On Mother's Day

Twenty years ago on Mother's Day, I was just beginning to fill out my maternity clothes. Strangers were asking with more confidence, "When is your baby due?" I was signing up for Lamaze and baby CPR classes, practicing different boy and girl names in my head, and making tentative peeks down the baby aisle at Target to see what in the world I was getting into. I didn't know it then, of course, but what I was getting into was the greatest experience of my life. I would not have said that six weeks in, or even six months in. I wasn't thinking that during all those Mother's Days photo ops when you could bet money that one of my kids would be kicking and wailing. But this morning, walking around my prayer track, I could think of nothing else: Getting to be part of this family and being a mom to these four kids has been the joy of my life. As I thanked God this morning, some thoughts came to mind:

• There was a toilet paper commercial in the 80s that sang out, "Because little things mean a lot." This is my anthem as a mom of nearly-grown children. I'm not looking for grand vacations or life-altering family conversations. I'll happily take the six of us simply inhabiting the same space. Last weekend, Kevin and I went to church by ourselves. This Sunday, four kids sat with us. That means a lot. Riding in a car with every seat full means a lot. Asking for a table for six at a restaurant means a lot. Overhearing my kids all laughing together means a lot.  

• I no longer want peace and quiet for Mother's Day. I want loud and rambunctious and all in. 

• I'm so glad I couldn't really freeze time when my children were 4, 7, 9, and 11. I thought those were the perfect ages, that our life couldn't get any better. I was a little scared of the thought of teenagers. But I can say now that 12, 15, 17, and 19 is as good as it's ever been. Younger moms, please don't dread the passing of time and the aging of your kids. It keeps getting better! 

• As a mom, I live with constant tension between the short term and the long term, between what is best for my kids and what my heart wants. I could write a book or preach a sermon on raising independent kids who have the space to learn from failure, but I always have to fight my natural urge to rescue them. Two days ago one of my high schoolers got herself into a big pickle. I spent the entire day forcing myself not to help her. It nearly killed me, until she walked in the door at 8 p.m. and said, "That all turned out really well." It turned out well because of her, not because of me. 

• Bulldozing my firstborn child out of the nest and sending him 1,500 miles away to college was more gut-wrenching than I could have imagined. But hearing him say, in one of our prolific emails to each other, that "this is why it's probably good to go far away to college," made it worth all the heartache. 

• I suspect that the hardest part of my mothering experience is yet to come, the part where I have to grow beyond my identity as "mom" to become the full "me" God created me to be.  That growth, I imagine, will come in a very quiet house. I have to talk myself into believing that that stage, too, will be every bit as good as the parts that came before. 

Happy Mother's Day to all of you, mother or not, who have loved others tirelessly and selflessly. You're better for it, and so is the world around you.