and through a home remodel, things usually have to get worse before they can get better.
It's where I am, the worse, and I'm not handling it well. I'm not the wife or mother or daughter or sister or friend or Christ-follower I should be. The storm clouds of last year have settled into a fog around me.
Everything is not OK. I work hard every day to maintain peace, to keep our home at least us-nice, to try and invest in the boys, to become more of what God wants me to be. And every day I look around and all I see and hear is failure.
I know it's just a season because I've been here before. Though I think I'm more angry at it this time because the boys are in such a precious place where they are growing up and fun and funny, but they still need us, will still talk to us and snuggle. Time is marching on and it doesn't seem to care that I can't pull myself together enough to be the wife and mother and daughter and sister and friend and Christ-follower I should be. I can't fix it.
What I'm learning, though, slowly and begrudgingly, is that sometimes things just have to stay broken for a while. Oswald Chambers said, "If through a broken heart God can bring His purposes to pass in the world, then thank Him for breaking your heart."
In the brokenness, He is working. He will restore. He is enough.
Besides the irreplaceable handmade whimsies the boys have given me, complete with paint stains on their clothes, there's one more thing I'd like for Mother's Day, from this article that had me at hello.
What you really want, desperately, wildly, in spite of everything — is for them to remember the good. To remember enough of the times you whispered, “I Love You”. To know how many times you broke your heart and how how hard you really tried.
Today I am thankful for these two priceless boys who call me Mama. Living, breathing, growing, running, jumping, shouting, wrestling evidence of how much God loves me. I could not ask for more.
And today I am thankful for this amazing woman, my Mom, who has poured her life into mine every day for almost thirty-five years. Never could there be adequate words to say thank you for who she is to me.
Happy Mother's Day.
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