Every single time I step out of the shower, my routine is the same. Towel dry, reach for the Jergen’s. I’ve been using Jergen’s since I was old enough to buy my own lotion. Even in our poorer days, I stood in the aisles of Target debating with myself how on earth I could justify spending the money on a bottle of lotion for myself. Then one day I discovered that Target was producing a generic, with the same scent.

Cherry Almond.

I walked to my car, shopping bag in hand. I had my lotion, and zero guilt. It was marvelous.

It wasn’t until about a year ago that I allowed myself to go back to the name brand, and while 4 little mouths to feed and clothe and provide medical insurance for, have made sure we’re not wondering what to do with all this extra money at the end of every month, we’re doing a bit better than our days of searching for change to put gas in the car.

As a result of my daily shower habit, and consequently my Jergen’s habit, I time travel every single day. Within seconds of pumping a bit of the white cream into my hands, I am back in my grandmother’s house and we’re having a sleepover. I’m in the trundle bed, and she’s just come into the room, hair still wet and her green robe zipped all the way up. She sits on the bed, removes her glasses, and reaches for the Jergen’s on the bottom shelf of her nightstand. I settle in while she applies it.

I’m comfortable. I’m safe. I’m happy.

Then we proceed to talk the night away in the dark room with the light of the glow-in-the-dark stars all over the ceiling shining down on us.

I ask about heaven and hell. I tell her about my friends, the boys I pretend to be annoyed with. She tells me about growing up with crazy fun brothers and an independent mother. Her voice softens when she talks about her “Daddy”. We talk about books and movies and American Girl dolls. I never talk about my parents. I rarely talk about my siblings. For a week every summer, I’m just me.

And my grandma is my biggest fan.

Every minute of my summer stays sunk deep into my marrow and even today, they are some of my clearest memories. These days, there are no week long summer stays, though how I wish I could pack my blue vinyl duffle with the bright pink hearts all over it and hope over to her guestroom. I’d make brownies every night after dinner.

Instead, there are weekly phone calls. I still tell her all about the boys in my life, granted they are the precious little guys in my own home and not the ones on the playground or hanging around my locker anymore. Every now and then, I still ask her questions of heaven and hell. And once in a great while she surprises me and asks me one of her own. Sometimes I talk about my parents. Sometimes I mention my siblings and the lives they are leading. Because I’m all grown up now, and all those things have changed and not changed. We talk about my grandpa, about what faithfulness looks like at their season. I hear “walk humbly” whispered into my heart. As she talks and lives and walks, I think how lost I’ll be someday without her guidance. And then I shoo the thoughts away because I am rich. I have her now and I’ve had her for so long.

And that is wealth beyond measure, for a granddaughter to be so near the heartbeat of such a woman.

She’s slip on shoes striding around her garden. She’s handmade clothes for my favorite dolls. She’s a vase of roses on the piano, the first thing I notice as I walk down the aisle toward my groom on my wedding day. She’s lunches out and dinners in. She’s Pert Plus shampoo samples set out for my visit. She’s choked up tears as she surveys her family, and speaks of her God. She’s trips to the book shop and shopping sprees at the Dollar Store. She’s a power mower and bonfire builder. She’s talent shows and singing off key. She’s sleepovers and late nights. She’s hard choices and morning readings from the King James. She’s Jergen’s lotion and deep security.

And I’m her biggest fan.

You are not allowed to have favorites.

And all the good mothers silently groaned, because the truth is, we do.

At least, I do.

I used to feel guilty about this, but now I just accept it as the way things are. And I ride the wave of favoritism because I know that soon my feelings will change. And another child will be my favorite.

That is the mercy of favoritism, it changes.

Each of my children have been my favorite at various times. When those feelings come, I soak them in because I know that soon, there’s a very good chance that I will be clashing with the child who is right now, at this moment, my very favorite.

And just FYI, I never tell my children who is my favorite. They have no idea.

My secret hope is that each of them feel that they are my very favorite of all.

