"So God Made a Mother..." (Ann Voskamp)

I've got some planning to do. School planning. Life planning. Meal planning.

Just kidding on that last one.

But I should do it.

I spend a lot of time wishing I felt more at home in my house. I bet if I thought of this house as my home, then I would feel more like it was. (Sometimes when I think of feelings, I just think,"Blech!" They can be such liars.) I'm always wishing I were somewhere else. But what if I spent that time making this my home, our home? Maybe there would be more peace?

Instead of peace, there are a lot of pieces, like so many different puzzles tossed into the air on a windy day in downtown Chicago. Scattered. Mixed-up. Upside-down. But what if it's one puzzle in the end, one puzzle made up of many different puzzles that all fit together to make a bigger picture?

I read this on Ann Voskamp's blog tonight (it's from a couple of days ago):

Someone who knows that in every hard place is exactly where you extend grace, who looks a hopeful child in the eye and says yes, even though she knows every yes means a mess but this is how you bless, who has the courage to keep letting go because she’s holding on to Me.

God said I need somebody who can shape a soul and find shoes on Sunday mornings and get grass stains out of Levis. [This made me giggle because her son's name is Levi too.]

And make dinner out of nothing and do it again 79, 678 times, and keep kids off the road and out of the toilet and in clean underwear and mainly alive though she’s mainly losing her mind and will put in an 80 hour week by Wednesday night and just do one more load of laundry.

And one more sink of crusted burnt pots.

And keep on going another eighty hours because raising generations matters and weaving families matters and tying heart strings matters and these people here matter.

So God made a mother…

And you know, sometimes (read: most of the time) I just plain ignore my most important, best job. And it's time to stop doing that. I am no fool (Stop laughing!) and I know that big changes don't happen overnight (usually)...so I am going to pray for patience and change and more presence. (The kids would really like it if that read "presents".) (But maybe my presence can be just as good as so many presents?)

As she says, God made me a mother...now may he make me a Mommy. (Even Michaela still calls me that, and the miracle is it's often preceded by,"I love you.")

Comments

[Wendy]

I can imagine how powerful that commercial must have been for her. I remember listening to Paul Harvey with my mom, so it was very nostalgic for me. I went back and read her full entry on "Mother" and it almost made me cry. She is such a great writer!

[Christina]

Yes, she is...I read her stuff and think,"That's what I wish I could write!" :)