So, I’ve been a mom for 20 years now. I realized today, that’s longer than I’ve done anything (and as my son who made me this said, “faster than most!” with a big thumbs up. I was only a daughter, a single girl (not married or with child) for 18, only without children for 19, only married for 14 (that’s my record :)), and been a mom for 20. WOOT! I guess from now on, I’ll always have been a mom longer than anything in my life. I kinda like that, more than like that. Some of the thoughts that go through my mind about my life though, are stuff like, “What big things have I accomplished?” “What am I proud of that I chose to do?” “What have I done well?” “What will I be remembered for?” “What am I doing for Jesus that will make a lasting impact?”
While some may look at my life and say, “Not much of any of those things will make lasting impacts or are big,” I have to disagree. Not because I’m awesome, but because Jesus.
I’m coming up on my 40th birthday. I don’t care a bit about the number. I don’t even care that I’m that old, to be honest. I do care about some of the unfortunate things that are happening to my body that happen to be true after hearing about them all these years like…”When you turn 40, your body starts falling apart.” “When you turn 40, gravity suddenly becomes stronger.” (I just made that one up just now, but you’re going to start hearing it any day now.) “When you turn 40, it gets so much harder to lose weight.” Darnit if they aren’t all true.
If you’d have asked me when I was 10-20 what I wanted to be when I grew up, I’d have given you a number of passing ideas that sounded exciting (like being a stewardess so I could travel and see all sorts of countries and get paid for it, or a missionary which I’d still like to be), but the underlying, overruling thing was to be a mom. It’s all I really wanted to be. So, would you look at that, I accomplished what I wanted to be! I’m a winner! Woot! And when 40 rolls around, I’ll have been a mom for OVER half of my life! Yaaaassssss! 😉
BUT, it has made me ponder life a little more (though sometimes I think “pondering” is just a more romantic way of saying you’re overthinking life).
After a talk with a friend this morning, I realized, there are 2 things (well, just 2 that really stood out enough to share today!) I’ve learned about motherhood that I think are worth sharing.
OK, number one…life as a mother is always changing. The very minute you start thinking you have that baby and his schedule figured out, he and it changes. That doesn’t just happen for the first few years of a kid’s life either, like they say (the first few years they change the most). They will always change, their needs change, their desires change, their likes change, their dislikes change, their bodies change, their schedules change, their clothes change, their attitudes change, their emotions change and their demands on your emotions change, and your life changes with all of those changes, if you choose to GROW with them (which I highly exhort you to do if you don’t want to be fighting life and the Lord for the rest of your life-because if you’re a mother, you’re a mother for the rest of your life). Learning to be flexible and “fluid” is so key as a mom. I don’t really like that term, “fluid,” but it really is the picture I have in my mind of who you need to be as a mother. Like a river that changes as the levels of water rise and fall, moving rocks to the side, giving way to wider open spaces in some spots and more shallow, soft places in others, roaring and sweeping away everything and anything in it’s path when the rains come, and low, quiet trickling when it’s dry, you have to learn to wake up each morning and let life not look like the yesterday, to be ok with your family looking different from season to season, even from day to day. You can not control your child in to fitting in to the picture of what you want your life to look like. I repeat, you can not control your child in to fitting in to the picture of what you want your life to look like. Teach your child, yes. Teach your child, you better.
“Train a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it.” Proverbs 22:6
But controlling your child to fit YOUR needs, controlling your child, your husband to fit what you want life to look like to you and others, controlling your child with shame and punishment to make sure it fits your ideas of life will only cause resentment, your child learning that love looks like control. I remember reading about a God who said He wouldn’t MAKE us love Him. He gave us free will to CHOOSE to love Him because that’s true love. If He made us, He wouldn’t be receiving real love from us. If we make our child love us or fit our box, we aren’t loving them like our Father loves us. LOVE your children, your husband, even if it means you look foolish or not like a great mom, or it embarrasses you because their choices are less than the best, but keep loving them and directing them, training them…
What we don’t realize is that along the way of training and along the way of not departing, it could be ugly and messy. Along that lifetime of a road (because training a child in the way he should go doesn’t mean you stop when he’s 18 and he won’t ever leave the Lord or get a little distracted along the path to Heaven. Train a child in the way he should go all of his life…because I am a child. You are a child. We are in process to our way to eternity with our ultimate prize and freedom, Jesus. Open up your heart to some grace for yourself along the journey and don’t depart from training up your child and your own heart…it’s ever changing and ever needing new attention. Don’t forget to be attentive to each, daily.
