(This was intended for Mother's Day, but life, as it is oft prone to do, 'got in the way.')
I am currently sitting on the couch in my living room, surrounded by small children playing ferociously at my feet and often, on top of me. A slow cooker bubbling in the background (never mind the fact that it's mainly filled with packet sauce and cheap potatoes) and a pile of freshly washed dishes on the sink might give you the erroneous belief that things are under control here, but the truth, if I am honest, is far from that.
I currently only have one child earth-side, though his passionate, independent view of life make him quite unlike any other child I encountered in the long years spent as a reluctant babysitter for frazzled homeschooling mothers, and subsequently, I like to think of myself as already having reasonably full hands. (Those who have more children might see fit to disagree!) However, a large extended family makes for a full house more often than my sanctification's comfort zone might like, and so, I find myself here.
One child has already ingested a great deal of red crayon, another is missing a chunk of hair thanks to a heightened disagreement over who got the pleasure of using the balance bike, and right now one is running around the kitchen table with the dog and two toddlers in hot pursuit while another reliably informs me that I can be a bridesmaid at her wedding tomorrow and proceeds to bombard me with questions about her future husband. I had to explain that maybe she shouldn't be marrying a man who needs me to tell her whether he prefers pear or blueberry juice.
In the chaos, in the beautiful, ugly, necessary chaos (written as my toddler lovingly leans over and wipes his nose on my sleeve), I cannot help but by struck by my mother's example. If a dollar landed in her bank account for every stranger's pitying utterance of "You sure do have your hands full!", she would have spent her life perpetually holidaying in the Bahamas. It wasn't without reason, either. She bore eight children, one after another in such a monotonous succession, that I struggle to remember a clear time when she wasn't pregnant or nursing. Neither were we tame. Sugar and spice might make the occasional appearance a Sunday morning but otherwise slug and snails were the traditional order of the day. Whether jumping off the highest point of the concrete tank, weeing off the steps of the minivan or using the drive on mower to ferry one another around (may all the trees that J hit rest in peace), we most certainly did our best to keep her hands full. And yet, a tired sigh or a self-serving, bedraggled response was never her go-to reply. Instead, she'd face them, bright eyed and bushy tailed and say something like, "Yes! I am blessed!"or, "I wouldn't have it any other way."
I have always admired that response. Some of my richest childhood memories invoke such tangible recollections, like the smell of fresh baked bread every day or the selecting of spring bulbs for the garden, and yet, as an adult and a mother myself now, I realise that my mother's joyful response is one of the greatest memories that I have. I was never made to feel like a burden, not matter how burdensome I or my siblings strove to be.
Now in our culture, the facebook wine mummy reigns supreme, her indulgent self flagellation broadcast for all to see and pity. There's an almost perverse delight in sharing how much you have failed in your duty to die to self, take up your cross and follow Him faithfully; to publicly broadcast how much you hate the simple and yet all encompassing task He gave you to do -"Feed my sheep."
My mother in law couldn't be further from the above. A jeans-wearing, fantasy-reading mother of *shocked gasp* only two children, she often incurred the scorn of the bobby socked, long skirted homeschooling mothers around her. While spending the majority of her life bed bound and in constant pain, she managed to raise two boys into strong yet tender men, surviving off a shoe string budget and constantly moving in and out of 'fixer-uppers'. You might forgive her the self-centred venting of a modern day 'wine mommy'. And yet, while she never denies the sacrifice taken to get there, she turns to me now and smiles joyfully whilst saying, "Now is the time of harvest."
They're everywhere, women like this. Hidden from public view, they do their duty, day after monotonous day, and rise again each morning to do it again. Like my sister-in-law, raising three small children and building a family home with her bare hands, or the lawyer turned stay-at-home mother of two who never stops learning and developing her skills, no matter how temping the desire to stagnate might be.
I am in awe of women like these. Forget your Jacinta Arderns, your Beyonces, your best friend from down the road who lives in a million dollar home with 2.5 children and a flourishing career. Give me the women who live it out every day, through the blood, sweat and numerous tears, the split milk and overflowing nappies, and who can still turn to a stranger at the supermarket and say, "Yes, my hands are full! But God help me, may they never be empty."
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