I shared this incident with some friends recently and realized that it was something I want to remember, so I’m sharing it on our blog.
There are so many parts of being a mommy that you can never understand or be prepared for in advance. When I imagined being a mom, I knew that it would be hard. I knew there would be lots of dirty diapers, sick days, and messy meals, but there is a big difference between expecting those things and actually living them. Until you’ve experienced it, you don’t understand what it is like to live daily with someone else’s snot on your sleeve; you don’t understand what it means to come in contact with poop several times a day or to find yourself cleaning up a bed of vomit at 3AM. But this is normal life for a mommy, and, even though there are so many beautiful, priceless blessings that come with motherhood, the messy parts can be draining and exhausting. There are no standing ovations for mommies, no promotions, and few “thank you’s.”
I love being a stay-at-home mom. There is nothing that would make me want to do anything else because I know that these years are fleeting. Caleb needs me so much right now, and someday he won’t. But, even though I feel so convicted about staying home with him, there are still times when I wake up and think, “I can’t believe this is my life! I can’t believe I went to school and studied so hard for all those years so that I could be a janitor.” Something about being a mom can make you feel so invisible, unappreciated, and unimportant. I know that these things aren’t true, but sometimes, without realizing it, I find myself living as if they were.
A few weeks ago, Caleb woke up sick. He had thrown up all over himself in bed. You can imagine the mess. How does one even begin to clean up something like that? Casey was out for the evening, so I found myself facing this mighty mess all alone. Usually I have a pretty bad attitude about situations like this. I hate messes, especially when I’m tired, and toddlers are so uncooperative when it comes to cleaning. But, for some reason, I approached this mess with a deep, calm peace. I gave Caleb a bath, put him in clean pajamas, and changed the bed sheets. The only thing left was the blanket that he had thrown up in. I wasn’t sure how to clean it. It was too big to rinse in the toilet, but I didn’t want to throw it in the washer with all of the vomit still on it. So I spread it out on the floor and tried to scrub it with a washcloth.
Caleb perched a few feet away from me and just watched. As he watched me struggling with the mess, he smiled at me and in his quietest, sweetest voice said, “Good job, Mommy.”
I was so startled by what he said that I immediately started crying. It hit me like a bolt of lightning that Caleb was not the one speaking to me. I heard unmistakably the voice of my Father saying, “I see you; you are not invisible to Me. I see you, and I am pleased.” Wow! How’s that for a standing ovation!?! I would clean up a mess like that every night for a year to hear those words from my Father. It was a beautiful moment that I want to cherish always.
“So she called the name of the LORD who spoke to her, ‘You are a God of seeing,’ for she said, ‘Truly here I have seen him who looks after me.’” ~ Genesis 16:13
So, I now know that I am a grown-up because … brace yourselves … I have begun drinking coffee! Not just drinking coffee, but craving coffee, thinking about drinking coffee. I am 27 years old and have never liked coffee before. I think most people are driven to coffee in college, but not me; Coca-Cola was enough for me in college. I have now, finally, this late in the game, been driven to coffee by MY TWO-YEAR-OLD!!
