So it’s Mother’s Day…and I see all these amazing pictures scattered on my social media feed. Beautiful pictures of moms who look like they have it all together and kids who are all cute and tidy. And I’m all over here feeling like the girl who entered a marathon race without any feet. My daughter’s room looks like a bomb went off, I have a fresh pimple that cropped up this morning probably because of stress, and my son left the laundry in the dryer and now it smells like something died.
And I don’t know where my feet go. Sometimes I feel like I have them and I’m trotting down the path just fine, then other times it’s like some tiny neurotic ninja comes along and chops them off saying – you suck at motherhood – just look at all the ways you have jacked your kids up. I keep trying to run on the nubs of inferiority, but sometimes I get tired and just sit down and cry.
I’m not sure, but I don’t think I am the only one who feels this way. Tiny ninja’s probably exist for everyone. And regardless of what your kids own internal battlefield looks like – you probably blame yourself to some degree for their mis-shapen tendencies. I could have…I should have…then they would have……..but could’s should’s and would’s exist in a world of unreasonable expectations. And unreasonable expectations do absolutely nothing but make us feel like sh** for being human. Maybe looking back, you would have made some different decisions. But we are all just doing the best we can with what we have at the time. And isn’t that enough?
And maybe it is, and maybe it’s not, and maybe it was never meant to be enough in the first place – and that’s when we must realize we don’t run the race alone.
God knew all the mistakes we were going to make. He knew exactly who He placed inside our womb or even our home, and it was a tiny soul built to withstand the humanity of our motherhood. And so maybe on this Mother’s Day, it doesn’t matter if we have to get through the tough years without any strength left in our legs and Jesus pushing us around on a cart – we will get through this. Because God doesn’t leave mommies lying wounded on the sidelines. He helps us get through this journey with everything we need.
And so I challenge you and challenge myself, to remember that everything you have done right and everything you have done wrong come together in the perfect way to shape you and your child into exactly who God designed each of us to be. The results won’t always be pretty, and they won’t be perfect, and that’s just the way it is for humans who depend on the grace of God through Jesus. But when we cross the finish line it will be a messy God-sized kind of beautiful, and even the darkest moments will make perfect sense.