Keep It Simple Mom

It was everything I dreamt of and absolutely nothing I could have imagined. I opened my eyes, popped straight up in my bed and sat quietly as the tears began to stream down my cheeks. I had everything I wanted and everything I prayed for.  On that morning, however, I looked around my bedroom and wondered how I got there and whose life I was living. I felt grateful yet lost, content but empty—and confused by this increasingly awkward array of emotions.

A mother to four beautiful daughters, a wife to a wonderful man, the daughter of a King and a friend to many—I was blessed and well aware of the fact that I certainly did not deserve any of it.

As a little girl, I had dreamt of a life pretty similar to the one I was actually living. By the time I was six years old, my brain had worked out all of my life’s future details. Here’s what my master plan entailed:

1. Grow up.
2. Get married.
3. Work somewhere great.
4. Have babies. (I wasn’t too sure on the details of this particular line item…after all I was only six…. but I knew it was a part of the plan and I had been warned that it should happen in this exact order!)
5. Live happily ever after!

Sound familiar?

Well, I am all grown up now and here is something that you need to know about me: I am not one of those extremely happy, incredibly spiritual, housewives and supermoms (although I wish I was). I am, however, just a grown up little girl who dreamt of one day becoming a wife and a mommy, who has had to process and personalize the details of exactly what that entails.

In the beginning, like most new mothers, my days were full of dirty diapers, unending piles of laundry and bite size pieces of chicken fingers. The realities of my experience did not match my dream, and certainly did not resemble what my six-year-old brain had envisioned for my happily ever after.

After days, months and years of discontentment, on that one particular morning, while sitting in my bed, with silent tears rolling down my cheeks, something changed. Not my situation but my perspective.

I grew up in a Christian home and I continued to walk with God into adulthood, however, it was in this place of confusion that I finally gave God the freedom to be Lord of my life in action, not just in theory.

While my husband prepared breakfast, with my 6 year old singing her new favorite song, my 4 year old crying over a lost sock and my twin 2 year olds covered in markers and finger paint, I sat in my bed and I relinquished control. I finally gave Christ the freedom to operate and use my life in the here and now.

I began to view mothering as an opportunity to become fully present and functional in my reality.

I let go of a fantasy and in return, God gave me the true desires of my heart and an indescribable passion for Him and His plan for my life.

As little girls, I believe we have it right. Keep it simple. At six years old we realize that we cannot do it all and yet we continue to dream big regardless of the details. The truth remains, functioning in the capacity of the here and now is always enough.