Once upon a time, there was a little girl who loved Dilbert comics. And NumberQuest. (A math board game she used to torment her siblings.)
She survived (by the Grace of God and eternal patience of her mother) that ghastly period called teenage-hood where she desperately wanted to “fit in” and simultaneously longed for it to be ok to just be herself.
Eventually, she arrived at an age older than she ever imagined she'd be (because, back at 8, she didn't count age past 21)...
...with less children driving her more batty than anticipated at said juncture (because, how hard can it be to raise “just” three kids?)
...and the revelation that all the parts of her she thought had to be remade to be acceptable had suddenly, remarkably, been crafted into this version of herself called mother.
(Technically, it's pronounced, “MOM-MEEE!” Said at the top of a toddler's lungs from the toilet seat, or the six-year-old who found a carpenter ant on the back porch, convinced the creature will rouse its cohorts to dismantle the family's abode by dinnertime.)
She still falls on her face daily. She still loves math games. Her best laid plans still come down to the rubber and road of a toddler's teething, 17 meltdowns of the kids by 10 am, miscarriage, endless construction-site-meets-3-ring-circus of a houseful of wild and incredible men, postponed dreams, the impulse to stop at every garage sale...and the realization her last shipment of dark chocolate accidentally went out of state because technology auto-filled the wrong address. (Hopefully, her oldest sister enjoyed the chocolate. Its small compensation for putting up with her shenanigans all these years.)
Thankfully, her best laid plans are also in the Hands of her loving Savior, who weaves the threads of her life – the beautiful, the messy, the painful – into a tapestry more glorious than she could ever imagine. It's through His pain and atonement her broken heart has been bound up and restored, through His endless grace her petty soul has been enlarged to offer grace to others, and to Him she offers this gift, her little life, and her unending praise in Eternity.
