Motherhood is hard.
I can't tell you the number of nights I worry if I am doing enough, being enough, getting enough parenting answers right.
I've always been one to want to get it right the first time. I don't particularly care to attempt something that I think I'll fail. I'm not much of a risk taker. Give me a planner and no uninterrupted plans and I'm a happy person.
But kids don't work like that.
Let's be really honest--life doesn't work like that.
Kids are loud, chaotic, curious, energetic and non-stop. They can't wait to experience everything and I'm nervous about experiencing anything.
They soak up all the emotional, mental and physical energy I have during the day and then have the audacity to ask for more energy during the night for whatever reason.
There is no day off, no holiday break, no weekends.
I am fully responsible to feed, clothe, care for, nurture, teach and protect each one every. single. day. Anyone else feel a little overwhelmed by the magnitude of the responsibility of it all?
But... This is what I dreamed of. This is what I wanted. These small people were something I had in my heart years ago. Yet, I NEVER, EVER imagined it would be this hard.
No one tells you it's going to be this hard. Even if they did tell me, I wouldn't have believed it because there is no way to fully understand motherhood until you experience it.
It's love so fierce that people are more correct than they know when they compare a human mother to an angry mother bear.
It's an exhaustion so deep that it is hard to recover from.
It's a day filled with an extreme emotional pendulum of thoughts and feelings you didn't know existed.
It's a daily death of self, a personal sacrifice, for the benefit of another life.
It almost feels like a process of sanctification.
Sanctification: to make holy (Dictionary.com)
Then the thought occurred to me...
These children that the Lord gave me... maybe it is not supposed to be so much of me trying to perfect them, but God using them to perfect me--to teach me more about Him, unconditional love, mercy, compassion, faith and selflessness.
What if God's greatest blessings are the lessons learned from them?
Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness and self control.
Isn't that what I pray for?
I may need to move up to the front of the class and pay more attention to the lesson.
I can't tell you the number of nights I worry if I am doing enough, being enough, getting enough parenting answers right.
I've always been one to want to get it right the first time. I don't particularly care to attempt something that I think I'll fail. I'm not much of a risk taker. Give me a planner and no uninterrupted plans and I'm a happy person.
But kids don't work like that.
Let's be really honest--life doesn't work like that.
Kids are loud, chaotic, curious, energetic and non-stop. They can't wait to experience everything and I'm nervous about experiencing anything.
They soak up all the emotional, mental and physical energy I have during the day and then have the audacity to ask for more energy during the night for whatever reason.
There is no day off, no holiday break, no weekends.
I am fully responsible to feed, clothe, care for, nurture, teach and protect each one every. single. day. Anyone else feel a little overwhelmed by the magnitude of the responsibility of it all?
But... This is what I dreamed of. This is what I wanted. These small people were something I had in my heart years ago. Yet, I NEVER, EVER imagined it would be this hard.
No one tells you it's going to be this hard. Even if they did tell me, I wouldn't have believed it because there is no way to fully understand motherhood until you experience it.
It's love so fierce that people are more correct than they know when they compare a human mother to an angry mother bear.
It's an exhaustion so deep that it is hard to recover from.
It's a day filled with an extreme emotional pendulum of thoughts and feelings you didn't know existed.
It's a daily death of self, a personal sacrifice, for the benefit of another life.
It almost feels like a process of sanctification.
Sanctification: to make holy (Dictionary.com)
Then the thought occurred to me...
These children that the Lord gave me... maybe it is not supposed to be so much of me trying to perfect them, but God using them to perfect me--to teach me more about Him, unconditional love, mercy, compassion, faith and selflessness.
What if God's greatest blessings are the lessons learned from them?
Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness and self control.
Isn't that what I pray for?
I may need to move up to the front of the class and pay more attention to the lesson.
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