In Dirt and Glory

 This mama thing is hard work, I tell you. Sweat and blood go into this job. Tears-both the happy kind and the sad-spill over this sacred duty called motherhood, and only God knows the number that has been shed. Thousands of diapers changed, meals prepared, prayers prayed, and questions left unanswered dot our days. Monotony can overtake, can't it? Sometimes our lives feel like groundhog's day...the same thing repeated again and again...and again.

Make no mistake mama, the repetition of your million little acts of love are not falling on barren ground. Your countless kindnesses to your children through dressing them, snuggling with them, smiling at them, reading to them, feeding them, playing with them, laughing with them, and doing life with them are watering the garden of their tender souls. You matter. You are doing an incredible thing--mothering your children--and whatever you may read in magazines or see on pinterest, don't let it fool you. This calling is not easy! But it is a calling--a glorious and incredible and messy calling. There are no clean, straight lines (or clean, tidy houses...at least not mine!) or cut-and-dried answers. We will feel we are doing it all wrong at least a million times over the course of this parenting journey and years down the road we may say, "If only I knew...".

But here's the thing, all we have is today. So as messy and dirty and crazy as this motherhood journey is, I want to be all in. I want to dig in the mud with my kids both literally and figuratively. I want to laugh hard and play hard and love hard. I want to give fierce snuggles and one more goodnight kiss. I want to throw off the hindrance of my insecurity and run with reckless abandon this mama race set before me. We won't be perfect--probably not even close. We will make mistakes--likely every single day. So what? I, for one, don't want to let that be an excuse to be half-hearted in my love. I don't want to hold back because I'm afraid...I want to get messy and earn my battle scars!

This life--this mothering thing--it is a mix of dirt and glory. I want to have a little bit of mud on my face. I want to be in the game and not on the sidelines. I even want to fail sometimes (even though I hate it!) because it means I'm giving my all. At the end of the day there is nowhere I would rather be than right here, in this mix of dirt and glory. So for all the sighing and second-guessing and "I can't wait for this faze to be over-ing"...for the endless toy-strewn floors, sticky fingers, and tear-stained cheeks...for the "she started its" to sort out, apologies to make when we screw it up, and moments when we just don't have anything left to give...look for the glory that is showing through the cracks. I promise it is there. In the midst of the chaos and the mess and even the monotony, His glory shines. May we have eyes to see it, and may you--if only for a moment--catch a glimpse of the beauty that surrounds you this very day.