Happy Mother's Day

Mother's Day Brunch

Today was a wonderful Mother's Day. Ryan took Zooey and I out to brunch at Le Peep, I took a nice long nap, we went over to Sarah & Rey's for dinner and finished up the day with Menchie's. Zooey made me four beautiful Mother's Day cards this week at her various activities, all of which I love and will treasure. At brunch she said, "Happy Mommy's Day! Love you so much!" and gave me a kiss. It was very sweet.
I've been seeing a lot of these "before I was a mom" posts on the internet. They're all so great and ring so true. I've been thinking a lot about how I personally have grown in my knowledge of God's love since becoming a mother. Lately, with a three and a half year old who very much seems to like to push my buttons or merely gets into trouble out of her own curiosity, I find myself muttering, "When are you ever going to stop that?" or "What on earth would possess her to do that?" I've also been stopping short halfway through those comments, because I feel like God's nudging my heart ever so gently, "Amber, when are you going to stop being unkind to that person?" "Amber, you know my Word says not to do ____ , yet you did it. Why?" And it's truly not a "guilt trip" God-voice. It is spoken gently, as a reminder that I am a foolish, faulty human being, desperately broken and in desperate need of a Savior who loves me despite all the foolish, faulty, sinful things I do on a daily - nay, an hourly or even minute by minute basis. My love for Zooey is not shaken when she hits me or calls me a bad boy or pours water all over the bathroom floor. In fact, in some of the quirky not so naughty stuff, it just makes me (eventually) laugh with her and love her more. I stand in awe of a King who continues to love me time and again...when I say the ugly thing for the thousandth time, when I tell a little white lie and justify it in my own way, when I mess up again with "that sin," the one I currently struggle to tackle by His grace. How? How can He possibly continue to love me? Because I'm His daughter. Pure and simple: God loves me, because I'm His child. Nothing will shake His love for me. Of course He moves us on a course of sanctification, which is why we must face discipline, just like our kids...we don't want them hitting people and calling them names when they're thirty. And that's a whole other topic. Thank God, though, for His unconditional, unfailing, beautiful, tender and compassionate Fatherly love!

Happy Mother's Day! May us mamas remember as we are in the daily grind that we serve a God who goes before us and stands behind us on both the wonderful, rose colored, everything-is-rainbows-and-smiles days and on the hard, watching-the-clock-for-bedtime, I-will-LOSE-it-if-you-do-that-one-more-time days. May He grant us the wisdom and grace to relish the good days and handle the bad to His glory. May He help us to cherish and capture the memories in our minds that are so fleeting. May He enable us to raise our children to forever impact His kingdom.