Reflections on Mother’s Day

This Mother’s Day was totally unlike most Mother’s days that I have had in the past. But there were some really beautiful moments and I just wanted to take the time to journal my thoughts about it and guess what? YOU get the blessing of hearing it! hahaha --- for those who have no interest I’m sorry, it’s just that I’m not very good at journal keeping so my blog is my way of journaling life right now.

Anyway, the past couple of weeks have been busy, we went straight from Easter, to the weekend of our 5k, to Mother’s day weekend – and then we’ll be leaving for vacation shortly. So we’ve had a LOT going on.

The girls and I also went to a Mother/Daughter conference at a Bible camp in NH from Friday to Saturday night. It was a fabulous time with my girls, my Mom and some of our friends and their daughters. This was our second year going and I’m pretty sure we’ll make it a yearly tradition.

Add to all that the fact that we had to put our precious dog, Casey down on Friday. I plan to write a WHOLE lot more about that soon, but the fact that it happened this weekend definitely changed the course of my Mother’s Day.

When the girls and I got home from camp on Saturday night that was when we had to tell them about the dog. WE ALL CRIED SO HARD AND SO LONG. It was truly a devastating thing to tell the girls. About 2 minutes into their deep, anguishing cries my oldest daughter said ‘can we pray?’ – I LOVE that she knows WHO to turn to in difficult times – the Lord Jesus Christ who alone can bring comfort and peace to a heart that is breaking. This was a moment that I will cherish in my Mama heart forever. No I’m not doing THE BEST job of raising my kids and no they aren’t perfect and neither am I – but if my daughter KNOWS the Lord and chooses Him in the good times AND bad – then I feel like all the ‘work’ I do is somehow worth it.

And so, that leads me to Mother’s day …. normally we would have spent the morning at church, in fact I can’t remember when was the last time we DIDN’T go to church on Mother’s day. But after having such a rough Saturday night and being so tired from the Mother/daughter weekend and being so emotional Sunday was a day that we all just needed to sleep in. Besides, my eyes were so swollen I could barely see out of them - *think Will Smith in the movie Hitch swollen*.

So we took our time getting up and ready for the day. No breakfast in bed, but that was OK. I was thankful to have the day to focus on my family when we were all experiencing such a sad time. In fact the funny thing is, I made my own pancakes for breakfast! My hubby woke up and said, ‘you weren’t supposed to make your own breakfast’ but I was hungry and craving pancakes so I just got to work and did it. No big deal.

The girls and Bob did buy me some nice things though – I got a beautiful, heartfelt card and some flowers and these pretty wrought iron things for my garden – which are too hard to describe but I will post a picture at some point. But what was very touching to me was that my hubby took note of something he knew I would love. You see, last week we were walking through a local store, all 4 of us together, and I pointed out these wrought iron garden things and said ‘ooooh, I really like these, I’d like to get some for my garden’ – and hubby sort of barely glanced my way and gave me the standard ‘uh huh’ response. And that was the end of that. And so on Mother’s day morning when I woke up and saw them in the kitchen I was SO touched that he really had been paying attention and had gone back to that store and got them for me. I know that seems silly but it meant a lot because sometimes I can feel like men don’t really take note of our likes and dislikes {can I get an Amen friends?!}.

Next we headed out for the day – we got some plants and cards for his Mom and mine and delivered them to each Mom. Then we ate lunch with my in laws and then went for a drive down by the beach. We stopped and had ice cream at the beach and even though it started to downpour it was just nice being together.

Back at home later we had yummy fajitas {made by my awesome hubby} and watched The Voyage of the Dawn Treader together.

All in all it was a simple day. I still folded laundry, put away dishes and such like that. But the greatest blessing was having the time with my family.

This morning, we took a little ‘field trip’ … we had the girls take their school work in the car and we took our bikes down to our favorite state park. We biked about a mile and a half down to this long beach and then we walked about 2 miles on it. Hubby brought his fishing pole and the girls and I searched for seaglass and pretty shells. 

I just finished reading a book called ‘The Gift of the Ordinary Day’ – in the book she talks A LOT about embracing these every day moments with our kids because all too soon life changes and the kids are grown and leaving home and all of life is changing. I see those changes so much already! My kids are more and more independent every day. They rarely need my help with getting breakfast or lunch, they never need to be buckled in the car anymore, etc. They are growing faster than I would choose.

So as I sat there on the beach today I just thought about enjoying these every day moments. My daughter handed me a gift she had found for me – it was a heart shaped rock. I sat there, eyes closed, feeling the smoothness of that rock in my hand as I thought about slowing down and enjoying the simplicity of the every day. And I thought about how very blessed I am. Blessed to have freedom to homeschool in the car and on the beach on a Monday morning, blessed to have a husband I adore and two vibrant, healthy daughters, blessed to have a Mom and a Mother in law that are also two of my best friends. And I sat there and I drank it all in. I felt the breeze and listening to the birds and smelled the salty air and just took it all in and said ‘thank You Lord!’.

Maybe I didn’t have the typical Mother’s day. Maybe I wasn’t treated to breakfast in bed, spa treatments and fancy dinner out. But my gifts are the every day treasured moments I get to spend with my 3 favorite people in the whole wide world. And to me, that is a priceless treasure that cannot be compared to anything else.