Do Not Despise the Day of Small Beginnings
*If you've been reading my blog for any amount of time, you know I like a multi-sensory experience, so press play and listen to this while you read, You're welcome.
Standing in front of the TV, I fold what feels like the fifteenth load of laundry in one day and wonder how it is possible that my children actually have any clothes left in their dressers. I grab the Apple remote and begin to browse the recommended selections on Prime Video, finally settling on a Ken Burns documentary about famous Americans. Five minutes (and half a load of clothes folded) into the fascinating story of Susan B Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton I hear the baby's cry ring out in the monitor. He's only been asleep for 40 minutes. I curse under my breath and open the door to his room to find him grinning from ear to ear and simultaneously trying to stuff his feet into his mouth. Instantly I forgive him for interrupting MY time and scoop him into my arms; laundry can always wait. Who needs clean clothes?!
Later in the day as I load armfuls of towels and sunblock and pool gear into the van I swore I would NEVER drive, my two older children both jump into the front seat at the same time and begin arguing over who has staked their claim to that prime position first. The bickering begins and it seems constant between them these days. The volume of their voices increases as does their pleas for my intervention in their respective favor. I can't today. I just can't.
"You're both in the back" I remark with no emotion. I have learned to be as emotionless in these situations with hormonal girls as possible. If I can just do this, we may all walk out of this alive when it's all over. They whine and I hear "awwwwwwww" and "But!" BUT it's of no use. I win today. TODAY I WIN. We pull up to the pool and begin to load ourselves down with all of our essentials only to find the gate is locked and the pool is closed with no warning. This seems to happen a lot here. I tell the girls it looks like we are going home and they begin to cry.
"We'll go back tomorrow. It's OK " I say softly in an effort to placate them. It doesn't work. There aren't a lot of things to do on the small patch of this island that we call home and they had their hearts set on swimming with their brother. "We'll go to the beach tomorrow and take turns looking for the octopus and we'll hunt for sea glass."
Even later in the day I stare longingly out the window at the topaz blue Caribbean Sea while I cut breasts of chicken into strips. A song plays on the speaker to my right and for a moment I feel like the girl I used to be, before all of these responsibilities. Before I was in charge of the lives of so many people. It feels light like bubbles from champagne and like I could float away on one of the giant cumulous clouds upon which I'm gazing. A sound startles me, a yell from another room, and I am pulled back into now from my daydream in front of the sink. My gaze falls to the floor and I notice it is covered in spots from dirty feet and dirty paws and always everything is dirty!
All of the sudden I feel so overwhelmed with all of the things I feel MUST BE. But they really mustn't. In the end, the spotlessness of my floor isn't so important. Not long ago, I lie awake in bed after everyone else was fast asleep and I was googling "When you feel overwhelmed as a mother". So many things I read in the dark, black of that night resonated with my soul, but the thing that stuck with me the most was a blog post that quoted this verse: Do not despise these small beginnings, for The Lord rejoices to see the work begin...Zechariah 4:10.
Sometimes as mothers, we feel like all the work we are doing doesn't really mean anything when we compare ourselves to our counterparts who put on fancy business clothes and go to an office and talk about heady things every day. Maybe we feel like they are the ones changing the world while we are stuck at home changing diapers and scraping uneaten fish sticks off plates. But then I remember not to despise the day of small beginnings.
Today I watched my son roll over multiple times in a row and I watched my daughter, who wants to be a zookeeper when she grows up, walk a kitten on a leash. These are small beginnings that only time and God know what fruit will come of them. I taught both of my daughters to read and as I remember their small, chubby fingers tracing lines of words on a page and sounding each one out with careful deliberation, I think about the books they are reading now. Books that I only ever once dreamed about discussing with them. How time flies when you are watching children grow. It takes your breath and breaks your heart. A million times I've imagined them grown and gone from me and there is a part that knows they will soar with wings like an eagle and a part that wants to hold them small in my arms forever more.
Tonight as I sit here writing this and they come to me asking thing after senseless thing, "can we make hot chocolate? Can we feed the kittens turkey? Why is they sky blue? (this was a REAL query tonight) Which one is your favorite?" (of COURSE it's always YOU to the one who asks) I try to explain how cathartic a process writing is for me and ask if they could please respect that part of my need for artistic expression and give me a few minutes peace. They scurry away in whispers and in a few minutes return with a sign for me to tack up when I'm "IN IT" as they say. And when they do, as I look at it, my heart explodes and I start to cry. These days of small beginnings, they are sometimes SO HARD. How is it possible to be so completely empty and undone and so entirely full of love? I may never understand it, and that's OK. I will trust that this early investment into the eternal souls of these beautiful creatures will pay back in compound interest.
As I tuck them into bed and pray over their lives with a hand pressed lovingly against their hearts, I ask that their father and I are blessed to live long enough to see the days of their own children and the children of their children. Like a tidal wave I am overcome at the long look of what future may be theirs; marriages and degrees and children and homes of their own, where maybe one day we can visit with graying hair and casserole dishes and faces full of kisses.
Suddenly that dirty floor is no more and my heart knows what things hold weight and gravity.
I whisper to my own heart, "tomorrow, rejoice in the small beginnings."