Not what I intended

I got an email today from a long-distance friend who is an amazing mommy of four young children. She’d had just returned from her preschooler’s first flag football practice and had declared it a TOTAL FLOP.  Having never been a part of any kind of team activity, her little gridiron had decided that the shelter of mom’s legs was safer than the kid-infested practice field. And the nearby slide on the sidelines was more inviting than the commotion on the yardline.  “The worst part,” my friend wrote, “was when it was almost all over, I realized his fingernails were painted pink and purple from [his big sister’s] mini makeover last night. Nothing like playing your first game of football as a little boy with pink fingernails! Not what I intended.”

When I got done giggling, I thought about how often motherhood is “not what I intended.” I didn’t intend to bring my daughter to dance rehearsal without ballet shoes. I didn’t intend to mop my floor five times before noon. I didn’t intend to yell at my eleven-year-old when his rolling eyes challenged my authority (and my intelligence). I didn’t intend to show up at church smelling like spit-up. I didn’t intend to lose my lingerie beneath all those nursing bras for so many years. I didn’t intend to snap at my husband when the baby’s 3 A.M. screams interrupted our wished-for night of sleep. And I certainly didn’t intend to respond to my toddler’s foolish tantrum with a little tantrum of my own.  Some days, motherhood just feels like one great big good intention gone awry.

Thank heavens I have a Partner in Parenting who NEVER FLOPS. Jesus spans the gap between the mommy I’d like to be and the mommy I really am.  He fills the chasm that exists between what I’d hoped to do and what I actually accomplish. He bridges the great divide that separates my daily drudgeries from His divine beauty. Then as He does, He reminds me that He is not yet finished with me nor with my pink-finger-nailed, green-toe-nailed, eye-rolling, juice-spilling, bare-footed children.

We are all works in progress- just as He intended!

Today’s Treasure:  There has never been the slightest doubt in my mind that the God who started this great work in you would keep at it and bring it to a flourishing finish on the very day Christ Jesus appears. Philippians 1:6b