It happened again this week. We had an upcoming weekend packed
full of get togethers and important meetings, one of them being a baby shower that
we were hosting in our home. And wouldn’t you know it, both of my girls ended
up with the flu AND hand foot and mouth… At. The. Same. Time.
We managed to move everything in our weekend around; my
husband took over all of our joint responsibilities at church, my in-laws
watched the girls during our meeting, we totally skipped out on a birthday
party and we moved the baby shower from the inside of the house to our garage.
We made it through the weekend in one piece and it was ridiculously rushed and
emotional, but when it was all said and done I ended up missing out on a lot of
really important (and really fun) stuff because my sick girls wanted only me.
And I’m not going to lie, I was just really sad and discouraged. Maybe even a
little mad.
crazy things that were about to happen to me: how there would be endless
sleepless nights, how my body would change, that I would have no free time and
that labor would be “painful but beautiful”. But what no one ever warned me
about was how there would be moments, maybe even seasons, in my journey of
motherhood that would be so disappointing. No one ever told me about the
potential loneliness I could feel in choosing my kid’s needs over my own. Saying
it out loud just sound pathetic (I’m sure some of you reading this are
thinking, “Well, of course you would
put your kid’s needs first, duh!”). Part of this just came with the naivety of
being a first time mom, but another part of it was just selfishness. Pretty embarrassing, right? But in
my embarrassment of these feelings and after talking with lots of my other mama
friends, I’m pretty sure that I’m not the only one who has ever felt this way.
other things that I realized was that motherhood also brought out a
disappointment in myself; a disappointment in how I would act when I was
disappointed. And I felt that disappointment in myself this weekend. But rather
than disappointment, what I should have been striving for was contentment. But contentment
is such a hard thing to muster up, isn’t it? Especially when this mama has things
to do! Philippians 4:12-13 says, “I know what it is to be in need, and I know
what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content
in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, living in plenty or in
want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.”
was really going “without.” And while his needs were much more dire that most
of ours ever will be, I think that there is still plenty for us mamas to take
from this passage and apply it in our own lives. So what does it look like to
choose contentment over disappointment for the everyday mama? We must draw from the strength of Christ to
choose joy in our contentment and kick disappointment to the curb… Whatever our
circumstance!
to help us in choosing contentment. So here’s what we busy mamas need to do
when we’re feeling the disappointment of motherhood (and lucky for us, Paul
spells it out pretty clearly):
can come in the middle of disappointment, sweet friends. And when that peace
does come, so will the contentment. Even when you have to move a baby shower
into your garage.
We’ve Said “Yes”
35 Week Bumpdate
The Empowered Womanhood Project: The Strength of Christ in Every Mother and Wife
I am literally crying right now… This is what my heart needed to hear. Thank you for your honesty and Godly words of encouragement.