All that said, tell me this child is not adorable and wonderful in every way.

I keep seeing the white flag raised high.

I keep hearing the resignation in so many maternal voices.

Giving up seems to be all the rage right now.

I believe in transparency. I believe in sharing our struggles, in admitting that we don’t have it all together. I love the freedom that comes with saying to one another, “You too? Me too!” Despite the media-orchestrated Mommy-Wars and illusive standards of a Pinterest life (which is a life in which people are always pinning YOUR stuff), I feel fortunate to live in a time when women are reaching out and admitting how far we all fall short of being the kind of parents we thought we’d be.

But.

When I hear someone say, “I’m done trying. I’m only human.” I don’t hear transparency, I hear defeat.

And I understand. There are so many times I fall into bed, utterly defeated.

I know what it’s like to feel overwhelmed as a mom. I know about tired seasons. I know about looking back over a 6-month or 12-month period and realizing it’s all a blur. I know about difficult periods of discipline hell and feeling like a failure. I know about hard diagnoses and about exhausting schedules. I know about fast food and laundry all over the floor. I know there are  times when victory is in getting out of bed and feeding them and just surviving to bed time.

I’ve watched as other mothers do hard things. Raise children who choose to run far away from the home and ideals they were raised in. Bury a child. Tell a child that no, there isn’t enough money for their dream college. Love and commit to children who bring a history of trauma and hurt into their new family.

However. Defeat can’t be the answer.And so, I’d like to challenge a dangerous train of thought I keep bumping into. It goes something like this.

“Parenting is much harder than I thought it would be. I’m not like all those other mothers who have it together. I’m too tired and my kids are especially hard. I’m just going to be honest about that and let Jesus take care of the rest. He likes me messy and frustrated. We’re all human after all, me and my kids.”

And the thing is, there is something really wonderful about starting down that path. Recognizing our own failings and refusing to beat ourselves up over it. I love that.

But, here’s what I’d like to say. If you are a mother, you are called to be a mother. It did not just happen to you. Even if your journey to this place of little children wasn’t the storybook version, even if it’s the last thing you thought you wanted, even if it has been filled with the unexpected and very difficult.

You are called to mother your children.

And when you have a calling, you can choose to walk in it or not. You can choose to experience the abundant blessings of that calling, or you can choose to sidestep them by believing that motherhood is just an ordinary part of life.

It’s not. It’s an absolute miracle.

Just like any other calling, it is an imperfect road because we are an imperfect people. But we must never give in. When we search scripture, over and over and over again, children are called blessings, not liabilities or interruptions. Parents are exhorted to raise them, love them, teach them, keep them close.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it until the day Jesus calls me home, but nothing has changed me like my children. I really don’t believe there is a force on earth that is equal to the love of a parent to a child, and that force, it moves things.

God knew exactly what He was doing when He created that love and bond. He knew it would be our best chance to want to change, to confront all the ugly self-centered thoughts and actions of our lives on behalf of our children.

Here is the good news. It doesn’t have to be pretty. Excellence doesn’t mean that we keep our cool all the time or that we are never frustrated again. It doesn’t mean our days flow smoothly or our children never sass us again. I really believe the in motherhood, and in most things, excellence means we posture ourselves to be open to whatever God may require of us. It means we choose in all the little things to whisper our thanks, whisper our need. It means we keep coming back to the Source of our strength.

Excellence in the case of motherhood looks like reliance on God in a million ways at a million different times. It’s that extra breath you take before telling your child again that they must stop whining. It’s setting down a dishrag to read a book. It’s giving up a bit of your quiet time to hold that little one who just needs a bit of attention.

It’s also facing the problem of exhaustion head on. It’s handing the baby to Daddy. It’s asking for help. It’s taking a walk, drinking more water, going to bed a little earlier.When we care for our bodies, we are taking the burden of our overwhelming exhaustion off our kids. When we feel better, we are able to be better.

