Dig Deep

This morning I stood in the silence of my kitchen and just stared out the window.  I breathed deeply as if to inhale and freeze time in the rarity of the moment I was in. 

It was one of those moments as a momma, where you're afraid to open the cupboard to reach for your coffee mug because you just know that little ears are listening and ready to creep out of bed and jump start your day with giggles and fits and crushed cheerios, flung oatmeal and art projects. 

The beautiful and the messy. 

But I wasn't quite ready for those moments to start.  I just wanted some time to reflect on where I've been and where I'm going.

I'm finding that some of my days lately just come easy.  I climb out of bed and deep down in my soul I feel good.  Like I'm ready to take on all of my responsibilities as a wife and a momma and just own them. I've got all the energy I need, all of the will power and stamina to face the grocery store temper tantrums in the gummy bear aisle. 

And then there are some days--some weeks even--where I just feel disheartened and I just can't seem to find the power to dig deep. Like last week when the sewage in the basement was leaking and the car broke down in the grocery store parking lot and one baby was throwing up. 

Mommas, those days are hard. 

Those are the days when I just want to stay in bed, pull the covers over my head and selfishly say, "no" to all of what's being asked of me. 

Maybe you're there too this week.

A friend recently said to me that this is the time when we as mommas are to be the roots for our family.  We are to grow our roots so deep and strong so as to create a place of strength and stability for our kids and our husband. 

So maybe these are the hard days.  The hardest days.  The days when the car needs towing and the raw sewage in the basement makes the kid's play area smell like....well, you know. 

But these are the good days.  These are the days we grow our roots deep.  We dig deep.  We find strength we didn't know we had. 

These are the days that we prove to ourselves that the crushed cheerios underneath our bare feet won't actually kill us.  That one more restless night of sleep from a sick baby with an ear infection isn't going to do us in (even though it feels it in the moment). 

These are the days we learn to trust that God really does see us-- even in our spit up, sticky fingered, diaper changin' glory.  Because that's totally where I am. 

Praying truth over myself and over my purpose as a momma in this time and in this place.

We take these moments and we dig deep and we teach our babies what it means to be really strong and to persevere and to find joy even in the most mundane places of life. We teach them how to dig deep-- on their own hard days.  We are teaching them, and ourselves, how to be strong and to hang on for those times in life when the bigger hard stuff comes. 

 

So dig deep mommas. 

You've got this.

Plant those roots and be encouraged. 

These moments matter. 

These days-- even the hardest days-- they matter. 

You matter.