Motherhood: In the Trenches

 

 

Do ya'll ever have a day (week, month) where this mom thing is just like an uphill battle, in a windstorm, with three little people holding onto your ankles and chanting, "Look at me! Look at me!" while Baby Shark is playing so loud your skull reverberates and your phone is constantly dinging because your basically held hostage as part of a group text and your husband won't be back for another 48 hours because of work and your mom calls with news of a family emergency and then the cat pukes on your favorite chair, you find mouse poop in your utensil drawer, and suddenly the hot water heater falls through the laundry room floor because it's apparently been leaking for three weeks? 

I mean, I've never been in an actual combat situation, but I HAVE taken a splinter out of a four-year-old's foot, so I think I basically know what a Civil War medic felt like. 

So maybe the details are a little bit fuzzy, but the point is, some seasons of motherhood are tougher than others--and some mothers handle different seasons better than others. For example, some people thrive in the newborn stage and love every part of that season...but I am not one of those people. 

Some people thrive with teenagers (and some people...do not).

Some people love summer break, and some are counting down the days until a return to routine and cooler weather. 

But regardless of whether we struggle or thrive, there's a common characteristic to any of these scenarios that I'd like to draw to your attention: 

They end. 

Not a single season, experience, situation, or struggle of motherhood is endless. Some are longer than others, true, but they end; whether in this life or the next. 

It reminds me of the story of the census when Jesus was born, and Mary had to ride the donkey, pregnant, to Bethlehem with Joseph to be counted. And we read from Scripture, "And it came to pass..."

Do your hear that? It came to pass. It did not come to stay. (I imagine Mary, on that donkey, didn't feel like it would EVER pass!)

All of life is like that--it comes TO PASS.

Jesus said, "I came that you might have life, and might have it abundantly." (John 10:10)

I know what this really means; it means that we don't have to fear death because our eternity, in Jesus, is sealed and safe; praise the Lord! Death is overcome!

But I have to laugh when I read that verse because I think, and what is life? Life is having to get up early with a fussy baby. Life is April 14. Life is cooking dinner every. single. night because restaurants are closed and the Chinese takeout place in White Rock just shut down. 

Life is good things too, but some of these struggles are just LIFE, and Jesus came to give us LIFE...

in abundance. 

And yet, it all comes, but not to stay. It comes to pass.

Sometimes it passes like a kidney stone, but it does pass.

So the bottom line is, I don't have a shiny, packaged resource to recommend this week. 

This week was one of those "abundant life" seasons (ha ha). But I do have one thing to recommend--

Cling to Jesus. Whatever it takes this week to keep your little people alive, loved, and safe; do that. All the other things will also come to pass; but for today, you're allowed to take a step back and rest in the knowledge that God's grace is sufficient for you, His strength is perfected in our weakness. 

You are fighting in a hard battle, mama! Keep up the fight, and do not despair. These days too, shall pass!

Note: this post was originally published for the Crossroads Bible Church Women's Ministry blog under "Motherhood Mondays."