My son stands shirtless on his bedroom rug at 9pm saying, “We’ve been gruff to each other all day, Mom, and it makes me feel bad.” His words prick my pride, and I open my mouth in defense, but the boy stands soft and I repent. Kissing him on the cheek, I say, “You’re right. Will you forgive me?”

Motherhood—fire that burns the dross of arrogance, leaving cinders of humility that birth honesty of heart.

“Mom!” Says the six year old standing on the living room carpet, white face splattered with pea-sized mud droplets, eyelashes dark with mud-mascara, hands, fingernails, elbows, smeared brown, Spiderman tennis shoes thick with grassy clumps of earth. “Mom, I fell down.”

Motherhood—daily dying to perfection and living to mud-splattering, paint-dropping, laundry-creating Beauty.

“Mom, I want to go outside!” screeches the two-year-old as I wrangle her flailing body through the basement sliding door. Moments before, as I soaped dinner dishes in the sink, I looked out the kitchen window, saw a blaze of blue and pink peddle across the grassy field behind our house and groaned, “She escaped again?!”

Motherhood—telling sons and daughters what’s OK and what’s not and holding the line gentle-firm because God disciplines those he loves.

“Mom?” says the thinking boy from his goodnight pillow, “Why did Jesus make his parents the boss of him? If I were God I wouldn’t make my parents the boss of me, I’d do whatever I want!”

“Mom,” says thinking boy again, “I hate it when I do stupid things like disobey you and pour water into my guacamole. I hated eating it all mushy. Why do I do it, mom? Do things I know I shouldn’t?

Motherhood—a call to the Kneeling Life, to dependence on the God who gifts our sons and daughters with the Second Birth we cannot give, for Flesh gives birth to flesh, But the Spirit gives birth to spirit.*

 I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. ² Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.

(Ephesians 4: 1b-2)

Reflection Questions

What “snapshots” make up your life? As you reflect on your responses to life’s mishaps and adventures, do you see humility and dependence on Christ? How might you turn more quickly to Christ when you feel weak or inadequate?