A Gift for Mom! 🤍

When faced with challenges, we often tell ourselves this too shall pass. We pull up our bootstraps and power through, knowing that this burden shall ease, whatever weight is encumbering your soul will lift. It’s meant to make you feel better, that whatever is bringing you down will be gone soon.

At many times in our lives, it’s these very words that get us through. We can manage whatever season of grief we are in or the obstacle that has been placed in our way because it will be on its way, and we’ll be greeted by a day anew. It’s so true, thinking about the times I’ve felt like the weight of what I was managing was too much to bear. We think that the trial that we are in will never end. I’ve had to pause, pray, and remember that it’s a stage of life, I’m not given more than I can handle, and we will move past this hurdle.

Lately, I’ve been thinking of this phrase is more ways than just one. Of course, when my son is up at 4 a.m. (again), or the boys are fighting over toys I take a quick breath, pray for strength and think this too shall pass. These moments are often, but fleeting and I know as they grow, they will outgrow these trials and move on to new ones.

I find myself thinking of the passing of time in moments of joy, too. When my older son hugs me tight and tells me how much he loves me I can’t help but think that this won’t always be and hold on a little tighter. There will always be love, of course, but the novelty of giving mom a spontaneous squeeze will likely wear off, replaced by an awkward half-hug as they run out the door.

There is a sheer brilliance to seeing the world through a young child’s eyes. Everything is new and exciting. It’s often hard to pause and appreciate those moments, but I’ve learned to stop and remind myself: enjoy this moment. Pause. Reflect. This too shall pass.

I find value in each of these moments—the good and the bad. When I’m tested, I remind myself that this moment will pass . . . that I can and will hang on . . . and it does.

In moments of pure happiness, I take a mental photograph and hold it in my heart because this too will pass.

Our days are made up of fleeting moments, each piece of which is here for the blink of an eye. Embrace the beautiful times, persevere through the challenges. Breathe, and this too shall pass.

You may also like: 

Savor These Moments, Mama, Because Time Flies

Don’t Let Me Forget Their Littleness

Want more stories of love, family, and faith from the heart of every home, delivered straight to you? Sign up here!

So God Made a Grandmother book by Leslie Means

If you liked this, you'll love our book, SO GOD MADE A GRANDMA

Order Now!

Jessica Tyler

Jessica is originally a Midwesterner, born and raised in the Chicago suburbs. After moving around a bit, she settled in Colorado with her family. She lives with her husband, Jeff, and sons William and Benjamin. In her free time, she attempts to be outdoorsy, loves to cook, read and drink wine. You can find her on her blog, I Dream of Naptime.

When I Look In the Mirror, I See My Mother

In: Grief
Woman with mother smiling in older photo

Recently, whenever I look in the mirror, I see a strong resemblance to my mother.  People always said I looked like her, but I never really saw it until now. I think it may be because you always think of your parents as being older than you are. At the age of 61, I am now only two years away from the age my mother was when she died. The only good thing about dying young is that everyone will remember you that way.  I have only known my mom as the vibrant, personable, and active woman she was. Well,...

Keep Reading

I Lost My Daughter on Mother’s Day: 3 Truths I’m Believing Today

In: Grief, Loss, Motherhood
Woman and young daughter smiling

Editor’s note: This post discusses child loss Child loss changes Mother’s Day. My 19-month-old, Julia, died suddenly on Mother’s Day in 2024. Three months later, her autopsy revealed she had B-cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (B-ALL, also known as SUDNIC). Julia died a week after we did an embryo transfer at an IVF clinic in an attempt to have a second child. We found out three days after Julia’s death that the embryo did not make it either. Six months later, we did another embryo transfer that succeeded, and I now have an 8-month-old daughter, Lucy Mei (“Mei Mei” means “little...

Keep Reading

I Miss Having Parents

In: Grief
Grown daughter posing between smiling parents

I have been living with the ache of loss for so long that I truly don’t remember what it feels like not to carry it. Sometimes it rests quietly beneath my ribs, dormant and almost polite. Other times it rises without warning—on an ordinary Tuesday afternoon, in the middle of a coffee line—and cuts straight through me. Today, it was a song. I was waiting for my coffee when “Pictures of You” by The Cure drifted through the café speakers. I hadn’t heard it in 20 years. In my twenties, it meant heartbreak—young love unraveling, relationships ending before they were...

