For Every Mom Who’s Died a Thousand Deaths (Five-Minute-Friday)

 Motherhood is a daily invitation to die.

Those weren’t exactly the words I was hoping to hear that day in the grocery store when my toddler was whining about the box of Captain Crunch I’d vetoed. And the preschooler was dancing dangerously close to the tower of toilet paper stacked tall at the aisle’s end. And the baby was wailing hungry in the shopping cart.

I was used to well-meaning grandmas stopping me as I shuffled by with my circus and telling me how quickly the years would disappear.

And I always counted on the kind-hearted cashier winking at me over the cash register as my little shoppers begged for candy and then reminding me with a grin that children are a gift from God.

But talk of daily death wasn’t a part of my normal Monday-morning grocery routine.

Yet, the one who had said it had looked at me with such a tenderness and compassion that I’d stopped right there in the middle of aisle seven, and I’d let her wrap her soft arm around my weary shoulder.

She was the mother who had raised four godly boys and had shaped hundreds of others. 

I was the mom who was four children and one decade into parenting and still wondered how my heart could feel so empty when my hands were so full.

I was the mom whose eyes burned red with fatigue and frustration.

She was the mother who laughed easy and hugged firm. 

I was the mom who brimmed tears and battled discontent, the mom whose greatest fantasy was just to crawl into bed and stay there for 1000 days.

Or until the crying stopped.

The baby’s or mine. Or both.

She was the mother who had already died a thousand deaths.

I was the mom who was tired of dying.

Tired of chasing toddlers instead of chasing my dreams.

Tired of writing grocery lists instead of penning inspiring words.

Tired of wiping skid marks of off baby bottoms instead of leaving my mark on the world.

Tired of packing diaper bags instead of vacation bags.

Tired of cutting forty little dirty toenails instead of painting mine.

Tired of Disney films instead of chic flicks.

Tired of happy meals instead of candlelight dinners.

Tired of working in the kitchen instead of working out.

Tired of one day blurring into the next.

But there she was in front of me, this woman  full of life, one who’d walked the road I was walking and still had a skip in her step; 

One who’d given more than she’d taken. Still, she overflowed.

And though I felt like every passion inside of me had died, a flicker of desire sparked somewhere deep within, and I couldn’t put words to the longing in my bones, but I knew this:

I wanted what she had.

After she’d kissed the baby and danced with my preschooler, she’d stepped back and cast me a tender gaze, and then she’d  asked what she could do for me on that melancholy Monday morning.

I nearly missed the gift that followed.

I’d flashed her a fake smile,  murmured, “I don’t need anything. I’m fine….”

But then a stray tear had zig-zagged down my cheek and she knew. 

I’d dropped my head and stared at my scuffed-up shoes.

Finally, I’d  whispered small and desperate, “Could you just pray?

She’d nodded graciously, like I was the one who had just given the gift. 

And that mama of four handsome boys who’d been raised to chase God-sized dreams had smiled a radiant smile and scooped up the toddler spinning circles around us and wiped the baby’s nose with the corner of her own sleeve. 

And then she’d pulled me close, and I’d let her hold me right there in the middle of the grocery store while shoppers compared the price of cereal and chatted about the snow in the forecast.

And this woman who had died a thousand deaths whispered words of life that fanned a smoldering flame deep in my soul.

Father,

Hold this sweet mommy in your arms and give her Your joy.

Renew her strength and give her courage to die to self so that Christ may live large in her.

Keep her from growing weary. Whisper words of love in her ear.

Tell her she is beautiful. Show her You are faithful.

And may the seeds she plants as she lays herself down grow bigger and better than all of the dreams she’s dared to dream.

For your glory, Father. For your glory.

When she’d finished the prayer, the baby was crying again. My toddler had pulled off her shoes and my preschooler was tugging at my arm doing the gotta-go-potty dance.

But I’d felt something stirring way down inside of that dry and discouraged heart of mine.

Or maybe it was something dying so that new life could bloom.

She’d hugged me once more and headed toward the check-out line, the wheels on her cart squeaking a happy tune.

I’d jostled the baby in my arms, bent down to rescue the pacifier from the filthy grocery store floor, and I’d wondered if I could learn to bow low so that His glory could rise.

“Listen carefully: Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over. In the same way, anyone who holds on to life just as it is destroys that life. But if you let it go, reckless in your love, you’ll have it forever, real and eternal.” -John 12:24-25

*Finally finding my way back to my  Five Minute Friday friends at Kate’s with today’s prompt HOLD.