to the mamas: you’re doing a great job

To the mamas:

Mother’s Day. It’s just around the corner. Mother’s Day is a good day. A day of honor for women everywhere who are in the trenches of raising little humans.

For me, in recent years Mother’s Day has become a day of pretty dresses, smiles, homemade kid gifts, and take out so I don’t have to cook. But it wasn’t always this way.

It used to be a day of pain…because there wasn’t someone to hold and I wasn’t yet a mother. I remember vividly standing in church, surrounded by women with new infants in every seat near me, weeping bitter tears as I longed for children I was told I’d never have. This day can be such a painful one for women struggling with infertility. But it can also be tough on those of us that do have kids too…

Mother’s Day can come with so many emotions. It’s a time when we are told we are “the best mom in the whole wide world,” yet our hearts can scream at us and tell us otherwise. I know for me personally so many of the days during the rest of the year I feel like I’m just not quite “there” yet. Life can get busy and things can slip through the cracks. I can so easily get off track or lose sight of what is most important. I can often get to the end of our days having worked hard for all of my waking hours, get into bed and only think of what didn’t get done. I can sometimes question whether or not I am doing the right thing or are focusing on the best things…and the doubt that can creep in can sometimes make me wonder if I’m doing a good job at this…and I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one…

So, I wanted to take some time today to encourage. To write to my mom friends who have shared some of there most intimate thoughts and struggles on motherhood with me. Sometimes it’s difficult to gain the courage to say something that you know is uplifting or encouraging to another because somehow we find it a little embarrassing or a little “out there.” We can fear what people will think of us…that we’re weird or something for getting a bit sappy. But I don’t want to let those thoughts get in the way. In reality, words that are encouraging will only bring life to both yourself and the person you’re speaking to.

Sometimes I kinda think people just already know how or what I think of them. Yet I am learning more and more that they don’t. It’s so important to actually voice what it is we are thinking because words have power. They have the power to completely destroy or to entirely build up. I don’t want to let those moments pass and let an opportunity go by where I think something positive about someone and don’t say anything.

In this post I am writing about specific moms that I personally know. Real moms. Real friends. Real people. Moms who aren’t perfect, and have never claimed to be, but who give it their all each and every day. I know they can, at times, feel beat up and wonder like me if they’re doing a good job. I think that the mind games is one of the most challenging parts of mom life.

To my friend down the street who has recently gone through a divorce, feels the pain every moment of every day and often cries herself to sleep at night…yet somehow manages to hold it together, having had to find a job, yet still finds every way to give her kids the best opportunities possible. I see you trying so stinkin’ hard to do well in all areas of life…and I want you to know that I truly believe…