May is the motherload (pun intended) of months for me as a mom. Both my daughters are born in May and my cancer-versary is in May.
This gives me a lot of time to ponder the meaning of motherhood and of course to analyze myself to see if I am on the track I thought I’d be on. Re-evaluate myself, push myself, pray and try to really tune in to my girls and our life.
Lately, I feel myself being pulled in so many different directions, say yes to all of the things and feeling like I am not keeping my most important job on the planet as sacred and centered in my life as it should be.
Motherhood is something that is easily taken for granted. When we are blessed with a baby, we swoon and make them the center of our universe. Then a few years, and more babies down the road sometimes those rose-colored glasses lose their luster. Life happens. Disappointment happens. Discipline must happen. The messes, the stress, the chaos….it all just happens.
With Mother’s Day, it really makes me think about my role as mom, right here and right now.
I know I can be better. I know I can put my phone away more often. I know I can better prioritize my day, so that I am not working on my computer every moment of the day when my kids are awake and yearn for their mommy’s attention.
But why is it so hard to pull away?
I wish the world didn’t pull us from what is most important. I find it ironic that the time in our lives when our careers start to soar is when we have littles at home.
Seems backwards doesn’t it?
I find myself constantly questioning what is most important and maybe I am getting it all wrong. With all the flashing signs, keeping up with the Jones, buy this, do that, make this, sign up for that, wear this, lift that, drive that, be like that… maybe that is all just a lie.
I mean truly, the most important thing of all is not what, but who.
God made us relational creatures for a reason. The who is much more important than the what. But it’s easy to push the who aside for the what.
As all you mamas out there enjoy Mother’s Day, I hope you’re able to put the what away. To immerse yourselves in the who. Instead of trying to escape the chaos of children, to cherish it.
From the moment my daughters were handed to me I was forever changed, as most moms are.
I remember rocking Henley to sleep after being given the harshest chemo available to inject inside the human body, and I was swaying and sweat was just falling down my back. Hot flash after hot flash, wave and wave of nausea just kept flowing over me. But I refused to give up one of the moments I cherished most with my baby because cancer threatened to take me away from them. I refused to let it keep me from being mom.
Every day the world tries to jade us from our true purpose as moms. Don’t let it mamas. It is hard, life is hard. But this job God gave us, it is THE most important job we will ever do. Never let anything get in front of that.