One I'll Remember

There are moments in my motherhood journey that I'd like to forget.

The time I walked into the nursery and found the contents of a diaper smeared on the bed, the walls, and the door - and was greeted by a smiling toddler who was grinding it into a perfect rainbow in the carpet by opening and closing the door. And, my husband was out of town.

The time I foolishly let go of a tiny little hand so I could open the car door, and that tiny little hand, along with the rest of his tiny little body, darted across a crowded parking lot and into the street.

The time I sat on a mall bench with a starved, screaming newborn, and two unhappy, overtired toddlers, tears streaming down my face that perhaps my desire for a big family was doing me in - once and for all.

BUT.

There are moments like these.

The ones that make my heart want to leap out of my chest.

When the middle of the night blowouts, the tantrums, the cereal-covered kitchen floor, the piles of laundry, the sore boobs, sore feet, and sore back all pile up to a mount of nothin'.

When the discipline, the repeated lessons, the gentle guiding, the thousands of prayers - oh, the prayers - that my husband and I pour into the lives of our children pay off in a glorious display of God's work of grace in their little lives.

And, when our mistakes and shortcomings as parents, tears and pain, failures and botched lessons can't hold a candle to the joy we feel when watching our precious little ones live out what we're teaching them.

Moments like these...