Motherhood: The Role of a Lifetime
Luke 2:51: "And his mother treasured up all these things in her heart."
Greetings to you on this Mother’s Day 2024. I am sitting on the couch trying to ignore the movie 1408 (Stephen King’s disturbing ghost story) as my two teenagers watch in disbelief at how good this mother recommended movie is. (As far as scary movies go, I’m a reluctant watcher. I’ll pretend to watch, but I do something else, like write this post).
I never thought I would ever be a mom. The qualifications were too extensive. I mean, all the people I knew that were moms were like some mystical beings that knew things that I definitely did not know. Oh, and then there was everything I heard about birth, you know, from that woman Eve. Talk about scary.
My sister had a baby in 2003, the most adorable little boy I had ever seen in my entire thirty-five years on the earth. And the only thing I knew how to do was hold him. That was the extent of my small baby knowledge until… my sister wanted to go to a romance writer’s conference in Massachusetts and I stayed in the hotel room and took care of my nephew. In a matter of hours, I became an expert at taking care of babies. I’m only kidding. But he was still alive at the end of the conference, so I did something right.
I met my husband in 2004, got married in 2005, and then, a miracle from God came, and I had my first baby. I don’t know if you’ve had a baby before, but when you bring the baby home from the hospital and put her/him in the crib, you kind of look at each other like "What now?”
Then, God answered that question for us. Our first child is on the spectrum, which required me to have specialized qualifications and strength that I never thought I could ever have and then, I experienced pregnancy loss, which required a whole different kind of training. Then, after much prayer, heartache, and faith, God graced me with my second child.
And the whirlwind began. Seriously, it’s gone so fast. If I didn’t have my older daughter and 25,000 pictures to remind me, I would forget a lot of it. It all feels like a blur of time.
These days, it seems as if society frowns on motherhood and instructs young women to reach for the top and break through the glass ceiling into the cubicle above them. I tried that too and honestly, for me, it wasn’t satisfying.
I encourage both of my children to try to get married young, have their kids young and have lots of them. I think that’s what I would have done if I could go back thirty years. Looking back on my life, I believe motherhood is the most fulfilling role I’ve ever had.
Children are a gift from God and — wait a minute. Oh, okay, I can’t write anymore because my youngest is now sleeping in our bed because of the movie that she said this about: “I’m adding it to my horror movie enthusiast list of horror movies that actually scared me.” I should’ve known. 😂
Motherhood: The twenty-four-hour a day role of a lifetime.
PS. This is a shout out to all the women everywhere that may not have given birth to any children, but still act like moms all the time. And my friends who are Stepmoms. And my other Mom friends. You ladies are my heroes. Happy Mother’s Day.
How about some free & Kindle Unlimited reads for Mother’s day? Click on the pictures below.
Three clean romances from my author-friend Autumn.
I hope you'll enjoy these clean, inspiring small-town romances — reunion, mistaken identity, and enemies-to-love. This heartwarming three-book set is available only as a welcome gift for my newsletter subscribers. Thank you so much for choosing to receive my weekly email for readers. I hope you'll enjoy that, too!
Blessings, Autumn x
As always, thank you again for reading! I’ll have some exciting news coming soon about my next project and I can’t wait to tell you about it! Love and Peace — Aine
Spectacular as always! Also so very true. Happy Mother’s Day!