We can’t give up. We must accept our limitations as facts and trust that God will use those very weaknesses to make us into new people. He intends to change us. And unfortunately, it turns out we humans rarely change unless we have to.

We have to.

For our babies, yes.

But also because that’s what was designed for us. God’s working it out folks, this sanctification process is lifelong and it is vitally important. He intends to conform us to the image of His Son, and we’re crazy if we think that will come easily.

Don’t raise the white flag, mothers. Don’t believe the lie that it shouldn’t be this hard. It’s this hard because we are deeply loved by God. It’s this hard because when we choose to embrace the difficulty, the hard times themselves will be the refiners fire that transforms us into women who truly love God and love others. Above all else, above  ourselves.

Our children need that kind of mother. Yes, let’s talk about discipline and screen time and healthy diets, but above all, let’s push in. Let’s over and over again choose the hard things. Let us whisper to Jesus that we know He is working, that we need His help to trust Him. That we are failing.

And just watch and see.

It is a rocky and tiring path He has chosen for us, and more often than not, it brings us to the end of ourselves. But, because He is so good and because He loves to see us smile, it is peppered with joy. The laughter of our kiddos, the hilarious things they say, silky fine baby hair. That first whispered I love you. The snuggles in Mommy and Daddy’s Bed.

They are gifts.  And they help us to put one foot in front of the other.

Our babies need us, moms. They need us in ways the culture around us doesn’t even see. They need to see Jesus. They need to see our love story with Him unfold before their very eyes.

]]> http://motherhoodshewrote.com/what-children-need/feed/ 0 http://motherhoodshewrote.com/how-to-be-crazy/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=how-to-be-crazy http://motherhoodshewrote.com/how-to-be-crazy/#comments Mon, 11 Feb 2013 08:40:31 +0000 Sarah http://motherhoodshewrote.com/?p=968 Continue reading →]]>

So, apparently I have some Big Feelings about adoption.

The longer we are in this process, the more I discover that there are a lot of other people who care even more deeply about these children than I do. Who get it in a way that I can’t because we haven’t brought our daughter home yet. In fact, one of the really beautiful things I’ve noticed is that it seems to be the same families over and over again bringing these kids home, finding room in their houses and cars for just one more.

And then one more.

It seems that when it happens right before your eyes, the miracle transformation of an orphan to an heir… you can’t help but say to God, “Do it again!”

So, yes. This matters a lot to me. I want more families stepping into this world. I have this dream that in a few years I’ll sit in my usual back pew of my church and when I look out over the congregation, I’ll see families that reflect a little more accurately what God sees when He looks at His children; all nations and colors and cultures together praising His name. Families expanding in a way that mirrors the cries of His heart throughout scripture.

Children are precious to Him. He is near the orphan and He calls for justice to their state. This is me, joining in that cry.

When I became a mother, I had no idea. Just none. Nothing could prepare me for the overhaul my life and heart experienced when I became a parent. In some ways, it’s just awful. I felt exposed for the first time, really out of control. My whole life’s happiness wrapped up in this little person.

As the early days stretched out before me, and sleep deprivation settled in, I remember thinking that I had years and years of this ahead of me. No sleep, utter vulnerability. At 3 Am, it seemed a dismal prospect.

But God kept giving me these little babies who needed me. And slowly, I gave up. I stopped believing that it shouldn’t be this hard. And as I gave up more, like showers before 2 PM, I began to see that raising children is just as much about me as it is about them.

I’m raising kids, training them, loving them, teaching them. But along the way, I’m learning that God fully intends to turn me inside out and mold me into someone who loves a little more like Himself

Please don’t misunderstand. I haven’t gone quietly. My husband and children can attest to the fact that my faults are still fully intact. But, the thing that has changed is that when the 3 week sicknesses come, and the hard diagnoses are given, and when I’ve just had one of those days, I’m just a little bit faster than I used to be to ask for His help. I’m slightly quicker to acknowledge that He has something for me here, and that without His help, I’ll miss it. Sometimes I snarl at Him, it’s true.

