Confessions of an Imperfect Mother

Lately, I find myself dreaming about many things, except mothering. I dream about saving hundreds of dollars each month because of my mad couponing skills. I dream about learning how to use my grandmother’s old singer sewing machine that was built in 1952, and making beautiful quilts. I dream about sponsoring more children through Compassion International. When the kids are awake, I dream about nap time and bed time, so I can get back to making Christmas gifts, and cleaning the house, and maybe reading and writing. I dream about running the 10k in Charleston this spring.
I dream and I dream, and I get very grumpy when my dreaming (or maybe I should call it my escaping) is interrupted.
Sickness has returned to our home, so interruptions include crankiness, snotty noses, restlessness and towering dishes. I was loading my dishwasher yesterday when this thought came to my head, “What if this is all I have called you to do?” I had to swallow. What if mothering is the sole task I am given here on earth? That question laid my soul bare, and my pride and discontentment both stood naked and ugly before me.
This round of discontentment had nothing to do with possessions, looks, gifting or travel. This round was all about calling.
I grew up proud to be a missionary kid, maybe not because of what my parents were doing, but because it set me apart from any other child in my country of origin. I was raised in a cultured city. I knew how to jaywalk. I spoke a second language fluently. I was the first missionary kid in Austria from our missionary organization to go through the entire Austrian school system. I could travel internationally on my own. In college, debates over cross cultural experiences made me chuckle and at times even sneer. They knew it in theory, but I had lived it! My background, my gifting and all my wonderful accomplishments seemed to set me up perfectly to do great things on this planet.
Not long after college, a ring was slipped on my finger, and I made the vow of forever. Two years later Joseph Maximilian was born, which officially made me a stay-at-home mom. I coped by joining a cosmetic business, even though I hardly wore make-up. If I could no longer shine as a teacher, I could shine as a business woman. Two years went by, and I found myself starved to really be at home; to engage fully in the life of my child; to bake bread; to transform our house into a home. William Chadrick was born, and that sealed the deal. It meant auf wiedersehen to lipstick and mascara.
Then yesterday afternoon, I was confronted with the question that I have possibly been running away from for the last four years. What if being a mother is all I am called to be in this world? I love being a mom. I know the pain of losing a child. I see the pain of women I know and love who long to hold their own child in their arms. And yet, my escaping actually means that I am insisting that it is not enough and that there has to be more out there for me to do. I have a feast laid before me in my mothering, and I crave chocolates and gummis.
A day later, after being confronted with the immeasurable worth and vulnerability of children in Wes Stafford’s book, Too Small to Ignore, my mind is a whirlpool of thought fragments, and I am wanting some clarity. And it hits me. What was the remedy to my discontentment of earlier this year? Wasn’t it thanksgiving? Wasn’t it acknowledging whatever God set before me? Hasn’t that led to my eyes opening in wonder to the beauty and action of God’s blessing on my behalf?
I have thanked God for my children. I have thanked God with tears that I am a mother. But I have never thanked him for assigning this task to me. One of the most important callings (and maybe the only calling) of my life stares me in the face every single day in the form of twenty fingers and toes, curls plastered to a snotty nose, pains in growing limbs, questions about this big world we live in, pitter- patter in the hall before dawn, the contents of my wallet thrown around the room, the desire to play super heros, the need of snuggles and a good book, and using the air intake as a piggybank. It is exhausting, and I really can’t do all the things I want to do. I can’t even do a lot of “Christian” work in my own city, let alone in a foreign country. But I can open my hands to the blessing, give thanks and build the kingdom within the walls of my home, so that my boys know that Jesus is here and know him.

So here is my first attempt:

Thank you, Lord
for entrusting two of your sweet children to my care.
that you have called me to minister to their needs.
for giving me the grace to see that I am called to a very significant task.
for gently showing me my sin, and restoring me.
that I can build your kingdom here and now, not just someday.
that you see and that you know.

Amen.