Man those stinking Facebook memories that pop up…I remember this one all too well…one of my moods…I truly do thank God for the life I have…I am beyond words of thankfulness💜
Today is one of those days when I woke up in one of my moods…that self battle mood…self defeat, self criticism, depression of self…I woke up to a day where I told myself I don’t want to celebrate. Even after reading my devotions and some Bible, I still wasn’t feeling it…while this isn’t the first birthday without my mom, only the second, but so far the hardest. I long to receive her card in the mail or hear the phone ring with her voice on the other end…her voice that I haven’t heard for over a year now…a year ago still too numb to understand she was really gone. Now, understanding she IS really gone, my heart pangs for her hug, her comfort, her love.
Today marks the day she gave me life. Life. My birthday. Whoooooppeeee, right? What a day for her I’m sure. As I can identify with being a mother, the feeling of giving birth is like none other…the bitter sweetness of not carrying your child any more, the joy that escapes in sobs as you hear the first cry, the utter contentment and love of the first embrace…what else can compete with that love, the love of a mother? As we lay down our lives for our children, sometimes we lose ourselves in the day to day, the hustle and grind, the to and fro. We find loneliness in a house full of noise. We find comfort in our pillows so no one can hear our sobs, for the last thing we want to do is be a burden to someone else. We find joy in the smallest things. We wear our love on our sleeves. We battle for unity, we pray constantly, we fight battles our children may never know about. We fight our children’s battles, sometimes in silence and sometimes out loud. We tend to never ask for help, that would be admitting defeat, right??? A mother is so many things in one. One. One heart that loves all her children the same, one heart that sees the good no matter how many times she was let down, one heart that strives for the best for her family, one heart that beats life into her home, one heart that syncs with each child, each difference, each personality…How amazing is that? The love of a mother…
On days like today when I find myself in the midst of a battle between what I feel and what I know, I have to give thanks to God’s grace. God’s grace, that one more time, found me when I was about to drown out the good, with my own thoughts of the bad. I find if I rely on self, I let self down. I let Him down. But when I come to Him first, in prayer, in thoughts, in practice, in music, in the daily grind, I find the strength, the courage, the faith to let go of the mom I think I should be and embrace the mom He is shaping me to be. The mom I am. Faults and all. I find when I look for my worth through His eyes, I need to search no longer. He is creating in me the person He already sees me to be. He loves me beyond all my faults and disarray, beyond my excuses and habits, beyond the darkness I see in myself. Why? Because I am His child. As our love as mothers is extended to our children, His grace and love are extended to all His children. All of us. Every one of us. As a mother scoops us up and covers us with love, boo boo after boo boo, heartbreak after heartbreak, failure after failure, God’s love for us is one in the same. It can reach all our hurt and regret and pain and doubt. He can battle for us. He can fight right along side us. His love can turn you around that corner of self defeat if you choose to follow the directions of His guidance. His love can deliver you from pain and heartbreak, grief, anxiety, hopelessness, and unrest. He cries with joy when His children seek Him and accept His love. His love, so much like a mother’s, covers us all, blankets us in warmth, wraps us in unending grace, swaddles us in our greatest times of need, like an infant just born, all the way to a grown woman that just misses her mom…today on this day of my birth, I give thanks to my mom who gave me life 41years ago. Thank you for being who you were and are to me, I miss you like no other…I also give thanks to God, who in the past year or so has also given me life. New life, in the freedom of His grace. New life that He continues to breathe into me daily. At my worst moments and at my best, I find Him right here beside me…
Thank God. Thank God. Thank God and Give Grace A Hug❤️, today and everyday, at your worst, at your best, but if anything, with all your heart…