I've asked myself the question a hundred times, as I know so many other mom's have too: Is it enough? Meaning is it enough to JUST stay home with my kids or to JUST be a mom and wife. I've always been very career driven and put so much of my self-worth into my success in my career. I've also always felt a strong call to tirelessly share the Gospel. I've prayed and prayed about the plan that God has for me, and when I felt called to leave my job to stay home with my kids it took me a lot longer than usual to listen because I worried about that question: Is it enough? Will it be enough to satisfy my needs and desires to share myself? Is this really all that God wants of me? Surely I could do more...
I think over the last year God has revealed this message to me in many different ways, but one night in particular a couple weeks ago, it finally sunk in. Here's what it looked like:
My husband had just turned out the lights and I turned to look at the video monitor as I pulled up the covers. "He really is the cutest isn't he." I said. Our 4 month old was sleeping peacefully, looking ever-so-small in that big crib. "We'll see how cute you think he is at 3 AM," Dan replied. .” “He’s always cute,” I argued and snuggled in to my pillow. I had just started to drift to sleep and then came his soft cries. "Seriously baby?" I waited to see if he’d find his thumb and go back to sleep but the cries got louder. “Ok.” My body protested as I pulled the covers off and forced myself back out of bed. As I walked out of the bedroom Dan mumbled in his half-asleep state, “maybe he just needs to be changed and will go right back to sleep.” “Yeah right” I replied as I walked to the kitchen and made a bottle. I went up to his room and greeted him with a smile, “Hello sweet baby,” and he can’t help but take a break from his crying to smile at me. Then he goes right back to letting me know how hungry he is.
As soon as the bottles in his mouth and he’s comfortably in my arms as we rock in the old chair in his room, he is quiet. I take it in. I realize that the baby that looked so tiny yet on the monitor suddenly seems so large in my arms. Looking down at him, I’m taken aback by just how big he’s gotten. He stretches all the way across my body, his feet hanging far over my thighs. His head is no where near the size of a newborns. But he is almost 5 months old. I try to remember how little he used to be, to compare. I can’t. I can’t picture it. It was just a couple months ago. I try to think of specific moments: his birth. OK, there he is. I can see his scrunched up face crying so violently. I can picture his tiny legs curling up every time I changed him. But there are so few memories I can recall. The tears stream down my face as I hold him against my chest patting his back for a burp as his breathing becomes that of the soft rhythmic sleep. And then I know. THIS is the surprise.
You see, during Advent and Christmas I was praying and feeling like God was going to reveal something to me. That He had a surprise for me, and I was racking my brain trying to figure out what it was and anxiously awaiting it's arrival. In my mind I was hoping for a door to open in my ministry or for a foster placement or another adoption or even my own successful pregnancy (the sky's the limit when God says He's going to surprise you, right?) I had been looking and praying and looking and praying and nothing had happened yet. But there, in that moment, I held that tiny little boy and tried to memorize the sound and feel of every breath, because I heard: "This is the surprise. And you're missing it. You're missing it because you’re so busy chasing something else. These boys you’ve been given, they are your purpose." It’s as if I could see my whole future life in front of my eyes and I knew that if THIS was the only thing I did, I would feel satisfied, accomplished…I would feel the only thing I’ve ever wanted really: to make my Heavenly Father proud. How I’ve stressed and struggled and worried how I’m meant to do that and it’s been here the whole time. These tiny hands and feet, these eyes that look into mine with such love, this is my surprise, and I won’t be missing it anymore. It's not ENOUGH for me to be a mom and a wife, it's EVERYTHING. It's my entire reason for being. I was created to love my God, my husband and these amazing little lives that have been given to me. It's so much more than "enough."
No comments:
Post a Comment