An Accidental Mama

I'm an accidental mama, I had no plans of motherhood. Content in my skin, loving marriage, figuring out life; I was surprised by motherhood.

Not My Call

I don't live for my kids. I made room for them. But they don't define me. I don't relate to mothers who declare they were born to be have babies, that it's all they ever wanted. I can't taste it, don't trust it.

I worry about mothers who say their children are their lives. From my own experience I know the gaping wound that's left behind when a child grows up, claims their life for their own and leaves you. The bitter taste on the tongue of the heartbroken mama and the frustrated young adult. When I left home, I watched the slow bleed in my own mother's heart until Jesus healed it and gave her a new and right passion, himself. 

Some days I look at my children and wonder how I got here, covered in peanut butter and washing mounds of laundry. How did I become the mommy, where did my youth go? I don't resent it, most days. But I marvel at the fast moving pace of time and it's slippery march onward.

I don't live for my kids. I live for Jesus. But I do love them. I wasn't born to be their mother, they were born to make me one. And I'm thankful, because nothing has shaped this selfish heart with compassion, like motherhood has.

I'm amazed to see their little personalities and opinions emerging; unique, wonderful. I see God so clearly calling, drawing, loving. It makes me fall in love with him all over again, the way he loves my babies even more than I do.

My Calling

I don't understand motherhood as a calling. Perhaps it is and I just missed the memo. But I do know it's a privilege, and my responsibility, to usher these little lives into their own faith, their own place in God's family.

No, waking up to referee fights, cook another meal, read another book, make another bed doesn't set my heart racing with purpose and passion. Being a voice for the broken, mentoring women, praying bold prayers of faith, taking a risk for the gospel, pounding out words that bleed grace; that makes me whoop and holler!

I know who I was made to be, a voice, an advocate for truth. Being a mama is a tool God is using in my life to refine me, to remind me he knows what we need better than we do, to put a magnifying glass on the way of grace. I'm not at the place in my life where I can say motherhood is a calling. It's a refining, a breaking, a rebirthing.

The beauty is that if you see motherhood as your calling, a divine purpose for your life, or if  like me you don't, God still has grace for us all. Our end goal can be the same, children rooted in the love of Jesus, growing in faith. Our source of strength and help is the same, Jesus' mercy and power for this day. This moment. Mercy for now, mercy for each other.

Is motherhood your calling? Or are you more like me, pursuing your calling in the midst of motherhood?