The other day I took out a stack of photo albums and flipped through my journey of motherhood thus far. I took a thousand pictures that first year. I wanted to capture every moment that I was so certain sleep deprivation and colic would cause me to forget.
As I looked through the photos of my bundled up newborn, a wave of sadness washed over me. For the first time I didn’t remember those early days as completely hellacious. Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t completely forgotten how crazy I felt during the unending nights of colic-induced screams. But a part of me yearned for one more night to place him on my thighs and rock him back and forth, back and forth, until he drifted off to sleep.
Because although those nights felt so long, these past almost three years have gone so incredibly fast.
Motherhood was a huge adjustment for me.
Kara Tippetts writes, It took me years to find contentment in the mundane momentum of loving in motherhood.
Almost three years of being Jackson’s mama and I can finally say I’ve reached that place, too. As I’ve written about finding glory in the ordinary this month, God continues the work He began in my heart the day my son was born.
As I learned what it meant to be a mother, I realized something – I didn’t fully grasp His grace for me.
I’ve lived my entire life trying to be perfect. To please everyone. Doing one more thing to be good enough in God’s eyes.
That all came crashing down the moment all the ugly spewed out and my soul was laid bare before the Lord like never before.
The pressure of motherhood caused me to see who I really was – a selfish, angry, sinful person.
I was human.
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. (Romans 3:23-24).
I was never made to be perfect.
I was made to need a Savior.
And motherhood made me need Jesus like never before.
Where my sin increased, His grace increased all the more. (Romans 5:20)
There is glory in His grace.
And I grasp a little more of it each day.
Then I open my hand and freely offer that same grace to the little boy who calls me Mama.
