How Motherhood Changes our Eyes

I barely recognize the woman staring back at me in the bathroom mirror at five A.M.

Her eyes are red, rimmed by deep dark circles, and she looks like she hasn’t slept for years. This is the me without thick drops of concealer to hide my exhaustion, the me without foundation or powder or a hot shower to bring me to life. 

This is the me who baked muffins at 11pm because the girls needed to bring breakfast treats to cross country practice in the morning, the me who was folding laundry at midnight because those Friday football shirts were buried somewhere at the bottom of the pile.

This is the me who stumbled out of bed at 2 A.M. and 3 and  4 to chase away a preschooler’s bad-dreams with a back rub and a prayer.  

That woman in the mirror, the one with the red eyes and dark circles, is the me who never knew that motherhood changes more than a woman’s waistline; it changes her vision as well. 

And I’m not talking about the blur that hangs heavy like a thundercloud in the morning after walking the moonlit halls with a fitful baby or the fog that enwraps us after holding puke buckets all night for a lurching child.

 I’m not talking about the haze that hovers at daybreak when we’ve stayed up half the night helping our the tween finish his science project or the shroud that muddles our view when we’ve lingered long listening to our teen cry about the mean girls. 

  I’m talking about the way a mama’s eyes never see the world the same once she has held the wet-pink fruit of her own womb and kissed that holy gift wrapped in wrinkles; the way a mama never peers with the same perspective once she has wrapped her arms around that long-awaited babe born by grace and adopted in joy. 

 Nobody told me how a mama’s eyes will spill helpless when she looks at pictures of starving children, how the cries of her heart will mix with her drizzle of tears and she won’t be able to breathe, because somewhere in the world that starving child has a mama, too. One who can’t see hope through her desperation or spy help in her suffering.

 Nobody told me how a mama’s eyes will pool pain when she notices the lonely child on the playground, how a mama’s eyes will be able to gaze through the goth and see a a wounded teen in need of love.

Nobody told me how a mama’s eyes will leak when she stares at those golden dandelions in a jelly jar on her kitchen counter, how a mama’s eyes will recognize thePicasso in the finger painting, the poet in the crayon-scrawled verse, the musician in the kitchen-pan-drum band.

Nobody told me how a mama’s eyes will trickle joy when she watches her little ones chase their shadows across the yard or how her vision will blur with gratitude when she spots her firstborn walking hand in hand with his baby sister. 

Nobody told me that motherhood would open my eyes to the One who dances with me in the kitchen when the kids are twirling giddy.

Or that motherhood would make me desperate for a glimpse of my Savior when I’m standing red-eyed and weary in front of the bathroom mirror and wondering if I can really face one more day of monotony and mayhem and mommy-come-now’s.

But,thankfully, a wise one once told me that “The eyes of the Lord search the whole earth in order to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him.” (2 Chronicles 16:9)

And so the eyes of this mama will look for glory in the grit.

And, by grace, this mama’s eyes will stay fixed on the One

who never takes His eyes off of me.

Linking with Lisa-Jo and so many other lovely writers for Five-Minute Friday. 

Today, we’re writing for five minutes about the word “red,” just pouring our hearts on the page, uncensored, imperfect, and real.

Won’t you join us?