I’m too tired to grow, Lord. I’m too tired to wait on you. I need relief. Stat.

But somehow, mothering is changing that for me, one child, one day at a time. It’s making me more willing to live the hard things because His hand is there. His love and grace are there. His strength is there.

And there will be hard days when our little gal comes home. Due diligence (aka: reading every adoption book out there and youtube-ing Karen Purvis to my heart’s content) has taught me that children who come from hard places and traumatic experiences require a whole new kind of love and commitment to bring about healing. They require it and they deserve it.

But, if I’m willing… God will take my already vulnerable heart and break it open just a bit more. He’ll do a new thing there, and as I serve my precious and beloved daughter, He’ll grant me a new understanding of just how big He is, just how rock steady, just how gentle.

I’ve seen it. I’ve lived it. I’m not saying it’s easy, or that I haven’t doubted Him time and time again (try daily), but on my good days, I trust Him so very much.

Only a God like ours could entwine a mother and her child like this, and make something beautiful and new for them both.

I’m curious, and to be honest, a little frustrated.

You see, my sons are very funny. One in particular has a quirky little way of looking at life, and a commentary that just won’t quit. And like so many mothers before me, I abuse use facebook to record such funny little comments.

For instance, last night the rain began as we were driving home. After pulling into the driveway, Cole jumped out of the van, ran to the middle of the lawn, turned his face upward, and exclaimed,

“Man! These cats and dogs are falling all over me!”

I don’t care who you are, that’s funny.

And the little like button on facebook reflected that I wasn’t the only one who thought so. These recorded moments with my sons are appreciated by many. I believe people respond because I post things that really are truly funny, and not, for instance potty training progress. I try to be respectful of the fact that very few people will actually care that Jonah is wearing big boy undies and only had 23 accidents. In other words, i give the people what they want. Or I try to anyway. It’s a fine line and sometimes my motherly pride gets the best of me, but I really do try.

But sometimes I post other things. Adoption progress things. Links to blogs that make me think or touch my heart. And sometimes I post hard things. Sometimes I share something that asks a question or challenges the assumptions we hold about what this life in Christ really is supposed to look like.

Last night I posted a referral picture of a little girl from Ethiopia that the infamous Jen Hatmaker shared on her facebook page. She included some comments in which she shared about how she and her beautiful adopted daughter spent the evening talking about her daughter’s “first family” and grieving together a bit. It was personal, lovely, and heartbreaking. And the picture…. oh, the picture. You have never seen such sad eyes. It’s a picture people need to see.

And yet the number of “likes” were a fraction of what the funny little cats and dogs comment had received. (Sigh)

And I keep wondering, what is it going to take?

When will others understand that these children without parents or families are every bit as precious and wonderful as my own hilarious boys?

I am so grateful that my boys are growing up in a community that loves them and appreciates them. It is as it should be for every single child.

But, to be honest I am angry that we who love Christ are so slow to respond to the real need of these children. Yes, they need food. Yes, they need medical care. Yes, they need education. And for some, those are the very best ways to help them. BUT. There are many, many, many who need families. They need parents.

If you are a parent, imagine your child ripped from your home for whatever reason. Then imagine them growing up without a place to belong, without a mama or daddy who comes running when they’re feverish or have a bad dream. Imagine them never being told they are loved no matter what. Imagine them scared, alone, and grieving. And somehow, please understand that your child, safe in your home, is no more important or deserving than the child who is actually living that reality.

Brandon and I are often told we are crazy. After all, we have four little boys 6 and under and now we’re adopting a 5th child from a hard place. And we’re adopting an “older” child, so we’re really crazy. Usually, people comment on our sanity and then smile and say something like, “but you’re crazy in the best way”. I usually just smile.

What I’d like to say, and I guess I’ll just say it here is,

What on earth is crazy about loving a child?

What on earth is crazy about giving a child a home?

What on earth is crazy about giving a child a place to belong?

What on earth is crazy about sharing our table, our resources, our privileges with a child who has none?

