Dear Sons,

No one told me when I held you on that very first day, that I may be paying for your therapy one day for all my mistakes.

As I looked at you, I never knew such an enormous amount of love could exist in one’s heart.

Surely you were the answer to all my woes and life’s problems.

My love for you felt big and strong enough to fix anything.

In me or in the world.

As I stared at your sweet, little face I began to experience a component of fear I had never felt before.

I felt a fierce protection for your well-being and a responsibility to keep safe the incredible gift God had given me.

I took thousands of pictures of you trying to capture this enormous love for you.

I did not want to miss a thing.

I have hours of videos of you, sometimes doing nothing but laying there.

Everything you did fascinated me.

Here you are now teenagers and I’m still taking thousands of pictures trying to somehow freeze moments in time.

My love for you drives you crazy and overwhelms you–yeah me too.

Being your mom has been the greatest and the hardest thing that’s ever happened to me.

Being your mom has pulled the best and worst out of me. My fears, control issues, anger, manipulation– you name it, you’ve seen it.

One thing us moms do? We carry around this expectation that since we love you so much, we expect you to grow up and love us just as much.

We carry into motherhood not just expectations, but our wounds and we subconsciously ask motherhood to heal them.

But, it actually takes our wounds and instead of healing them, it tears them wide open and exposes them.

God gave us these arms to hold you and comfort you and that we do, but, in the next instant, our arms are flailing out of control from choices and mistakes you and I both have made, and we end up scared to death wondering how this mess is going to turn out.

So, you can say being your mom has pushed me beyond my limits.

I think that was the point.

In the scriptures it says after the angel Gabriel told Mary she would be the Mother of The Son of God, she asked him, “How will this be?” (Luke 1:34)

I keep asking God the same question.

No matter how old you get, how much you grow up or away— until my last breath I will be asking God how to do this thing called Motherhood.

How do you love well when you’re so messed up?

It says the angel answered Mary, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.”  (vs. 35)

Boys, if motherhood has taught me anything it is this– when God told Eve she would bear much pain in childbirth, He wasn’t just talking about pain from the birthing process.

He knew that in our labor of bearing something so hard, so beautiful, so heavy–we would not be able to bear it alone.

That we would need something or Someone that knew a thing or two about carrying a weight of love that overwhelms.

That motherhood would not ask us to get it right or perfect–but as the weight of it pushed us to our knees, if we

would learn how to cry out and ask the Holy Spirit and the Most High God to overshadow us.

To overshadow our sins,

co-dependencies,

mama and daddy issues,

 addictions,

and expectations.

My Sons– forgive me for anytime I have asked you to subconsciously fix me, heal me or bandage up my junk.

Forgive me for expecting you to love me as I love you, I will make this mistake again and will have to relearn it.

Please give me grace as I am slowly learning love does not demand its own way and perfect love casts out all fear.

You are and will be always be the greatest gifts that God has ever given to me.

When I read about Mary holding Jesus the day He was born and as she gazed upon him, it says she pondered and treasured all the things in her heart.

I wish I knew her thoughts.

Did she know what was ahead?

Did she know she would fail at times as a mother?

Did she know the pain she would bear watching her son suffer?

The scriptures don’t say but, I do know this: We Mamas make many mistakes, but we learn lessons too.

And if the scriptures are right and I believe that they are– our love covers over a multitude of our sins and our mistakes. (1 Peter 4:8)

And the really amazing thing is if our love is not strong enough to do that–God’s is.

P.S. Hopefully God will help cover the therapy too? 😉

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