I struggle as a mom. Having three young children, I feel like my children take me away from things that I enjoy, the things I do for myself. Sometimes, especially after a night with no sleep or a day full of tantrums, it feels like my kids are stealing from me. Stealing sleep, stealing peace, stealing focus…
But that ends today. I have determined that this is a lie I have accepted for too long.
One morning as I held my 18 month-old son on my hip to feed him his breakfast, a thought entered into my mind:
“Aren’t you tired of them stealing from you?”
At first, my millennial-mom-cultured brain kicked in saying, “Yeah! You’re right intrusive thought! I haven’t even had breakfast yet and I hadn’t even realized-“
And then I stopped that thought in its tracks.
“No,” I said out loud, “They’re not taking my life from me- I’m giving it to them.”
As little girls, we dream of becoming moms. We hold our dolls, play house, and beg and pray for the day when one day we will have a baby of our own and wear the badge of honor called “motherhood”.
But that’s where our dreams have disconnected from our lifestyle.
In all of our self-care routines, our me-time, and our treat yo’ selves, we have forgotten one major thing:
Motherhood is sacrifice.
In our survival mode of motherhood, we sometimes make our children a place of burden. After carrying the feeling that our children are taking from us instead of adding value to our lives, we can enter into resentment. We experience FOMO and begin to daydream of the day that our kids are grown and out of our house.
But then the joy of our children, our long-awaited children, is stolen.
If anything, the thought that our children are stealing from us is thereby taking more from us than our children are in daily life!
I am a Christian and this really impacts me in my life. Many who are Christian or not are aware of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. For those who were alive when it happened, they could have believed two versions of the story. One version where the Roman soldiers and the Jews brutally beat and killed an innocent man, stealing his life from him. Or they could have believed that Jesus was like a parent, intentionally laying their life down sacrificially for their children out of love. His life wasn’t taken out of robbery, but out of his choice as a parent to give his life.
So many times in the Holy Bible, you see Jesus comparing himself to a mother hen, ready to scoop up their chicks underneath her wings (homestead moms know what this looks like!).
I will never get it perfect, and I may have to fight this thought constantly, but I choose the perception that I am voluntarily laying down my life for my children because I want this to be the legacy I leave behind.
Yes, I still go get my iced coffees and my pedicures, but I will stop believing the lie that my children are stealing a better life away from me. My life right now is enough and it is good.