Why does hard mean crazy?

And then I want to say,

We are no different than you.

We are not better parents.

We are not more patient.

We are not more giving.

We are not less tired.

We are not more called, more equipped, more spiritual.

Please don’t call me crazy so that you can find a reason to ignore a child who needs someone just like you to love them.

I realize that my words are strong. This is the part of the post that I would normally say something about how not everyone is called to adopt, how there are many ways to care for the orphan, how you need to pray and seek God. I believe all those things. But the truth is, I would only say those things right now to spare your feelings and your opinion of me.

And today, I care more about the future, or lack thereof, of hundreds of thousands of children. Today, I choose them. It’s a journey and I get that. It took us nearly ten years of marriage to actually do something about what we knew to be true. Thank God that He is patient and kind and is willing to let us step into this journey even still.

Please stop looking away. Please stop believing that you don’t have what it takes. Please remember that the love of a family can change everything.

I have a little chart and it keeps me from double dosing and keeping track of when so-and-so had such-and-such. It’s saving me today.

As a gift to myself, I moved the pile of laundry that was spilling over from my grandmother’s hope chest that sits at the end of my bed, onto my feet as I slept last night. It has now been relocated to in front of the closet. No idea how many loads are sitting there, unfolded, but the fact that they’re clean, it’s saving me today.

Meals have arrived on our doorstep the last 3 days. Yesterday, at the bottom of the brown paper sack were 5 icy cans of Pepsi, the real stuff. What you don’t know is that when it comes to Pepsi, a can is my preferred container. By which I mean to say, I have a list, an order and rank, if you will.

#1: in a can

#2: from the fountain, in a styrofoam cup

#3: from the fountain, in a paper cup

#4: from a 2 liter bottle

#5: from a 16 oz bottle

And yes, the meals have been wonderful. I haven’t cooked in several days, and that restores my soul. But those 5 little cans of Pepsi? They’re saving me today.

I had to do dishes yesterday afternoon. I was without other options. So, I pulled up Pandora on my phone, took a chance that everyone would survive for 20 minutes and slipped my ear buds in. Under normal circumstances, the praise and worship channel just doesn’t do it for me, but I typed in “Jennifer Knapp” and before I knew it, tears were falling from my tired eyes and my hands were raised as water poured into my sink and I did precious little scrubbing.

It used to be that God met me in the shower, these days, my kitchen is my holy ground. As the songs of my high-school days pounded in my ears, I realized how upside down and unexpected it all is.  All these years later, all this built-up skepticism, hard-fought discernment, and weary concern over the way we youth groupers met Jesus in the 90′s, and here I am 30 years old, meeting Jesus in my kitchen and praising His name to a Jars of Clay tune. It was such a weird time in my history, and I’ve been sorting through it ever since. And yet, I learned how to dance around and raise my hands and make a spectacle of myself at the feet of the God I love. And channeling that “sold-out, Jesus-freak” bit of my soul, it’s saving me today.

The sun is out, it’s glorious January in California. Planning to climb into my car this weekend and head for Target. I’m buying myself some new moleskine notebooks. Hoping that fevers subside and coughing settles. Dreaming that I’ll get to touch my husband for more than a minute. Planning to sip some coffee, turn on some music, write my words, smile at my precious little men. All that, it’s saving me today.

All by himself.

I stepped into the kitchen, headed for a glass of milk for the 3-year-old. Brandon was standing at the dishwasher and simultaneously, we grinned and said, “Well, how about that?!”

He’s 6 1/2. And tonight, he read 64 pages.

If there was one thing I wanted for my children to inherit from me. it was my love for reading. I was the girl who read at recess. Reading has been one of the great joys of my life. I married a reader, and so it never occurred to me that our children wouldn’t be reading chapter books by age 4.  When my Cole boy knew all his letters by age 2, I was certain that before long he’d be pouring over The Boxcar Children.

