Motherhood is not for wimps

After almost two hours, I finally pulled myself away from my steaming bath where I mindlessly played Bejeweled on Josh’s ipod. (yeah, apparently that super-addictive game that comes on cell-phones can be purchased for your ipod, too! And my husband, who knew I spent some of my early labor with Samantha playing it, decided to buy it for me as a new year’s present. Hmm…that five dollars just might ruin all my free time…yikes!)

Anyway, my blog is sort of on life-support now. Not because I am tired of blogging – no, on the contrary! It’s still that stupid underwater cable that slows down our internet. I could mail a letter individually to all my readers faster than I will be able to post this blog. Nevertheless, that is not the point of my post.

The point of this blog (as you can tell from the title) is that my motherhood abilities lately have been stretched. The way I see it, one of these two factors is the issue: (a) I have TWO children or, (b) I have one child who is two years old. When emma was samantha’s age, life was happy, fun, and do-able. There was little I needed to do for her except feed, change, and love her. Kisses and focused attention were cures for anything.

Oh, but now that Emma is a two-year-old, there’s more to the package than just meeting physical needs. There are other parts of her little self that are maturing – her spirit, her will, her soul. Those aspects have required much more of me than I thought. It’s true – when the battle is just against “flesh and blood”, solutions come easy. But now the battle is against “spiritual forces”, that ingrained nature that wills against everything that her conscience prods her to do.

And I am her mother – I have the God-given job of tear-wiper, nose-cleaner, boo-boo-kisser. I also have been entrusted by God to help guide her on a path towards righteousness, to point her towards God Himself.

But how can I do that when I rely on my own power? Sure, no one would outright say that they live their life in their own power – but my actions are screaming what my words would never be bold enough to say. My actions say that I’m too busy changing diapers, getting lunch ready and cleaning dirty toddler panties to really spend much time with Him. My actions are saying that since my children have an insane tendency to wake up with the roosters that I get a free-pass for not being diligent to rise before them. My actions say, “Sorry, Lord…I’ll try to handle today on my own.”

And recently my world has come crashing down. Nothing drastic, nothing terrible. Just the constant grind of daily demands that saps my kindness, my gentleness, my godliness. Being the best mother I can be is just not a good standard anymore. There are some days when “the best I can do” is a pretty pathetic display of behavior. Just because that is “the best I can do” does not mean that is how God intended me to parent my children that day.

My call is to be the mother HE wants me to be. That means exhibiting His qualities towards my children. That means that when Emma pees in her panties for the six-billionth time, that I can firmly punish her but can do it without letting my exasperation shame her. That means when Emma chooses to act like a two-year-old, I choose to act like the Lord, NOT like a two-year-old. That means if I spend the entire day holding Samantha, dealing with emma, and keeping the house in quasi-order, I can do it without carrying my “woe is me” attitude around with me. I can do it, as serving the Lord, not serving men.

But it also means that I need to make my time with Him more of a priority. If I have to wake up earlier, so be it. (perhaps I should go to bed earlier instead of posting to my blog at 1130pm…) Most certainly, something has to change. One thing is certain: I’m a pretty decent mom. But pretty decent is not my standard, or His.

Will you pray for me? I truly feel like Emma is at a crucial time in her life – she is learning her boundaries, she is learning right and wrong and the consequences of each. The spiritual foundation she will carry with her all of her life is being laid during these early years. Many days, I feel I am far from adequate for the task. I feel like I respond to her from my own flesh and my own wisdom. I feel exasperated. I feel frustrated. I feel like all my glorious visions of motherhood are swirling wildly down the drain. And yet, I want to respond to her with God’s love, in ways that point her towards the infinite kindness and tenderness of her Heavenly Father. What an overwhelming responsibility!

Please pray that my time with Him will set the tone for each morning; that my relationship with emma will flow from my relationship with my Father. Pray that I can get my lazy duff out of bed in the morning so that I have some moments of solitude before the chaos begins.