Blessed Mama

Made it through another week.  Another week of virtual school.  Another week of quarantine.  Another week that looked a whole lot like the weeks before it. 

But just like all the weeks before it, God has been faithful. 

I am thankful:

~ for the coffee that greets me every morning.   

~ for morning Bible time to start each day.   No matter what comes, at least I know we started with the first thing first.  

~ for all my Indians.

~ for the faithful dedication of all our teachers and the school to provide our curriculum.  I can’t even imagine how much extra work and out of their comfort zone it has been for them to create all this material and videos and links for their classes.  What a strange and memorable year.  I will be forever grateful for the way they have loved on my children. 

~ for a kind friend who delivered farm fresh eggs right to my front door.  And how nice to see a sweet smile that I have missed so much.  Thank you Miss Debbie!  And for tasty avocado egg toast!

~ for the pool.  Absolutely NOT a need.  I know we are abundantly blessed above and beyond to have this luxury right in our backyard.  What an incomparable blessing for the kids to be able to just run out there and burn off steam.  They can get their energy out and get plenty of vitamin D after their schoolwork is done.  It’s also a powerful bargaining tool for mom.  Not done with your work?  Then you ain’t swimmin.  Grateful for gorgeous sunny afternoons.

~ for Mexican toilet paper.  (We seriously can’t find any normal toilet paper anywhere!)

~ for kind people during this strange season.  How surreal it is to drive around and see people everywhere with masks and gloves.  You can’t gauge much about the countenance of a person with half their face covered. But I’ve seen so many kind eyes. I’m so thankful for people who are going above and beyond to keep others safe while doing their jobs.

~ for our neighbor’s sunflower and how happy it makes my little sunshine girl.

~ for a fun afternoon of Minute to Win It Challenges with the kids.  Daily challenges had been provided by our school, but I saved them up for one big Rucker Tribe Challenge.  We all had a ball.  You can watch the full video here.

~ for perfectly chilled coconut cream pie made with LOVE.

~ for photos to forever commemorate Tatum K’s first time through the car wash.  Sheer terror followed by complete joy when it was over.  Shame on us for laughing at that poor baby.

It’s been a good Mother’s Day.  Home church, fresh bagels, and sunshine set the tone.  We ended the day with all 9 kids home for a meal of colorful grilled kabobs and wild rice, and will finish with me eating ANOTHER perfect piece of coconut pie in my bed.

I looked back at what I wrote on the blog last Mother’s Day, and it makes me laugh how true it rings again this year (and last year there was NO PANDEMIC going on!)

“My legs need shaving, my grey needs colored, my floor needs mopped, and my bed’s not made.  And I will be 100% honest and say I usually don’t fully appreciate my life.  I am short-tempered  and impatient and overwhelmed.  Too many questions, too much laundry, too many squabbles and the sippy cup is always lost.  But today.  Today I have been so thankful.  Yes, my plate is full, but I see my cup that overflows with blessing.  My house is a mess, but it’s bursting at the seams with the people I love.  I have no idea why God has given me so many hearts to be responsible for, and most days the task completely terrifies me.  I am VASTLY UNQUALIFIED.  But I know that the confidence in myself that is lacking is ECLIPSED by the confidence I have in Him.  He gave me all these babies.  I don’t know why I am so blessed, but all I can do is thank Him and do my best every day.  And when my best isn’t good enough, His grace will meet me there.  I’m pretty much the most blessed mama on the planet.”

Thinking of all the different kinds of moms today.   Most moms don’t have the picture perfect day and the picture perfect family.  Every mama I know is broken in some way.  Longing for a child.  Lost a child.  Lost their mother.  Strained relationships.  Complicated emotions that are hard to talk about. Things just not going how they imagined, or just so much harder than they expected.  It’s ok if you don’t feel like a great mom.   Most moms don’t.  But whatever season we are in, we need to stop measuring ourselves against one another, or against some externally constructed idol of how our lives should be.  And none of us are alone – someone else out there is struggling too.

Be where you are.  And be there as well as you can.  Trust that God knows what He’s doing.  And be kind to one another and to yourself. 

And this morning, on Mother’s Day of all days, one of our beautiful little Gold Network Heroes, after a long and hard-fought battle, went home to be with Jesus.  PLEASE PRAY for his mama and family, today and every day.  I hate cancer.

Thanks for giving thanks with me. 

“But certainly God has heard; He has given heed to the voice of my prayer. Blessed be God, Who has not turned away my prayer Nor His lovingkindness from me.”  (Psalms 66:19-20)

“Hear my cry, O God; listen to my prayer. From the ends of the earth I call to you, I call as my heart grows faint; lead me to the rock that is higher than I.”  (Psalms 61:1-2)