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Tuesday 4 March 2014

A Thought on Mothering...

In the midst of little people learning to use the toaster and trails of crumbs that could surely lead to the moon and back...I am learning to hear the laughter.
In the noise of turning the TV off and siblings learning and practicing how to take turns and play fair...I am trying to see the joy.

Someone, not too far back, said - "this is their childhood...right here and right now....all of it..."

So when I want to shush the silliness, because I love and crave quiet, I opt instead to remind them about being considerate. And when the volume in the car reaches epic levels of childhood noise...sometimes I bite my tongue and just put the window down.
I don't know if I ever realized how effectively different personalities in a house can push you to grow. When those different personalities are my own children...it makes me very mindful and careful-careful not to push them to change in the moment - for my own comfort, to serve my own personality.
I thought I would be the sole teacher in this mothering game, but that is almost hilariously contrary to the truth.
You see, they take chances I had stopped taking...and they jump in like I never did. They love hard and vulnerably and it reveals the contrast in my reserved ways and self-preserving methods. And the laughter...oh the laughter.
I had no idea how much of this journey would be my own, and how much these two little souls would be sent to be my transformation and my personal overhaul.
Showing up every day...and being 'in it' with them...is challenging on every level. And I don't know if there is truly any other relationship that stretches you on so many levels...but you're not looking for the exit sign. I am so in love and so invested that when the work presents itself - the work on me - I wrestle and I dig and I do it - because their purity cannot lie and I know the revelations are true.
If you really want a self help kit that will rearrange you forever and irreversibly...invest in a child.
Seriously, God's wisdom and planning and foresight can be spooky.
He knows. He knows. He knows.
I don't feel fit to the task ~ almost ever.
Jumping in with total love and abandonment is the only option.
Admittedly I am tired a lot and completely upended much of the time in the feeling of ...'what exactly do I know?'
I am thankful that I was chosen
I am thankful for His hand that guides me...
And for the two that He sent to change me.
Life with them is my pure joy.

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