The Beauty in Messy Motherhood

I’ll admit it.

When the journey began, I fell hook, line and sinker for a serious myth of motherhood.  Grant it, my road to caring for little ones started early.  Mixed along with shades of immaturity, I also carried a bit of over-reaching ‘can do’ attitude {um, more accurately labeled as perfectionism}.

Naturally, this is all being evaluated with hindsight 20/20 vision.  I didn’t see myself falling into a pit in those days.  I simply believed it all to be true.

What did I place trust in?

That motherhood has a script to it.  That outside the initial groaning pains of labor and delivery, motherhood wouldn’t get too messy, too complicated….too unbearable.

See, I had been taught formulas for most of my life.   Follow this, get that.  Don’t do this, enjoy that.  And true, Scripture confirms a sow-and-reap principle way of living — there is blessing connected to obedience.  But, I’m not really sharing about a godly perspective on following directions.

I’m talking of a misplaced belief that life for the Christian mom is like a gum ball machine.  That if we insert exactly one shiny round quarter, we’ll get exactly one shiny round piece of gum.  Every. Single. Time.  You know what I mean right?

As I approached motherhood, and for many years following, the formula method seemed to serve me well.  At least on the outside.  But unfortunately, no one ever shared the hidden costs of such a life, of believing such a myth.

Of how incredibly difficult it is to maintain the appearance of ‘all is well’ when sometimes, it’s really just hard.  Of how this sense of control was based on nothing solid, and wouldn’t last.  Of how playing God’s role was much too big of a job for me.

I wish I had understood that even when the gum ball comes out, it might not be the color you hoped for.

When we attempt to live this tightrope balancing act of doing it all right {and worrying like crazy when we don’t!}…a point of motherhood is completely missed.

Motherhood is about a partnership with God – messes and all.  We will not always keep our end of the agreement and sometimes, we’ll be the cause of the mess.

He knows.  He anticipated this and understands.  He gave us a whole Book filled with pointers and guidelines on what to do with the mess in our lives.  Yet I also believe God calls this sacrificial messy work we do beautiful.  In trying so hard, we can miss that we’re dependent on Him to do the work through us.  We miss the beauty of our calling.

So what if we focused more on being faithful to this call? -- not on never making a mistake.  Being faithful instead of being perfect.

Today I encourage this perspective…that we pursue faithfulness in our motherhood journeys, one day at a time.  Even in the inevitable messes, we’ll find beauty and greater joy.

{photo credits}

post written by Daniele of Domestic Serenity