So it’s summer.
The kids are out of school, or soon they will be, but the housework doesn’t end and their needs don’t either.
And maybe you’re pregnant and hormonal like me.
Maybe you’re missing your evening glass of wine and your morning cup of caffeinated coffee and your afternoon nap. Whatever it is, you’re missing something and the kids and your husband don’t seem to notice that you are crying onto your cold toast and when you ask for five minutes to think or pray or scream they don’t hear you.
This is motherhood. This feeling alone in a world full of hormones and snotty noses and summers stretching long into night.
And on top of all of that, you feel guilty. Because this, too, seems to be a prerequisite of motherhood. You feel guilty when you snap at your husband when he doesn’t get it. He doesn’t get that you’re tired. Not just tired. Bone aching weary from carrying the weight of a thousand questions and a thousand hurts and a thousand wounded bodies and hearts.
No, he gets to come home after a day of work and chase the kids around the yard and play ball with them–all of the things you didn’t have time all day to do–while you make supper and mop the floor and try to quote the Serenity Prayer.
You feel guilty for not making nutritious enough suppers. For not getting on all fours and roughhousing with your kids. For not making homemade play-dough or reading enough stories or singing enough songs or playing enough uplifting music.
But enough.
Enough of the guilt.
Because we are enough. Not because of anything we’ve done, but because God has declared us so.
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God. (Ephesians 2:9)
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.(Romans 8:1-39)
Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.(Matthew 10:31)
And enough of the housework. Let’s just let it sit. Let’s put on the garments of grace and praise and get down on all fours and play with our kids. Because it’s worth a dozen glasses of wine just to hear them laugh. And let’s get outside more. Let’s sit in the grass and smell the roses, or the daisies, or the dandelions, and let’s let summer grow all over us. Soak in the sun and soak in this time with your kids.
Because we are Mom. We are Mama. We are life-givers, not only to them, but to ourselves, and this means letting ourselves live a little too.
So here’s to us. Here’s to us letting down our hair and mixing cranberry juice with sparkling water with lemon, in a wine glass.
And here’s to a time in our life that we’ll never get back.