Mothering

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 We have sent or hand-delivered flowers to my mom, step-mom and mother-in-law....in honor of Mother's Day tomorrow.  I received hand-made gifts, flowers and actual store-bought gifts from my children for Mothers Day this weekend....I even drove in the rain to a greenery and bought myself a flowering pot....all in the name of mothering.  

     This can be a hard day for those who have lost their mothers, those who long to be mothers, and for those who chose to place their child in the arms of another mother.....I am holding space for all of you.  I am keeping you all in mind and lifting you up in prayer to the God who knows and who comforts and who gives beauty from ashes......

     Mothering is serious business.....it is beautiful and magical and tragic and overwhelming....it is mundane and exhausting and exceptional and unique.....it is situational and it is global....

Mothering is wiping a runny nose and kissing a bride before she walks down the isle.  It is listening patiently to the most boring story ever and it is rushing kids to the bus stop.  Mothering is planning meals, and making sack lunches and baking cookies and cleaning up spilled milk.  It is worrying when they don't come home on time and beaming with pride when they pitch a strike in baseball.....it is rushing to keep them from burning a hand on the hot stove and scolding them for chasing a ball into the street.....it is tossing and turning at night and taxi-cab driving all day.....it is scheduling all the things and still fighting to have them together at the table for supper....it is all the things....and so much more.  

     We deserve the day.

     This is my first mother's day as a foster mom.  This is really hard stuff....I know and interact with her regularly and I know how much she loves her kiddo.  She told me recently that she misses being a mom.  That pierces me pretty deeply....please pray for this family....that they can find their way.  My adopted kids have to adjust and compromise for foster kiddo....and the bio kids did the same when the adopted kids each came home....and my soul is big enough but my mind and my arms and my lap strain to be.  Mothering is serious business....and hard work.  

     Make no mistake...mothering is the best work, the sweetest work, the most special work.....and I will continue to champion for it, help others get to it and walk through it for all of my days because it is worthy, worthy work.  

     Happy Mother's Day everyone.  If you are not mothering, you can appreciate the mothers in your life, and the truth that mothering matters.  Mothers find us at work,  at church, in friendships, and in our neighborhoods... mothering is an integral part of humanity and beyond that to all species....because mothering matters.  

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