For the mom who sees that it is only Tuesday and yet has already reached capacity for how many times she can hear, “Mama!” I get it.
If 15 years of mothering has taught me one thing, it’s that mothers are humans who have limits. We’d walk through fire for them seven days a week, but sometimes the words, “Can I have a snack?” can feel like more than we can handle.
We mother our children while mothering ourselves, our relationships, our homes, our jobs…and can hit empty like a car running on fumes before the destination of bedtime has been reached.
Being done before the day is, is unsettling because there’s nowhere to go. Starting a new life in a new city with a new name is tempting, but frowned upon. Anyway, who’s gonna move the clothes from the washer to the dryer? 😉
I’m not going to tell you how to live, but what I do in those moments is simple. I pray. When I’m finished, done, empty, and through I pray because escaping isn’t an option, numbing can become a prison, and they need me.
So I pray.
Without fail, I’m given more of the stuff that makes cutting up an apple and laying the slices on a paper plate next to a plop of peanut butter, possible.
Is it love? Strength? Or patience that drops down like dew into my soul? I don’t know, but I know one minute I didn’t have it and the next minute I did. So I pray. And believe me, “Help me, God,” is a whole prayer.
To the mom who can’t, who wants to clock out but it’s only 2pm, I see you. You’re going to be ok. Take some of those apples slices for yourself, they won’t know.
One of my favorite Psalms is Psalm 61:2.
“From the end of the earth I will cry to You, When my heart is overwhelmed; lead me to the rock that is higher than I.”
I hope today you find yourself, even if just for a moment, on a rock higher than you. Hang in there. It’s like this for everyone. You’re doing great.
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