By Jessica Kromer 
When we run on hours, literally a couple hours of broken sleep, how are we surviving?
When we go to balance the bill payments and bank accounts to see another pay check gone, how are we surviving?
When we make yet another meal the toddler doesn’t want to eat, how are we surviving?
When we hear of the countless injustices in the world, too painful to linger on long when there are baby cries to tend to and a little one hanging on our leg, how are we surviving?
When we consume way too much caffeine and not enough water or healthy food, how are we surviving?
When we lie in bed at the end of a long day and wrestle with worry about our kids, partners, jobs, house work, life purpose, faith, schooling, and whether or not the cat has water rather than sleep, how are we surviving?
When we finally build up the courage to bring all the kids into the grocery store and they simultaneously have a melt down in aisle “get us the heck out of here,” how are we surviving?
When we need to create a schedule filled with appointments, lessons, practices, meal planning, homework checks, grocery shopping, “what else am I forgetting?”, how are we surviving?
When we hardly make it to church on time and baby cries every time she goes to the nursery so we miss three-fourths of the service anyway, how are we surviving?
When they tell us self-care is important, but can’t for the life of us figure out what self-care is anymore since our identity changed to “ma-ma”, how are we surviving?
When they tell us how to raise our children according to Dr. So and So, but an article comes out the next day saying Dr. This and That’s way is far better, how are we surviving?
When the country we live in still doesn’t offer adequate maternity leave, parental leave, minimum wage, or health care for us and our families, how are we surviving?
How are we surviving when it seems like the odds are against us emotionally, physically, mentally, and spiritually?
No, we’re not surviving at all.
We are thriving.
This role of motherhood is meant to break us down. But the result? The result is gardens blooming all across the world of stronger, wiser, kinder, more patient and more caring female activists.
We are thriving, because we are strongest together.
We are thriving, because we are not doing motherhood alone.
We are thriving, because we are women unafraid of imperfection.
We are thriving, because we are unashamed of ourselves-inside and out.
We are thriving, because God knows who we are and the plans he has made.
We are thriving, because our mission is to make this world better than when our little ones arrived.
We are not just alive. We are not just surviving.
We are thriving, and I think that is a far better way to live.
Keep thriving, mamas.
by Chelsi Cacciatore 
by Krystal Sieben 
by Joy McLaughlin 
by JD Arbuckle 
by Valerie Sawicki-Bellomo 