But instead he memorized commercials. And he became obsessed with the human body. And he stunned us with his ability to build lego creations of massive proportions.

And the books sat untouched.

And it really bugged me.

He is brilliant, that boy of mine. His curiosity is astounding and wonderful. And yet, he wanted nothing to do with the books I every now and again, ever so tentatively, slid under his nose.

And I learned that he is not me. He is not his father. He is unique, his very own person. I can share things with him, but he will excel at and enjoy the things God has for him to do. And my job is to help him along the way, and occasionally, widen his world a bit. 

About 6 weeks ago, a teacher friend listened to my woes. She wondered aloud how he did when he read instructions for his Legos.

“Great,” I said. “He has no problem reading those.”

“Non-fiction,” she replied.

Apparently, boys want to read non-fiction. It builds the same skills, and for Cole, it feeds his natural curiosity about how this world works. So, that’s what I’ve been doing. It’s been working. SO grateful for the wisdom of women who can gently point me in the right direction.

But tonight, he read fiction, and my heart nearly burst out of my chest.

64 pages, people. 64 pages.

They run free, and I feel brave. Wide open spaces, and all that.

I love the sky, the bare trees, the cool air. But every time I run for the outdoors, for the deep breaths that make me so thankful for this very minute, it’s the uneven ground beneath my feet that steadies me. The rocks, the clods of that red dirt. Those steps make me keenly aware that it’s not just a dream. I’m walking this earth, I’m tired sometimes, the sky is gorgeous.

And I’m walking, step by step on a path to a different sky.

Across an ocean is a little girl. How can I explain my longing for her? She too, is walking this earth, under a very different sky. They say the African sun is magnificent in a way we can’t begin to imagine. I can’t wait to soak it in, with her on my lap. To feel the rocky ground of her home beneath my feet. I want to breathe in the air her lungs are accustomed to, memorize it filling our lungs in the same way I memorized the sight of my newborn boys’ chests rising and falling.

She was born under that African sky, and she’ll be raised here, on soil that so many have walked before her. Some day I’ll tell her quietly and carefully, that no, I didn’t vote for our first African American president, but I wept as he was sworn in. Twice. I marveled as a black woman sang our national anthem, and my throat caught when I watched black women weeping in the audience. I saw her there, among those women. I pictured her as I watched President Obama’s daughters and wife witness their father and husband taking the oath that no black man before him has taken as Commander in Chief. And as politics fell away, I thanked God that she would have this to look to, that somehow we reached this day.

Blood, sweat, tears… poured out over the ages for this day.

For her. For our family. For all people.

I pray that Africa pounds in her heart always, that her Ugandan heritage fills her whole life. I beg God to help me be faithful in that. But I hope she lives fully here also, looking up into this sky and witnessing how limitless it is. I pray that somehow the struggles borne on this soil, right here, they teach her justice in a new way. I hope she sees loss with new eyes, sensing that God means to work it out for her good, for the good of all who love Him.

Most of all, I pray that she can’t help but love Him. That she will know how deeply she is loved by her Creator, by us. That she’ll understand that we came across an ocean to get her, that she was chosen because our hearts are already hers. Even more, that she’ll also know that generations of men and women lived a mission from God that paved the ground for her to live here.

Free.

And that freedom will lead her to a deep love of the One who set her free.

The sky is beautiful on days like this.

But it turns out I’m not the mother of my dreams. And my kiddos, while wonderful and treasured, are kind of crazy most days. Last night was awful, just ugly. They fought each other, fought me, and by 6 PM, everyone was crying. Brandon was out for the evening and I had reached my limit. After offering grace and mercy through clenched teeth, I finally called it quits.

No more chances. No more talking. No more playing. No dessert.

Bed. Now.

The response was exactly as you’d expect, begging, pleading, sobbing, screaming. I held my ground, growing more frustrated by the second.

And then Daddy came home.

As I stood next to the bunk bed and gave my little speech, in my sternest of voices, he rubbed Cole’s back. He held his hands. And when I stopped talking, he reminded them that they are loved and that tomorrow would be a new day and we would all try again.

