All tagged Dear Momma series
Shredded cheese was flying all over my kitchen. My girls were throwing it around like confetti, and the dogs were receiving it like manna from heaven. Squeals of pure delight were echoing loudly off the walls. They had managed to turn pizza making night into a full blown party. As I took the scene in, I realized the only one not enjoying this unplanned festivity was me, mommy the party pooper.
Eyes fixated to the skies, fingers lifted pointing in unison, voices raised echoing with genuine delight. My daughters’ had discovered the moon was visible in the daylight sky. Reflected in their eyes was a simple, yet profound sense of wonder. The moon, something we often overlook. Something we take for granted that disappears and reappears daily. It’s commonplace to us, but to our children, it is new, awe-filled, and something they want to know more about.
We all have them. Days filled with grumpies , from daybreak to nightfall. Eyes open and attitudes begin. If I’m being honest, it’s usually my heart of sin that is setting the tone for the day. It’s the days where every hour is met with another opposition. One bad thing snowballs into a no, good very bad day. Let me tell you the story of the epic Mardel meltdown of Christmas 2018.
Bad days as a mom stick out like a negative Yelp review. You could have 100 raving reviews, but that singular bad one has a powerful sting. I can vividly remember some of my worst days as a mom, the ones filled with yelling, tears, and darkness. If I let myself, I can start to erase the good memories by allowing the lousy ones linger in my mind a little too long. Before I let that bitterness start to taint my view of motherhood, I am reminded of a song. “Open up my eyes in wonder and show me who You are.” When the weight of motherhood is too much, I want to be awakened to the wonder of it, because I know that it is there where God is revealing who He is to us in an intimate way.
As a teenager the allure of danger was too strong for this boy crazy girl. Adventure was strongly ingrained in me by my dad, so when my guy friends called and said, “hey, let’s use your jeep to go mudding,” my weak heart couldn’t say no. Of course there were my mom’s sensible alarm bells ringing in my head, but somewhere along the teenage path I learned to tune those out.
We took my non 4x4 jeep to a field ripe with fresh soaked rain and held on tight. With every quick turn of the wheel we were all shouting with delight. As the wheels spun, my inclination of disaster rolled away. I’m sure you can tell where this story ended, how our fun was cut abruptly short - we got stuck. Not just a let the boys give it a good ol’ push and we’re free stuck, it was an uh-oh we are going to have to call our parents for rescuing stuck. I’ll save the comical details of that for another post.
