It has been a year since my baby girls were born and a year since I have been considered a mom.
Still I don't feel like I am.
I did have one occasion when Daniel and I went out of town to celebrate our anniversary, I stood up and cheerios fell out my shirt. That was a moment that I felt like a mother.
Truly the first few weeks of my girls lives were the hardest I had ever endured.
Being a mother is giving up basic life.
Slowly though things fall into place and a rhythm is established and there is a sense of normal again. I can shower, clean, eat as well as other several things I didn't have time for when they first came.
I feel like a proud hen puffed up in triumph when I am out and about with my girls. They truly are my pride and joy.
My love for them grows daily even when it seems impossible. But that's what love is I suppose. A growing flourishing life in itself. It constantly is in growth.
Being a mother has placed me in what I thought was a special league and though it certainly is a special league of amazing women I also see it's a place of uncertainty.
A place of comparisons. Which I guess is just a woman thing anyway- a girl thing.
Why do women do this to themselves? I'm sure a lot of it is just the society we live in, everywhere we go, every magazine we read and every television show has a picture of what is considered beautiful even tho all and I do mean ALL these women are altered in someway, either through botox, surgery, makeup, editing and alterations through photoshop. The picture we are given is false yet it's the standard. & men see this too and are constantly thinking that is the norm for beauty.
There are very beautiful natural women out there.
But beauty has pieces that make it whole, outward appearance is only a part.
As we all know our vision of a person can be altered sharply and quickly by who they are. A rude, cruel, negative and hurtful person can shrink in beauty quickly while someone not considered pretty can have immense beauty in an instant with their love and grace for others.
It is like given a small glimpse of what God must see in us. The vision we have that alters as we get to know a person is the vision and perspective that God has all the time. Instead of looking out to in, He looks in to out. He sees our hearts and that is the person we are. We can be pretty ugly or pretty marvelous.
That is truly how people should be looked at, not on proper placement of facial features but the proper place of a persons heart.
But moving on... as we as women find ourselves comparing ourselves to our thinner friends, or sizing up to a larger friend. We do the same as mothers.
But instead of measuring our bodies we measure our children against others.
We can become consumed with the thought that if a child is better behaved that their mother must have it right. Or that they are just 'Lucky' to have gotten a well behaved child.
OR we puff up thinking we are the better mom and there must be a problem with another persons child.
This mind set is wrong.
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I may have not studied the bible forward, back and upside down but I do know God never intended for us to be comparing ourselves against another, let alone measure ourselves with our children.
There is a lot of talk about judging and that is not our place.
Matt 7:1-6
Luke 6:37
James 4 God alone, who gave the law, is the Judge.
Comparing ourselves as mothers is passing judgment either on ourselves or on someone else. How do we know what a perfect mother is? Or children?
Even Eve the very first mother didn't have perfect children- one killed the other.
And God our prefect father had and still has children that are very imperfect.
To think someone is better as a mother by the standards of our children isn't what God intended. As well as thinking we are better as mothers.
What is bar we are reaching for then?
I would have to say God's bar- not for everyone ' bar' but the individually and uniquely made bar that God has for you & for me. He intends for us all to reach the same mighty goal but none the same path. As we seek and ask for wisdom and pray for our children He will certainly give us what we need to be the best mother for our individual and unique children.
It would be nice to live in a world where people were not sizing up to one another and instead striving to live a life worthy of His grace and love that He has shown us. Measuring ourselves to His standards.
We are far from perfect, but not so far to what perfect could be in our lives if we seek God.
I am very proud of my children and I love them more than anything- but they are my own children and I am their mother. I will not compare myself to other mothers, but I will compare myself to the mother God intends me to be. I will seek advice from Him and other mothers I respect and see a presence of God's handy work- we are all in this together, struggling or not.
We should be supporters to other mothers and seekers of God's wisdom in our lives.
& it shouldn't stop there, it should exceed in all aspects of our lives as women to support one another in their individual and unique growth.
I want my girls to see me as a woman who looks up instead of around. So they too someday can pursue their own path in life the right way instead of looking at everyone else's path.