That man. He gets me every time. His words breathed life into this mama and I leaned in to kiss Silas and told him Daddy was right. “We’ll work together tomorrow.”

“But, I think I might have a hard time obeying.”

“If you feel that way, like you want to disobey me, tell me. I’ll help you. We’ll do it together”

And he smiled. The first smile in hours.

We turned out the lights, and Brandon and I walked out of the room. I felt a smile of my own creep on to my face.

Grace is hard. And when I feel like I don’t want to give it anymore, God sends my man home to help me. We did it together.

And he was right, today is a new day.

These words, from Sarah Mae startled me. The heat rushed to my cheeks and a flash flood ran down my face. I’ve said that. I’ve sobbed that.

How did she know?

Wait. I don’t even know her. We’ve never met. There is no way she’s read my thoughts and heard my angry words.

I think I’m catching on.

I’m not alone.

We don’t know one another. We’ve never met. We’re not mind readers and we don’t have miraculous hearing abilities.

We’re just two moms with small children filling up our days.

“I just can’t be a mom today.”

Somewhere along the way, we built ourselves houses with tall fences and installed answering machines and learned to keep our shades pulled. We stopped asking questions not because we had any more answers than the generations before us, but because we’re supposed to find those answers for ourselves. Right?

We’ve given up the process and paraded manufactured results across our facebook pages and blogs and twitter accounts.

We’ve traded the flesh and blood wisdom of those who’ve been there, done that for Google and #hashtags. We’ve put on pride and self-reliance instead of placing ourselves at the feet of those who have so much to teach us. We’ve bought the lie that we have to be perfect to be good at all.

And we’re robbing ourselves, and our families.

It was never meant to be that way. No, we were meant to lean into each other, to love and be loved, to glean and share, to build up.

But we didn’t get here by ourselves. It’s a human problem, this every man for himself way of life, and we’ve all fallen for it. As we’ve pushed against allowing mentors into our lives, few women whose own children are raised, have stepped out to pursue us. Somehow, we’ve all been swallowed up by this me,all by myself, busy, busy, busy culture. And while we mothers are struggling because of this,I truly believe older women are missing out on a particular joy God has called them to.

The truth is, without the support and examples, and flow of life God meant for us all to have, there are far too many days when,

“I just can’t be a mom today” is the most honest thing we can say.

We can’t because we don’t know how. We’re too tired to see straight, to remember the things we know, that we were taught once upon a time. Those lessons have fallen to the wayside along with any memory of the women we used to be. We need the gentleness of women who have been in our shoes, who know how deep the frustration and exhaustion runs and how it exists completely independent of our wild and all consuming love for our children. How these feeling coexist and we’re too tired to put them in their proper places, we need help.

We’re desperate.

We need the listening ear, the encouragement of a whole life perspective, the truth of a woman whose God saw her through these days. We need a meal every now and then. We need a few hours by ourselves, to feel like a person. We need older, wiser women speaking into our lives. Maybe even bossing us once a while.

We need to throw off the lies we’ve believed and step toward each other.

There is of course, cost in all this. We younger moms, we have to buck our culture and admit we cannot do it all. We have to decide where our priorities lie, and then be willing to humbly accept the hands and feet and wisdom of those who knows a lot more than we do. And for the older moms, you have to be willing to step back into the mess of little children and tired mamas. You have to let go of the “I already raised my children” attitude and remember how desperate you were, or might have been but for someone just like yourself walking those days with you. You may have to push us a bit, stick your foot in the door when we attempt to close it on you.

I think it could be good. I think it could be one of those things that changes everything.

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If you’re interested in this way of life… this week the book “Desperate: Hope for the Mom Who needs to Breathe” was released. This book was co-written by Sarah Mae (young mom) and Sally Clarkson (older mom) who both have track records that speak for themselves. They have impacted my mothering for several years now. They give me hope. Check it out. #Nomoredesperatemoms

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