Keep Reading

What No One Tells You about Losing a Sibling

In: Grief

Nobody tells you that when you lose a sibling, your entire childhood flashes before your eyes. There’s no better witness to what you experienced growing up than that one person who was standing nearby for all of it. And when they’re gone, a part of that childhood and a part of that story goes with them, because it was only ever known between the two of you. There’s no last chance to say, “Remember when?” or to laugh about the things that made you laugh to tears together, a million times at the kitchen table. There’s no last conversation about...

Keep Reading

Grief Didn’t Break Me, It Rearranged Me

In: Grief
Sad woman looking off to the side

I survived losing my father after his long, grueling battle with cancer. It was one of the most difficult seasons of my life. I had a front row seat to watch cancer pick him apart piece by piece. When you lose a parent, you lose a part of yourself. They say time heals all wounds, but you never stop missing the good ones, and there are days when it feels like it just happened. By the grace of God, I survived, but I will always miss my father. Then, almost a decade later, I lost the career that helped me...

Keep Reading

I’m Learning To Be Soft and Strong

In: Grief
Woman sitting and crying on floor

During the weeks we cared for my grandmother in hospice, survival mode felt necessary. There were medications to track. Visitors to update. Logistics to manage. I remember sitting on the couch that served as my makeshift bed and listening to the rhythmic hissing and puffing of the oxygen machine one night. While my mom showered off the day, I texted my sister updates and sent my husband a quick message of love. I could still smell the lavender candle we had lit earlier in the day to mask medical scents. The house was quiet, but my mind wasn’t. I was...

Keep Reading

The Legacy Our Mothers Leave Is In the Details

In: Grief
Woman's hands holding beautifully wrapped small gift

It has been two months and nine days since my mom passed away. The first several weeks were spent on the details and logistics of planning her service. She passed in December, so once her beautiful service had passed, I busied myself with the preparations for Christmas. By mid-February, I finally began to process some feelings of grief on a deeper level. The quiet of this less-busy season is allowing the grief to soak in a bit more. Not the big things; not the obvious, grief-heavy reminders that stop me in my tracks. Instead, I’ve been noticing the small things....

Keep Reading

You Never Get Over Losing Your Mother

In: Grief
Woman and grown daughter smiling

It’s been 10 years since I last heard my mother’s voice. Ten years since I could pick up the phone and ask a question I already knew the answer to, just to hear her say it anyway. Ten years since someone loved me in that very specific, unconditional, occasionally annoying way that only a mother can. My mom died in 2015. And while “passed away” sounds softer, more polite, the truth is that she left. Suddenly. Permanently. With no forwarding address. She was gone. What I’ve learned in the decade since is not what I expected. I thought the biggest lesson...

Keep Reading

My Husband Is By My Side Through Every Storm

In: Grief, Marriage
Man with arm around woman's chair

The year 2025 began as a quiet storm. I was slipping into the fog of depression while navigating the early chaos of perimenopause, and some days simply getting out of bed felt impossible. My thoughts felt dark and heavy, my body unfamiliar, my energy nonexistent, and my moods uncontrollable. And yet, in the haze, there was one constant: my husband. He noticed the subtle shifts I barely acknowledged. The sighs, the quiet retreats into myself, the moments I almost broke. Instead of judgment or frustration, he offered presence. He held space for my struggle without trying to “fix” it, and...

Keep Reading

Losing My Mom Shaped Me As a Mother

In: Grief
Woman hugging young child, back view

Becoming a mother has a way of bringing old wounds back to the surface, even ones you believed had healed. I never imagined grief would surface so strongly in my motherhood journey. I thought it was something you carried silently, something that faded with time. But becoming a mother felt like my loss rising to its feet and saying, I’m still here There are moments when I reach for my phone to call my mom, only to be met with the reminder that I can’t. I want to ask her if what I’m feeling is normal, if the exhaustion softens,...

Keep Reading