Do you remember those days when you were a new mom? When you had no idea what you were doing and every expectation was bursting with excitement and fear all at the same time. And you dreamed of being the perfect parent.
I’m preparing to pick up one of my kids at the airport, all the way from Australia, and I’m about to bust with expectation and excitement. He proposed, and we held his secret safe for a few months now so the anticipation of the precious season we’re entering into fills me in new ways I’ve not yet experienced in motherhood.
Times like these usher in memories that wash over our hearts with such sweetness as we think about where time has gone and how much life has been lived…in the blink of an eye.
Lately, my mind travels to one of the last times I enjoyed all of my children under one roof at the same time. We seem to be an international family, so time together is sacred.
It was a night we planned to dig through the family archives and show home movies when they were young enough to not remember life together. When they were young enough for me not to remember the moments I always swore to never forget. When motherhood was very much a journey of floundering, falling behind and feeling each failure with more intensity than anyone should.
What I didn’t anticipate among the memories was the gift that awaited my mama-heart after all these years.
Reel after reel, in all the remembering, it turns out time brought more gifts than my heart could hold. The story laid before me wasn’t the same as the one I remembered.
Instead, each frame was a splendid reflection of all the good that weaves the souls and years together. And the image of the young woman mothering all these souls held more beauty, patience and unconditional love than she ever realized she possessed…a testimony to God’s plans for a hope and a future beyond the broken chards of the past.
There was a time when I didn’t think I had what it took to be a mom. I thought my past disqualified me because the childhood wounds were deep and the road to healing daunting. I was plagued with doubt of how I could ever show my kids their true identity when I was still discovering my own.
The truth is, none of us are really qualified, and motherhood is a journey of self-discovery for us and our children. It’s rarely perfect, riddled with mistakes and just plain unnerving at times. But there’s a beautifully raw truth beneath all of this imperfection.
Motherhood doesn’t have to be perfect to be a perfect calling. Share on XAnd there’s freedom in living out this imperfection. Because this perfect calling is not placed on us but IN us. By a God who sees a purpose and a plan in all the unqualified fragments.
♥ He threads the flaws with hope and weaves whispered promises through soul holes of doubt.
♥ He sweeps grace across every unnerving and unmet moment.
♥ He winds love around every unqualified lie and binds truth to each notion of imperfection.
All this to remind us…not of who we are, but of ‘WHOSE WE ARE.’ To draw us to Him. And all this to reveal the breadcrumbs for our children to lead them through their own imperfect to the One who has a perfect plan.
Through every broken, imperfect moment, His plan will not be broken. A perfect calling is a holy calling, bound by a promise. A promise of a legacy – for us and for them.
And when the reels of moments are played across our life, we will no longer see the imperfect or unqualified. And neither will our children. Because a life poured out and overflowing with God’s grace reflects an unexplainable beauty that transcends all of our shortcomings.
Frame by frame, we realize in living out this motherhood calling, we have not only discovered ourselves.
In all our imperfect, grace-filled moments…
We’ve discovered Him~
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