Being a Mom.

There's really nothing that can fully prepare you for becoming a Mom.  Sure, you can read the hundreds of books out there on parenting, but until you have a itty bitty tiny human in your arms, you can't quite understand.

As quickly as they started, the newborn days are over, and suddenly we have tiny humans on our hands.  They're rolling, crawling, walking, then running and each night you realize you will never have these days again.

Then, you enter the tunnel.  The days of dreading dinner time... it's loud, chaotic, and always a fight.  One of the boys is banging their fork against the plate, while the other is yelling "ahhh aaahhhh ahhhhhh", just to try and out-do the other.  These are also the days that you wave your white flag, even though its only 8:30am.  And of course the days that you think your child spent more time in his room in time-out, than he did outside his room.  You know the ones I'm talking about.

Through the chaos that abounds and also through the happy and silly times, above all, I want our home to be a place of refuge.  The place that our kids WANT to come home to... where they know they are loved and their voice is heard.  The place they want to go when they've been mistreated, or made fun of... or when they were chosen last.  As well as the place they run home to when they are so excited they can hardly speak.  I want to be the person that they want to share their secrets with.

Our Pastor talked this morning about the legacy we leave and have, not only on our children, but our grandbabies and beyond.  How similar our parenting style is to our own parents, because that's what we know.  Sure, we can tweak things here and there, but the bottom line for most of us is that we parent how we were parented.  Which, most likely is the same as our parents... and our grandparents.  The values, the traditions, the way we speak and talk to each other. The way we love our spouse will someday affect how our kids love theirs.  The amount of affection we show to our kids will someday affect how loving they are.  The way we react to positive and negative will most likely be how our children do as well.

We have such an important role to play.

Today, I'm especially thankful for my Mom, who is an amazing example and role model for me... who raised me in a Christian home, instilling Godly values in me that affect me daily.  I never fully understood the way she loved me, until I became a Mom myself.

I'm thankful for my Mother-in-law, who raised my husband to love God with all his heart.

I'm grateful for our grandparents... without them, we (literally) wouldn't be.

And today, I'm thankful for the blessing of being a Mom.  For the exhausting, terrifying, overwhelming moments that give me opportunities to show my complete dependence on the Lord.  I'm thankful for the chance to put my boys' needs above my own, on a daily basis.  And more than anything, I'm so grateful for the sweet and tender moments that put everything else into perspective.

Thank you, Jesus for my boys.  Being a Mom is one of my greatest blessings.

"Before you were conceived, I wanted you.  Before you were born, I loved you.  Before you were an hour old, I would die for you.  

This is the miracle of love." 

-Maureen Hawkins