I clicked on an interesting article today...Why Being a Mom is Enough.
One paragraph from the article stuck out in particular for me:
"Sometimes we want to look to those big things and use them as a grade for success. We look at the cool science fair projects where our child got the blue ribbon. But, honestly, we miss the hours of interacting and holding glue sticks and looking up things and laughing side by side. We want the trips to Disney or American Girl Doll and discount the time spent in the backyard. The bar of success and joy and happiness gets pushed so high by culture that the little things, the enough mom moments, are lost."
I love the bigger moments....planned outings and vacations are special family time. One of the reasons these times are so special is because they don't happen all that often. Special trips and vacations...and we have been blessed that Disney and the American Girl Doll experiences have been a part of our own family memories....aren't part of the daily every day comings and goings that fill my kids' emotional tanks.
What really fills their emotional love tanks are the moments that we are blessed to have each day playing together, working together, and just breathing together. (Of course, there are lots of everyday moments that have the potential to suck their emotional love tanks dry, too, but we will stick with the positives today!)
Every day is an opportunity to try, with God's Grace, to create an atmosphere of love in my home. Every moment of every day is my chance to grow in patience(when someone spills their water cup for the 8th time in 15 minutes) and endurance(when my strength has to last longer than Kate's temper tantrum) and selflessness(when Luke is asking me to play Legos and all I want is to work on is my to-do list).
My family is my world. My children and husband are on my mind constantly. There are prayers I utter countless times a day when they are on my heart....like when I know they are driving to or from school, or when I'm folding one of their shirts, or when I see a picture or a commercial of something they like.
(And of course there are those other prayers I say for those moments I find a pile of dirty towels "hiding" in the middle of their bedroom floor....or the empty bowl from the ice cream they ate the night before next to the couch...or their dirty laundry that must have magically jumped from the bathroom hamper back onto the floor! You know, the "God, please help insert name here not to be such a slob!)
I think Rachel said it best....
"A mother isn’t based on external perfection. A mother is the person, the woman, just like you. The woman with little ones in her care that she loves, and sometimes wonders how she loves them because they’re driving her batty, but still she does. She fights, gives, prays, works, and doesn’t give up even when she wants to throw in the towel."
Amen, Sista'! :)
