This morning started out like every other morning that is just like every other morning until it smacks you in the face. I went to the grocery store with my two youngest children. As we were checking out, the check out lady asked me how old my youngest child is. I told her "20 months."
She said "oh, but he's still a baby."
I said "Yes, he will always be a baby. They are all babies. Even my 15 year old is a baby."
She said "Yes, even my 25 year old is a baby."
I said, "yes, they will all always be our babies, right?"
Now this particular lady is one of the kindest, most soft spoken women I have yet to encounter. If she is working a register, I will go through her line. We usually talk lightly about our children. Today, since she mentioned that her baby is 25, I asked her if she has any grandchildren.
She said "No, but my daughter is talking about having kids. She lives in Germany though."
I said "Oh wow. You must miss her."
She said that yes, she does. I asked her if her son in law is from Germany, and she said "No, they are both in the Air Force." She told me that her daughter flies airplanes to different countries to get injured people out and bring them to the hospital in Germany.
You Guys!
This lady, my check out lady, had a baby who now gets into heavy metal contraptions and flies them through the air high above land and sea and touches down in places where people are killing each other with large deadly weapons to take out the injured parties and fly them somewhere else and does this over and over and over and over again!!
And she will be doing it for the next two years!!
Oh.
Wow.
Incredible.
So then I was feeling all the feelings and thinking all the thoughts.
How many times have I wished that my children will never ever ever decide to join the military. It's just too scary.
For me.
For them, it's probably an adventure and a life long dream. For them, it's possibly even the calling that the LORD has placed on their life. And so I do not pray that He keeps them out of the military.
His plan for their life HAS to come before my own plan for their lives.
My plan for all of my children would be for them to live in relative ease and comfort, the kind that I have never known and never missed but, we all want better for our children, right? I want them not to suffer in any of the ways I have, or experience the painful things that have served to deepen my sympathies and compassion for others, strengthen my character, and helped me to grow?
I want them to be comfortable, but still not be jerks?
And at the same time, I want them to know and love Jesus with all of their being. I want them to fulfill what He has for them! As long as what He has for them involves living within a short traveling distance to where I live.
I decided when my first son was a toddler that I'm not going to be one of "THOSE" mother in laws to my adult children and their spouses. I'm all for the leaving me and the cleaving to their spouse. It's just that their spouse will look at me as a sort of older best friend who's feet s/he wants to spend long hours sitting at to glean my wisdom. Right? And then go out for coffee together and stuff. Right? That sort of thing. I'm going to be a cool mother in law, the kind that respects my adult children's space, does not put unhealthy demands on them, yet is readily available to babysit and to be home just in case, you know, they ever want to just stop in and say "Hi, MOM!" on their way home from the grocery store or whatever. Because we'll live in the same city, you see?
But I decided all of this before I actually had grown up children. Truly, it only took a plus sign on a pregnancy test for me to have the life of the baby I JUST discovered existed all planned out for... Him? Her? Oh well, it doesn't matter as long as the child just STICKS TO THE PLAN.
AMIRight???
Ahem.
(Clears throat)
(coughs)
Do you know that I was never going to let my child wear shoes that had cartoon characters on them?
Do you know that I was going to be the nicest, kindest mother? And then my first born was actually born, and she, it's like she instinctively knew that I was the sensitive type, and so she went about trying to ruin that forever. It's like she knew that I had been a compliant child myself, and did not understand why anyone would want to buck authority just to see if she could. And then I made the mistake of actually taking her to the shoe store with me, and she actually saw the shoes with the cartoon characters, and those were the only shoes I could get on her feet. And so in this way, my child began to raise me. And so it went with the whole batch of them. It's like I intended to cook eggs over medium, and what I ended up cooking was scrambled. With cheese on top.
As none of my children are yet grown ups, this state of events makes me nervous. Like, OK, what if WHAT IF I actually am a decent mother? What if I'm decent enough that my children grow up feeling loved and treasured? What if they grow to love and seek the LORD based on seeing my example of how I love and seek the LORD? And then because I have done such a good and thorough job of training and raising and loving loving loving on them for all of these never ending days of repetitive tasks and discipline, the children are actually confident and independent enough to trust that they will be OK in this world, as long as they are following God's plan for their lives? Even in dangerous situations? And then I find out that my own little baby is moving to Germany? Or Zimbabwe? Or Utah? Because S/he feel that that is God's plan for his/her LIIIIIIFFFFFEEEEE, and I can say, "Bye bye, grand kids! I'll see you every time I get over my fear of flying and empty bank account, WAAAAHHHHH!"
You guys.
Motherhood is heart work.
It's not so much hard work as it is heart work.
We may all mother differently, but we all mother from the heart. Who's babies grow up to be Fighter Pilots, Missionaries to foreign lands which contain non curable non vaccinable diseases, or to in any way put their lives at risk to protect other lives and freedoms?? What sort of babies grow up to in some way contribute to making the world a better, safer place?
The babies who had the best mothers, that's who.
One last thought that seemed obvious to me before I had children: Their lives do not belong to me. They belong to the LORD, who saw fit to make me their mother...to raise them, so that they could live the life HE planned for them before the beginning of the world.
(I'm pretty sure that plan never involved their mother stepping in the middle of their path and getting in the way of their destiny.)
"Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: "This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul, too."
(About Jesus, her first born child.)
-Luke 2:34-35
