I spotted it the moment I stepped out of the bathroom-a smudgy blue footprint in the middle of the walkway.
Instantly, my stomach twisted at the sight. Because every mom knows where there is one footprint, there is more.
I’d been alone behind that bathroom door for less than five minutes- just enough time to speed-wash my hair and slap on deodorant. But after a decade of motherhood, I knew that a few moments was ample time for a three-year-old to ignite a disaster.
I wrapped a towel around my dripping hair and followed the path of blue blotches out of the master bath and into my adjoining bedroom. Blue blobs with poke-a-dot toes crisscrossed the cream carpet from the foot of my bed to the hallway beyond.
For a moment, I considered retreating back to the steamy shower, but, instead, I whispered a prayer for patience and stuck to the trail of blue. The incriminating prints led step-by-smudgy-step to the basement where I’d left my littlest girl watching a Little Bear video for a few minutes.
However, the blue-toed trail wove right past the television and into the playroom where I found my daughter happily finger painting. Maggie greeted me with a grin, her pink shirt splattered with rainbow dribbles. “Mommy! I was looking all over for you,” my blue-eyed artist exclaimed. I wanted to show you my masterpiece.”
She dropped her paintbrush and raced to the easel where a poster-sized creation sat dripping on the floor. “Don’t you love my HUGE blue elephant?” Maggie asked, pointing proudly to the paper. “I made him ‘specially for your bedroom. ‘Cause your walls are so brown and boring.”
Her smile drooped as she continued, “But I tried to hang this picture right above your bed, and I just couldn’t get it to stick. Maybe we need some glue.”
I stared at the masterpiece, a dozen wobbly lines protruding from a giant blue drizzly blob. Then, I gave my daughter a weak smile and tried not to think about the dozens of footprints the color of the sky that stretched across my whole house.
That’s when I noticed my little girl’s feet. “Maggie,” I said slowly, trying not to let the exasperation I felt seep into my voice. “You have blue feet.”
Maggie stared at her painted toes and shrugged.“I guess I stepped in some of that paint I spilled on the floor…” Then, with a carefree grin, she added, “Don’t worry, Mommy, it was just a small spill.”
“Yeah, just a small spill,” I murmured, as I headed for the laundry room to find my industrial-sized jug of carpet cleaner.
Three hours later, I added carpet cleaner to my grocery list and ran through the store on my way into town. I spied a friend in the cereal aisle, her cart piled high with diapers and formula.
“How are you?” I asked over the wail of the fitful baby on her hip.
Maggie began to re-arrange the boxes of pop tarts on the bottom shelf, and I leaned on my grocery cart and waited for an answer. I could see the emptiness in my friend’s eyes, the tears welling unwelcome at the brims.
“I feel like all I ever do is change diapers,” confessed this sweet young mom.
I nodded and plucked a stray Cheerio off my arm and wondered how long I’d sported that soggy accessory before I’d noticed its presence. The baby burped, and my friend flashed me a wry grin. “You can tell me over and over that I have a big important job, but on most days it just feels really small.”
A thousand wise words rolled through my head, words I’d been told on those hard days when tears hovered in my eyes and a baby squealed on my hip:
You’re raising up the next generation.
You’re planting seeds for a big harvest. You’re living out a high calling.
You’re partnering with God in something beyond yourself.
But instead of spouting platitudes, I simply put my arm around my friend’s sagging shoulders and said nothing. Then I gave her a quick hug and promised to pray. Because sometimes the greatest gift one mom can give another isn’t a hearty dose of wisdom or look-on-the-bright-side cheer, but a heart that says, I understand.
Sometimes it’s just enough to know that we’re not alone.
Say what we may, the grit-honest truth is this—even though we know that motherhood is a big and important job, on most days, it still feels painfully small.
And no matter how many people tell us that what we’re doing is sacred; when we’re on our knees wiping dirty bottoms or dirty floors, when we’re bent low folding laundry or playing Legos; it’s hard to remember that we’re kneeling on holy ground.
We can tell ourselves this matters—all this face wiping and boo-boo kissing and hand-holding—but some days it feels like it doesn’t.
Some days the endless line up of small tasks—of dishes and laundry and reading Green Eggs and Ham twenty times over and over again—leave us aching for something bigger.
Becoming a mom expands your life and shrinks it all at the same time.
It simultaneously stretches your heart and binds your hands. It can fill your days and empty your soul.
Let’s be honest, being a mom is hard. And that’s why words fall short now and then.
But, listen, dear friends. You and I can do something small for one another that makes a big difference.
We can pass out hugs in the grocery store and smiles in the carpool lane. We can stop talking and start listening.
We can cheer instead of compare, cast grace rather than throw stones, offer laughter instead of platitudes.
We can walk humbly together and pray each other through one more step.
Because we all know that a dozen small steps creates a steady stride. And a steady stride marks a faithful life.
Some days will be splattered with paint splotches and stained carpet, and other days will be framed with gleeful laughter and sloppy kisses. But if we keep putting one prayerful foot in front of another, one day we’ll walk ourselves right out of a job. And we’ll wonder why our carpets are so clean.
That wailing baby threatened to drown out our conversation in the cereal aisle, so my friend waved good-bye and hustled to the check out lane, and I turned the corner in search of some carpet cleaner.
While I scanned the shelf for the product I wanted, Maggie pirouetted around a tower of graham-cracker boxes stacked high at the end of the aisle. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched her bump the display with her hand as she ended her twirl with a curtsey and a flourish. Boxes flew everywhere and my little ballerina stood wide-eyed in the middle of the toppling tower.
“I’m sorry, Mommy,” Maggie whispered in my ear when I reached her side and began stacking those boxes up once again. “I was just doing a small dance.”
I looked straight into my daughter’s baby blues and reminded myself of the truth I’d learned earlier that morning from a puddle of paint, a small bare foot, and a house filled with blue footprints, a truth every mom needs to remember on those days when her life feels tiresome and trifling–
Sometimes the smallest things leave the biggest imprints.
I offered my girl a wee smile, and I grabbed my pint-sized jug of carpet cleaner. Then, while my little one skipped ahead of me toward the check-out counter, I prayed for strength to keep walking in grace, one small step after another.
How can you as a mom relate to hard days like this? How do you hold onto hope?
- Ch…ch…ch…CHANGES Are Coming in 2017 for TMI - December 27, 2016
- What New Thing Are You Ready to See God Do in Your Life in 2017? - December 26, 2016
- Heaviness and Newness - December 23, 2016
