12 Keys to Motherhood ~ Lessons from My Rearview Mirror

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I’m not sure why I thought because I had a mom I knew how to be one.

But there I was… 17 years old. Young in years but great with child. I didn’t have all the answers but I thought it would be a breeze. After all, how hard can it be when you LOVE someone so deeply and SO profoundly ~ to the depths of your soul? How could mothering that precious little life ever be hard.

My brown-eyed boy with Shirley Temple curls made my heart skip a beat. Every time he wrapped his tiny fingers around my little finger the world around me seemed to fade and all was precious and sweet.

There’s nothing so soft as a newborn babe; there’s nothing so scary as knowing you have only 18 short years to help him grasp how significant he is… not just to you but to the God who created him.

Then came my brown-eyed boy with blonde hair and an inquisitive nature. I didn’t realize my heart could be stolen twice, but it was. 

Being their mom was the joy of my life.

I learned a lot in my mom journey. Things I wish I would have known before it ever began.

So, today I share with you the perspective provided by looking in the rearview mirror of my motherhood journey.

Motherhood has taught me that:

  1. There’s nothing so deep as a mother’s love for her children and there will never be a time that they won’t be the object of your most fervent prayers…no matter how old they are.

  2. Children believe everything you say. Make your words trustworthy.

  3. Little ones look to your for approval for even the seemingly insignificant things. Don’t minimize the small.

  4. I should have never stopped looking for someone older and wiser to walk with me through motherhood.

  5. Teaching children how to ask for forgiveness and how to forgive are lessons taught through your own parenting failures and forged in the places of your own confession and request for mercy.

  6. Those momma meltdown moments may seem justified in the midst of it all, but no reason will ever make you feel like it was worth blowing it in front of your kids.

  7. My children need to know they need God and every time I cushioned my kids from the outcome of real life, I hindered the work God was doing in their lives to reveal Himself to them and their need for this God who loves them with a relentless love.

  8. Discipline and grace aren’t opposing concepts. When functioning together they create the stuff that love is made out of. It’s not either, or ~ it’s all the above.

  9. Words are powerful. Especially a mother’s words. They can speak life into the little lives God has entrusted you with. Or they can speak death to those precious hearts that hang on your every word. Not just what you say, but how you say it.

  10. There is no greater calling as a mom than to reveal the reality of Christ to my kids and to help them discover their own place of need…that they are undone and hopeless without Him.

  11. That the laughter that fills the air of your home today will be the memories that fill your heart tomorrow. When your nest is empty and your home is silent, you will long for the moments of chaos and clutter and you will feed on the days when your house was a mess and your life was just as messy.

  12. The day you see your children hold their children for the first time is a day no one can prepare you for. It is then that you smile and understand that your parenting journey was just a small place in the line of generations that came before you and generations that will come after you. It is then that you will  grasp the gravity of praying for each generation and it is then you will understand that it is those very prayers that will reach beyond your life and touch the heart of God for eternity.

Parenting was never as easy as I thought it was. It was messy. But it was a beautiful mess. And I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

What about you? Is TODAY’s motherhood journey messy for you? What would you add to my list of 12? 

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Stephanie Shott
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