An Answer to Mommy's Prayer

This little girl of mine pretended to sleep on the couch for over an hour. When she first laid down I came over to ask her how she was feeling, because while she is like me in many ways, one way that we are very different is this: simply lying on the couch is just not her thing. She didn't give me much of an answer, she just closed her eyes. I checked to see of she was feverish, first with a hand on her forehead, and then with a kiss. It was maybe a mother's sixth sense or perhaps the tiny smile I caught on her face, but I knew my little pixie who never ever needs her momma wanted to be my baby again. So I stroked her hair and cheeks, kissed her head, and scratched her back. I used this short time to lay my hands on her and pray for her. All the while, she kept squeezing her eyes closed tightly, occasionally trying to peak at my face. She even tried to make her breathing seem deeper now and then. I played along, brought her a blanket and a pillow. I was all too happy to oblige her in a rare bit of dependence on me. From the time I found out she was a girl while she was still in my womb, I've obsessed about how to protect her. Her sweet-but-independent spirit is both reassuring that God created her with "built-in" protections and terrifying that the day when she actually doesn't need me will come all too quickly.

Here's the funny (not so funny) part: I had just been lying on the couch myself, praying, begging God to help me to be a better mother. The exhaustion of the past couple days, weeks, months had me feeling like a failure. I wasn't even sure exactly what I was failing at because it just felt like it was pretty much everything.

And there she was, God's immediate answer to my prayer. His answer to motherhood and its struggles.  The Spirit of Christ gifted to me and permanently set deep in my heart allows me to have a love for these children too heavy and beautiful for words. It wasn't that I was able to appreciate this little moment in that "excuse the mess, my kids are making memories," Pinterest mom kind of ways. It was just a reminder that I've gotten from God on a hundred different days in a hundred different ways: these kids are great and all I want to do is love them.

I'm going to fail my kids because I'm human. I'm going to have days when I haven't really failed them, but I'll still feel like I have anyway. But because God has never failed me, I can just go on loving them in the way that He has taught me. I can be dependent on the hope that God prunes and grows and makes me better. I can go on simply loving my big girl who will always be my first-born baby because He so loved me.