HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY 2022: What is being a mom all about?

Happy Mother’s Day 2022! As we celebrate this Mother’s Day, the question on my heart is this: What is being a mom all about? No doubt, we may all answer this question differently, but here are a few things that I think mommyhood is all about.

Being Present.

Being a mother is about being present. I mean this in the physical, emotional, mental, and above all, spiritual sense. Children need present mommies. Hopefully, we realize that society does not push mommies to their babies, but instead society pulls mommies away from their babies.

We rush back to work, overly focus on our goals, all while missing the main thing:

Being Present.

I’m writing this from a space of fighting to remain as present as possible for our girls. I’ve recently transitioned from working from home to working outside of the home, and I feel it. Various other concerns pull at my mind. The fight to keep the house together while working 40 hours outside of it. The fight to remain present.

I’m not writing this claiming to have mastered it, I’m writing this realizing how important it is, fighting to do better.

Being Patient.

I. Am. Not. Naturally. Patient.

Actually, I’m just the opposite. A jump-the-gun type of person. Now, that is my natural tendency, but as women following Christ, we also have a spiritual tendency- a tendency that is like Christ. If we don’t know much about Christ, we must know that He. Is. Patient.

He is so very patient with us, and as mommies we must grow to be so very patient with our kids. Our kids are growing, learning, and trying to make sense of the world; so we must be patient with them. We must give them space to grow, to try, to ask questions, to understand. We must realize that we are training them [Proverbs 22:6]. Training takes time and patience is a necessity.

Being Available

Being a mom is all about being available. You can look at this in so many ways! Being available for growth, being available to make adjustments, being available to observe, being available to listen, being available to instruct, being available to support. Motherhood brings so many twists and turns, so many unexpected things, that we must be available.

When we’re not available, we miss many moments. Big and small. We must remain available to see where our children are at, mentally [how they’re thinking], emotionally [how they’re feeling], and practically [what they’re doing].

One thing I’ve found with having girls is that we must remain available even when it’s uncomfortable or even annoying. For instance, there are times when they constantly talk and talk about every little detail. Even then, we must remain available. Or else, we run the risk of them not talking to us later when it really matters.

Being available on the small things leads to them turning to us on the big things.

Mommyhood is about sooo many things. We’ve all had various experiences with our moms, which shape our mommyhood philosophy- and that’s okay. We must, however, use our relationship with our Heavenly Father as the basis for our parenting philosophy. Regardless of what we do on this earth, we should always look to Him to see how it’s done.