Rear View

Yesterday I had a very strange moment. I was driving my kids home from preschool and I glanced in the rear-view mirror. For a split second I felt as if I was living someone else’s life. When did I become an adult? When did I become mature enough to be a mother to these three tiny people? When will I be giving them back? It was as if I blinked and my life changed from being a carefree teenager to being a mother. Ever had one of those moments?

I read a fascinating quote in an article about motherhood this morning. The following quote was written by Joszef Cardinal Mindszenty in his book “The Mother”.

“The most important person on earth is a mother. She cannot claim the honor of having built Notre Dame Cathedral. She need not. She has built something more magnificent than any cathedral—a dwelling for an immortal soul, the tiny perfection of her baby’s body. The angels have not been blessed with such a grace. They cannot share in God’s creative miracle to bring new saints to Heaven. Only a human mother can. Mothers are closer to God the Creator than any other creature; God joins forces with mothers in performing this act of creation. . . What on God’s good earth is more glorious than this; to be a mother?”

I just kept reading the “a dwelling for an immortal soul” part over and over. It’s easy to read something as powerful as that quote and know that what I do all day REALLY is worth it. That those random moments where my subconscious tries to poke through in the rear-view mirror to convince me that it was better “back in the day” isn’t the truth.

I’m sure all you mothers out there understand what I mean by the never-ending cycle. Motherhood is this cycle of sometimes (ok most of the time) mind numbing duties that, like zombies in the night, we do over and over, day after day, year after year. Put them together and you have one heck of a job description, but separately they can seem like the most pointless tasks. I guess that’s why our job is not only the most important job in the world, but the job that requires the most prayers and aid from God. We simply could not do it without Him. I sure wouldn’t want to.

When I look in the rear-view mirror tomorrow, and I see those tiny little faces smiling back at me I’ll try to remember that I am in charge of forming them to become saints. That God is depending on me to be the very best mother I can be so that the souls that He created in my womb will one day be reunited with Him in heaven.

The Mom in the Mirror

Would all the perfect mothers please stand up. Are you standing?

 Yea. Me neither.

Don’t we all strive to be the best moms we can be? We try to do it all. Society has convinced us that we are not good enough unless we have the perfect children, are in perfect shape, dress like a magazine model, decorate like Martha Stewart, cook like Betty Crocker, participate in all these extra-curricular activities, and the list could keep going. Does it make us imperfect if we “fail” in one of these areas?

Our brains have been conditioned to constantly criticize that person looking back at us in the mirror. Let’s cut ourselves a break and be realistic for a minute.

I read an article recently that discussed how women need to stop judging each other and just tell a fellow mom “good job” once in a while. It encouraged us moms to reach out to the mother you see struggling in the grocery store or in church with a wild toddler instead of judging them.  Isn’t it time we do the same thing to ourselves? It’s easy to look at all our failures and all the things we don’t get done in the day, but let’s cut ourselves a break. It’s impossible to get it all done. That’s one of the joys about being a mother—we are always needed. Even when our kids are grown and gone we will be needed.

I’ve said it many times before, being a mother is the hardest job in the world. You can feel so completely worthless and wonderful all in one day. There are no pay days or raises. We just do what we do. Then we go to bed (sometimes with one or two children squeezing in bed with us) wake up and do it all over again. It is an endless job. An endless passion. An endless vocation.

So instead of knocking ourselves down because we aren’t perfect, let’s stand up, look ourselves straight in the mirror, and remind that person of how good of a job they really are doing. Then ignore some of that housework and go play with your kids, or read them a book, or color a picture with them, make a mud pie—because at the end of the day isn’t that what you want your kid to remember??