Moms can’t MEASURE What They give away

Moms sometimes keep the strangest things. Locks of hair, pacifiers, baby teeth. It makes for funny discoveries and family jokes. But if you pause to think about it, is it any wonder?

Is it any wonder?

I recently pulled open the freezer and saw the last 2 batches of breastmilk sitting there. A few years later, I’m surprised every time I see them. Surprised that I did that, and surprised I still have them. I held on to the small frozen batch of miraculous milk. And I of course put it back in the freezer, to remember for another time. A token to the season of sleepless nights and fuzzy heads and growing way too fast babies, and being able to provide for them.

Like anything we might collect, it’s a reminder. A reminder that through a grand series of miracles, we were able to participate in some of the most amazing things- creation, new life, birth, growth.

Most of what moms do can’t be kept or measured, just given away.

This is a journey without miles markers. Without trophies. In a society that values accolades and beauty, there’s little of that to show for motherhood. If you’re doing it well, especially.

You can work all day and could hardly even tell you were there. (Unless you weren’t. ) Late night feedings and warm hugs. Dust that settles as fast as it’s wiped, laundry that doesn’t stay clean. Escorts to the bathroom and late night talks, disasters avoided. presents unwrapped, sandwich crusts discarded. Prayers she muttered that only heaven hears. While loving most of it, a mom can still look around and wonder, by the look of things, what it is she has done.

She gave. Everything that can’t be measured. She gave of herself.

Mommas are endless givers, from the moment they become one. Even the ones you might not think are. From the moment you begin your arrival, whichever way you come, moms start letting go. Letting go of pride. Letting go of plans. Letting go of how things used to be.

The way things rearranged forever, the stretch and crack of opening ribs, hearts. midsections, entire lives. The skin that won’t ever stretch tight again, not without a surgeons knife. The scars on a mom’s once-beautiful midsections. She let go of what was more beautiful to everyone else in order to hold on to something more beautiful, to her at least. And heaven.

It changed almost everything. But it was worth the price of admission. We now have a front row seat to these lives growing. We barely blink. Of her breath and bones, midsection and heart alike, life has bloomed.
This is everything right here. Where dreams are born, where dreams are blooming. Where character is formed. Where character is sharpened. Where babies grow and patience does too. Where they crack open sometimes and we almost crack sometimes, too.

It left her bloodied and scarred. But not really broken. Only sometimes it seemed that way. (Maybe just a little cracked. But how else would the wine come pouring out so fully?)

But then, like a Phoenix. A flower. A zenith. She rises again.

And as you grow, she’s letting go even more. Letting go of pieces of you. Of pieces of her. But don’t worry. She’s becoming, too. Becoming more beautiful, more sacred, even while more scarred. Sacrificially somehow, being made more whole. The most beautiful scars, the ones worth holding onto, are the scars left by the sacrifice of love.

Some people call it the toughest job. The worst job. The dumbest job.
It has to be one of the holiest. Holy, as defined in this way: ‘‘Living or undertaken with highly moral or spiritual purpose; saintly.’ The work of all parents, fathers too, are so important it can be a most holy work. But there’s something about what moms do that is so personal, it feels almost sacred.

WE are not holy (every mom knows. The hours are too long, some days too exhausting.) But the work is holy. And it is most holy when we remember as such. A 24/7/365 responsibility, inviting another human into your most personal spaces, to raise and care for.

We are not saviors, only called to love like One. To introduce them to Him. To be hands and feet and arms open wide in the middle of the night, an open hearts to listen to your worries and dreams, for length days.

It’s is a refinery. A wine press for the ages. It’s the pouring out of wine that only makes the next batch even better. She’s been poured out like wine, drunk from like a river, held a sacred life in the breadth of her arms. Not for personal gain, but a loving sacrifice.

The opposite of the old adage, she lost the whole world and gained her soul. We thought we’d be helping shape to them. The constant growing and rearranging is ours, too.

All of this letting go, she’s been collecting sacred beauty that no man can see, deep in her heart. God sees. God knows. She just wants to remember sometimes, too.

So, it’s no wonder she’ll hold on to the breatsmilk or the pacifier. Sometimes when the kids aren’t around, she might want something to hold on to. To remember. To remember how far you’ve both come.

Because your becoming has been her becoming too.