Mother’s Day. For the moms who can’t slap #blessed on everything- this is for you.
Motherhood. I have been doing this gig for 22 years now- 5 kids of my own. One part-time kid through mentoring. All teens now or young adults.
Today, after the kids all left, and the dogs lay quietly at my feet, I sat on the back deck, placed my face in my hands and wept.
I wept until the tears ran down my arms, and my breath came in shuddering gasps just like it did as a child when my heart was broken. I was weeping over one of the six, these precious ones, hearts of my heart.
This is not at all unusual because for me, motherhood, though joyful for certain, though graced with riotous laughter and shot through with wonder, though the greatest and best adventure of my life…has been a broken road, a journey in which I have discovered what it means to walk out redemption. A journey sown with grace and watered with tears.
This morning as I wept, my prayer was simple. I shook my head slowly and told God, “I can’t believe You chose me for this. You know who I am. You knew I didn’t have what it takes.”
That’s when God reminded me that none of His saints ever have what it takes, not really.
Do you remember that story in the Bible (in Acts 3) when Peter and John came across a man who was begging at the temple gate because he was lame, but Peter had absolutely no money to give him? Nada.
Peter said to the man- “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.”
Well, that is the story of the saints -nothing to give away but the grace of Christ.
At the Transfiguration, Peter could have said, “The good sense to keep my mouth shut when I don’t know what to say, I do not have…” (Matthew 17)
In Mark 8, when Jesus predicted His death and Peter had the nerve to rebuke THE MESSIAH, Peter could have said…”The ability to keep my foot out of my own mouth, I do not have…”
In The Garden of Gethsemane, half the disciples could have shouted over their shoulders on the way out of the gate, “The courage to hold our ground when it counts, WE DO NOT HAVE!….”
This is our heritage, sisters. These are the leaders of the church.
The Cowards. The Empty-Handed. The Not-Enough. The I-Am-Not-Up-To-This-Task. The Really-God-I-Don’t-Know-What-You-Were-Thinking-When-You-Chose-Me.
And yet God used them to walk the broken road of Redemption for us all. He called them to sow seeds of grace as they went, and water it with their own tears of grief to bring forth the great harvest of the church.
We are here, you and I, because though they didn’t have what it took and it certainly wasn’t photoshop pretty, they walked the road anyway.
That calling, that nobel calling my sisters, has no greater fulfillment of ministry than…
Motherhood.
Hey, girl- I don’t know these people with the perfect pics on Facebook, these women slapping #blessed on everything.
Honestly, if the wind up in my feed…
I unfollow them.
There. I said it.
I don’t know how they are doing that.
But you know what, honey. It’s none of my business. That’s not my row to hoe, as my mama used to say, and if you have gotten this far in this post, it isn’t yours either.
And that’s ok. Our road may be broken, but it is one of redemption, of that I am sure. Let’s walk on anyway, holding onto the Father with one hand, and our broken sister with the other as together we sow seeds of grace… even as we water them with our tears.
(Monica, the mother of Augustine, who prayed her son into the arms of Christ, weeping along the way…)
Yes, I think that often in my job as “mother”. Especially with our youngest who is adopted. So often I ask God how he thought I could “mother” this child. Most days it is hard. I need to be reminded daily that this is the road He has asked me to walk and work on my heart along the way.