“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” Proverbs 4:23
As a mother, you have the responsibility to guard your own heart first, then your childrens’ hearts. Do it with all you have, as if unto the Lord, my friends. It’s exhausting, yes, but worth it, yes, most definitely.
The second thing is…quit comparing. Quit comparing your life in general, your home, your children and their accomplishments or growth, your body, your marriage, your finances, your clothes, your abilities as a mother, wife, and woman, your shoes, your schooling options, your fashion sense, your wounds, your brokenness, your past experiences, your future experiences, your “success” in ministry or discipleship, your relationship with the Lord, the way your laundry smells, the way your house smells, your husband’s prayer life, your prayer life, your legs, your arms, your boobs, your wrinkles, your beach bod, your lack of beach bod, whether you eat keto or paleo, whether you give your child sugar or whether you don’t, whether you even make your kids eat veggies anymore after 20 yrs of being a mom (is that just me?), whether you use cloth diapers or disposables, whether you shop at Target because theres been controversy or you don’t, whether you let your 12 year old mow the yard or not, your child’s cuteness, your child’s lack of cuteness (wait, that’s not a thing–your child’s the cutest even if they aren’t). Quit comparing. It will only suck the life right out of you and keep you from being the mom your child needs and the Lord appointed you to be for that specific child.
I spent so many years of being a mom trying to prove to everyone that I could do it and I could do it by myself, that I knew how. Instead of asking for help and RECEIVING help, I wanted to prove my worthiness because I had put myself in the position I was in because of my own choices. I compared to anyone and everyone what it should look like and because I didn’t measure up to any of the others I saw, I felt worthless and like a failure most of the time. I listened to other’s input when I shouldn’t have and didn’t seek Godly advice when I should have. I didn’t want to be the imperfect mom that needed help during the church service, or at the soccer game when it was my first season as a soccer mom, or at school when I had never had a 3rd grader in public school, or at home when my kids were rebelling and I didn’t know what to do. I felt lost, alone, sad, desperate, hopeless and like a horrible mother. Just don’t do it. Ask the Lord what YOUR life looks like, what your finances should look like, what your marriage should look like, what love really looks like and for the grace to model it to your specific children who has specific needs no other child on the planet will have, for grace to be content with what your body looks like, with what your walk in schooling looks like, for help to embrace and find ALL the joy in your days as mom and for the ability to rejoice in every changing season for who your kids are and are becoming and who you are and are becoming as you grow with them. Ask Him what it looks like to be mom to THIS child of His, to this husband He gave you who was once a very specific, unique child himself. Ask the Lord what it looks like for you as a woman, wife, mother to be the best you can be in every aspect, with every different hat you wear all at the same time and what He says is good for you and DO IT with joy, never looking back or to the side at anyone else.
Now, I’m not saying not to seek wisdom or prayer or help! No way! Ask for help! Ask for advice (but weigh it before the Lord!), ask for prayer for your family and be open to others input…we NEED each other! God made us that way, but He didn’t make us all to be the same or do the same things, or treat every child or husband or life the same. Ask for discernment and wisdom…He gives it freely. What a gift! And lastly, be ok with not being perfect…what you don’t realize is, none of those friends or acquaintances you “see” are perfect, even when it looks that way. You aren’t either. Be ok with it. Be the mom who isn’t afraid to ask for help, who isn’t afraid to look imperfect because I’ve actually found I like those ones the best.
Jody Simmons 