Surrender.
It was the last word she wrote.
It was the last word she wrote.
I scrolled back up through the text and read it a second
time - a prayer for peace and trust
and encouragement. Then, the final word from a friend who’s been here…
surrender.
One of the most important tools I have as a mother is the ability
to call on friends in my weak moments. One such friend mothers twice as many kids as me and we have an
understanding that if our days dip too low we will send out a mommy 9-1-1
alert. If one of us receives the
alert we get on our knees. We pray
from a place of knowing and understanding - a place in which it is easy to plead
for another because we’ve been in the pleading place ourselves.
Thankfully we have yet to have simultaneous mommy 9-1-1
days. If that every happened I think we might just ball ourselves up together behind a locked door and cry for
hours. If you’re a mom, you know
what I mean. You need people to cry with you sometimes.
There are weeks like these when life has worn me so bare that I can’t even muster up enough
strength to make it through the next 5 minutes.
A week that contains both a funeral and a wedding.
A leak in the kitchen ceiling.
A child who has decided to regress in his toileting.
A week that contains both a funeral and a wedding.
A leak in the kitchen ceiling.
A child who has decided to regress in his toileting.
I know I need God. I know he is here. But sometimes I have trouble uncovering him under the hot, heavy blanket of responsibility and
frustration and fatigue that is draped all around me. In those moments we need the calm, fresh hand of another to
gently pull the cloth back off of our heads and lovingly place truth in front of
our face.
We mothers need mothering too.
And sometimes friends who are in the same season of life are the
best people to do that for us.
I am clinging to her words today. She draws them from the well of living water. Her Savior is my Savior, and so I keep going back to that word.
Surrender.
It means to hand something over.
In this case it’s my life I’m handing over. It’s God I’m handing it over to. I’ve done it a million times before and
will do it a million times again. Why can’t i keep my own controlling hands off of it?
On days like today I can only see my own to-do list and the
obstacles getting in the way of it. When that happens I grab my life back and squeeze it tight, so tight that it takes the breath right out of it. Takes the breath right out of me.
One by one I am prying my fingers back and peeling them off of
every piece of life that is burdening me right now. I'm flattening my hand until every piece lays there ready to be
swept back into Him - where they lose their weight and their darkness and instead
regain their bright, floating beauty that gives life instead of stifling it.
You’re not getting the post I promised yesterday. I don’t know what {if anything} you will
get tomorrow.
All I have to offer today is the reality of motherhood.
The reality that sometimes plans have to change.
The reality that sometimes we bite off more than we can chew.
The reality that living under the expectations of others can crush us. T
he reality that sometimes the sweetest words we can utter are these...
The reality that sometimes plans have to change.
The reality that sometimes we bite off more than we can chew.
The reality that living under the expectations of others can crush us. T
he reality that sometimes the sweetest words we can utter are these...
