God Loves YOU!
Today I’ m not going to post about Crazy Love by Francis Chan. Maybe next week .
I have a mother’s heart. God blessed me with one child, of which I have looked at with wonder, since the day she was born. My daughter is going to be 18 yrs old in a few months. She is counting down to the day and reminds me of it all the time. She looks very similar to me and it is hard to mistake her for anyone else’s child, but no matter how much she looks like me, or has the exact same voice, she is not me. I spend every day getting to know her. Even though I’m a mom and still shaping the person she is going to be, she is very much independent. I’m very proud of her. I feel love every time I look at her.
I have on my heart some amazing mothers who are faced with challenges. I have a lot of on-line friends that I only correspond with because we are fellow bloggers. We cannot help but write about our personal lives and in that way it is easy to feel a bond to someone you have never met.
One of my blogging buddies has had ALS (Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), often referred to as "Lou Gehrig's Disease," is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord.) for over 19 yrs. She was a single mother a lot of those years. In her blog, The Daily Warrior, she wrote to promote ALS awareness and shared her highs and lows. I think she is one amazing person for being so honest about her life and still able to touch my life as well as others, even after her hands were too crippled to type anymore. She stopped blogging over a year ago. I thought of her today, and if I could, I would visit with her and give her some love and thank her for liking me too.
Three of my friends have Autistic children. This makes mothering an enormous challenge, and also at times makes friendships hard. I admire these women for their patience, their love, and forgiveness in others, as their daily life is a relentless pursuit of normalcy.
As I share with my friends, I know we all love our children with our whole hearts, and at times we are not prepared for the people they become. – Or more importantly the people they are and we are still getting to know them. One day it could be a tattoo, another day they might become smokers, or diagnosed with cancer or another life altering health issue, or decide to move far from home and have a different lifestyle, or some other issue that makes us not feel so accomplished as parents, when the person we love, has us look at them with new eyes.
I too, am someone’s child. I can remember one of my ambitions as a child was to not let my parents down. I’m sure they had higher aspirations for me that I have not achieved in my 40 yrs of life. I’m thankful for my parent’s love. I have my own set of challenges my parents wish I would overcome, but being a parent myself, I know the most we want for our children is for them to know we love them, and always want the best for them, even when they do not or are not able to meet a parent’s expectations.
I want to uplift all mothers today in prayer. Some days mothering can almost break us. Lord, let mother's be vulnerable when we admit we can’t do it all. And Lord, please put people in our lives that can hold out a hand that is attached to an arm to give a hug, and love us as they draw us close to their own hearts, and hold us near, until we know everything is going to be alright and we have the strength to not give up on our children. Lord, please meet our needs, strengthen us, and give us hope.
I hope the Heavenly Father has the same love for all of us, to not give up on us and still love us as we do our best, physically and spiritually, becoming the people we are to become to be part of the Kingdom of God.
If you feel like you have landed on your ceiling, don’t worry; hitting the ground hurts more.
(that is supposed to be funny)
To Love and be Loved is to feel the sun on both sides of ourselves – The good and the bad .
“Have faith in the Lord your God, and you will be upheld.” – 2 Chronicles 20:20
My favorite quote of the day is from my blogging friend Kathryn @ From the inside... Out, talking with her son.
Taylor: “Mom. How weird were you last night?”
Me: “Um. I don’t know how to answer that. Was I ‘Mom weird’ or the usual ‘generally weird’?”
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