The Hardest and Best Words a Mom Can Say [day 12: write]

I would be lying if I said that I’ve kept up with memories and scrapbooks as my kids have gotten older. I didn’t finish the baby book I started with my first and didn’t even pretend to try after my second was born. I did, however, scrape some Shutterfly coupons and a bit of cash together to make photo books for both the birth-weeks and the first months of my babies’ lives. In these books, I spilled love over the pages to my children. Photos of an exhausted, swollen post-birth mommy are scattered throughout. I cringe at the sight of them, but I hope when my babies sit with these photos they just see the joy on my face to finally hold my precious babies.

On the last pages of these photo books, I wrote letters to them. They were overly lofty and sentimental, but I couldn’t help but dream big for the tiny bundles I held in my arms. There’s something about a newborn baby that inspires hope in the hearts of all that are privileged to look upon. As I gazed into their eyes and breathed in that non-duplicatable newborn smell, I prayed over them. I asked God to help me be the mom they needed and to allow them to do big things for Him. I even asked Him to start preparing a mate for them to serve the Lord alongside — crazy I know! I wrote these prayers into their photo books, and I’ve read them aloud many times since.

I love reading these over again just to remind myself to hope and dream and beg God to use their lives for His glory. I love watching their little faces light up, delighted that mommy’s heart overflowed in words this way when they were waking me up all hours of the night. It’s good for me to remember that my dreams for them had nothing to do with the ease of potty training or straight A report cards or proficiency in sports or art. It had everything to do with teaching them to love Jesus and surrender their lives to Him.

But first– mommy has to surrender their lives to Him. That is the hard part. But why should it be? He is nothing if He is not trustworthy. And I trust Him with every other area of my life. It’s just too much pressure; I want them to turn out great! I want them to achieve my dreams for them — and that’s where I go wrong. My dreams.  I would never say, “My will be done” with my lips, but what does my life say to Him? What does it say to Him when I lie awake at night wondering how I can fix the things that are hurting them? Or when I want to keep them at home and away from the things that are confusing about life in a foreign country? It says, “My will be done.”

I’m mom, and I love these kids fiercely, but they are not mine. They were graciously gifted to me by a loving Father. They are mine for a time, and I am painfully aware that that time is fleeting and my influence is limited. When I celebrate small, I see surrender as the starting line. I know He dreams bigger and better dreams for my children than I ever could. He knows them better than I ever will and works from the inside out to accomplish His will in their lives. If I truly want them to be fully His, I must fully surrender them as mine. I have to place them into His hands, trusting that His will supersedes my best-laid plans. With open hands that ache at the letting go, I allow Him to take the lead in their lives. I say, “Thy will be done.”

 

Do you need to surrender your children to the Lord?

Talk to me in the comment section below!