So God Made a Mother is Here! 🎉
Before kids, I don’t even remember praying. I know I did. I remember as a kid praying when things got tough. I remember seeking a deeper spiritual fulfillment, but maybe not always knowing how to find it.
My first born inspired in me an intense need for authenticity. I realized that I never wanted her to pretend to be something she wasn’t, or to do something that didn’t feel meaningful to her simply because she was “supposed” to do things a certain way. I wanted her to seek and find the things that mattered most to her.
Up until this point, I had tried to be “religious,” but because I had never taken the time to find what felt truly authentic to me, I didn’t really understand what it meant to be “spiritual.” But after feeling such a strong desire for her to be her authentic self, I knew the only way to teach that was to live it myself. So I began questioning everything I thought I knew. I explored religion in a different way, God in a different way, prayer in a different way. I found what felt true in my soul and, in doing so, connected with a whole new level of reverence and awe.
I found God outside in the bottom of a riverbed. I found God in the yearly migration of the sandhill cranes. I found God in the wide open sky and in fireflies and in the bare trees in winter. I found God in the people around me. And in my daughter. And in myself.
It didn’t always look like the same God other people knew and were comfortable with. And the way I worshiped didn’t always make sense to people. But it finally made sense to me.
My firstborn sent me off on a spiritual journey to uncharted territory. The birth of my second daughter brought me home. When my first was born, my heart began to crack open and expand and make room for things like God and spirituality in my core. When my second was born, my heart was already wide open to the tsunami of love that came crashing in.
I was and am so fiercely in love with these little people that sometimes I think my heart will explode. And I find myself praying more than I ever have, the quiet desperate prayers of a mama who knows she can’t do it alone. Who knows this world can be a big bad scary place, and that I can’t keep these sweet little hearts safe under my wings forever. It’s going to take me and God and the whole village to support them in becoming the beautiful, fierce, amazing women I know they will be.
I can’t do it alone. So I pray. I pray for my newborn to stay healthy through her first month of life that happen to coincide with flu season. I pray every time I send my oldest off to school or to her friend’s house or with her dad. I pray every time I hand my fragile little baby to someone else to hold. I pray every time I put them to sleep at night and every time I wake them up in the morning.
And not just for help. I pray with intense gratitude. Because I can’t believe what a blessing it is to be their mom. I can’t believe how blessed I am.
All day long I feel like there is a steady stream of hope and gratitude and requests for help and grace and guidance and protection pouring out of my heart. I read a Native American Proverb once that said, “Make every step a prayer.” I loved it when I first read it. Now, I live it. Every step to the bottle warmer in the middle of the night. Every step away from preschool when I drop her off. Every step a prayer.
I don’t remember how I prayed before children. I know it was a different kind of prayer. Just like it will be a different kind of prayer when I send them off to school. And for their first slumber party. And the first time they encounter a bully. And when I send them to college, or wherever they will go after that. It will be a different kind of prayer when they find someone they want to marry, when they choose to have children or not to have children. And it will be a different kind of prayer each year as I get older.
Parenting changes the way you pray. It doesn’t matter who you pray to or how you pray, children will change it because they change you. Not just once, but over and over again.
Recently, my world felt as if it were crashing around me. I was so angry I think my rage could have burned a small village. Unfortunately, that rage was directed at God though I knew that wasn’t what I needed to be directing toward Him. He owed me nothing then, and He owes me nothing now; however, my heart was shattered, and for a while, it seemed as if my faith was crumbling with it. I stopped going to church. I stopped praying. I stopped all positive feelings and allowed myself to succumb to the pain and the anger. When...
While we were waiting to adopt, I would wake up in the middle of the night panicky. My mind would wander to the thought of suddenly having a baby. With groggy eyes and a cobwebbed mind, I would ask myself, “Could I get up right now to go soothe a crying baby?” And then the insecurities would flood me as I thought through the difficulty of dragging myself out of bed to give milk to a fussy newborn. I didn’t know if I could. With each application sent to agencies and social workers, the possibility of adopting a baby became more...
Dear daughter, Before God knit you in my womb, I was wandering around aimlessly, searching for a purpose. I had changed my mind several times about what I wanted to do with my life. I felt so much pressure to figure out what I truly wanted. I rushed into career ideas, only to realize I wanted absolutely nothing to do with any of them. I started grad school, only to quit in three weeks. I was crushed and defeated. I begged God to show me His plan, to give me a purpose. I begged Him to give me something I...
We were told she wouldn’t make it to 20 weeks. When she made it, we were told she wouldn’t survive to full-term. When she survived to full-term, we were told she wouldn’t grow properly. When she grew, she thrived. When she thrived, she confused the doctors. RELATED: Keep Fighting, Little Miracle When the doctors tried to find the science to explain away her defeating all the odds, I had the answers. God. Prayers. Miracles. At 10 weeks when I found out about her condition, I prayed. I gathered my prayer warriors, and we prayed. Ultrasound after ultrasound, the technician was...
Bring on the bottled scent of fresh mountain breeze and seaside lavender. I’ll happily perform the swivel dance of transferring clothes from washer to dryer. I’ll hang those darlings with delicate personalities to gently air dry. I don’t mind the doing part. I’ll do laundry ’til the cows come home. It’s the folding part that I tend to put off. The cows have come home and gone to pasture several times, and that basket of clothes is most likely still sitting there developing more wrinkles than a baby bulldog. And don’t even get me started on ironing. Let’s just say...
Mama friend, I know you’re exhausted. It feels like you have nothing left to give. You know you need to take a moment for yourself, but you don’t know how. I know it all feels endless—like it will never be any different. I know you long for a week, a day, or an hour to yourself but take this moment. Put the baby in the playpen. Tell the kids to play in their room. Sit down somewhere away from the dirty dishes in the sink and the pile of laundry that has been waiting to be folded for days. Step...
This ring is not much to look at now—a well-worn piece of turquoise costume jewelry, its cheap metal revealing its quality and insignificant cost. But the value of this ring, “The Ring,” rivals that of my diamond and gold wedding band. It is priceless. For me, it is tangible proof of how an unseen God orchestrates events, circumstances, and people to remind me that miracles do happen and that He hears me—especially when I hurt. I happened upon this precious keepsake at a time in my life when things seemed to be falling apart and when I was feeling very sorry...
Seated at the sunroom breakfast table, mouth full of Special K, I glance out the row of windows. A flutter of gray-blue against white paint catches my eye. I quickly swallow. “Y’all, a bird just went inside the bluebird house!” We all stand in a row, mimicking the windows. Yes, my sleepy morning eyes did not deceive me. Tail feathers were protruding from the circular opening. At last, a bird had found its way to this little white house with a tin roof nailed to a lone holly tree in the middle of our backyard. This was not the original...
My eyes flickered open and closed as I lay on the hospital bed after giving birth to my first-born daughter. The lights above me felt painfully bright as my eyes fought hard to stay open. Almost lifeless, my body had never felt so depleted. I lay there in a dream-like state, watching the world go on in full speed around me while inside I was in slow motion, barely strong enough to partake in the joy of bringing my daughter into the world. I had given every last ounce of myself, poured out until there was not much left. My...
Last night, I sat on my youngest son’s messy bed, and we said our nightly prayers. I went first, as usual, and he followed up, mentioning a little boy’s name I had never heard. When he was finished with his prayer, I asked who so-and-so was. He explained that he is a student in his fourth-grade classroom, who was crying during class yesterday morning. The teacher asked him what was wrong, and he said his dog had died. My heart immediately went out to the young little boy, facing what may be his first major heartbreak in life. I was...