Tag Archives: motherhood

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How do we do the impossible things facing us?

In an early morning outburst, I fled my schoolroom and barreled down the stairs.  Leaving my two homeschooled children behind, I shut the school room door, and my bedroom door, and my bathroom door, and then my closet door.  There, in the darkness of my walk-in closet, I fell to my knees and put my forehead on the bristly Berber carpet.

“Jesus,” I desperately prayed, “please let my children live until my husband gets home.”

I was exasperated, frustrated, and felt totally unable to homeschool my children.  I had no clue what I was doing and knew that I would go down in the hall of fame of homeschool teacher failures.  I didn’t know how to do the impossible things facing me.

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Declarations for parents of teenagers

Teenagers often don’t know when to keep their mouths shut.  A few years ago, a teenager boldly told me what their mother thought about me.  And then the teen went on to tell me their mother’s beliefs on parenting, which were very different from how I was raising my children.  The insinuation was this their mother did it the right way, and I did it the wrong way.

Honestly, I was crushed. And confused.  Insecurity joined the party as I questioned every aspect of my motherhood.  When I compared myself to this other mother, I came up wanting.

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Surprisingly, I survived my mid-life crisis

I remember some sage advice given to me in a Target checkout line many years ago. I was a young mother, with an energetic two-year-old daughter and a precocious four-year-old son with autism. My life was crazy, with birthday parties and T-ball games and lots of therapy appointments. As I was frantically trying to hold it all together in line until we could pay for our purchases, an older, wiser woman who was behind me in line uttered something that is a familiar platitude:

“Enjoy it, honey. These are the best years of your life.”

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Actually, I wasn’t a horrible mother after all…

It was Saturday night. I was snuggled down under my covers and my eighteen year old daughter, Hannah, was sitting on the bed beside me. A freshman in college, she had just received a surprising grade on her English paper. Expecting an A, she received a C. Confused and upset, her tears slowly rolled down her face. Knowing she had to head back to ECU the next day, she said something I thought I would never hear.

“Mommy, I don’t want to go back to school.”

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The life-changing day my daughter left for college

My daughter, Hannah, is in graduate school at East Carolina University.  When we took her to college as a freshman in 2016, I wrote two blog posts, one that I posted, and one that was too personal for us to publish.  Finally, we were both ready for me to truly share my heart.  This is what it was like for me on the day that I had to let my daughter go.  

I woke up early, the sound of the noisy hotel room air conditioner stirring me to wakefulness. I hadn’t been awake for long before the realization of “the day” hit my consciousness. With a groan, I felt the heaviness settle once again upon my soul. It was the day that a child often longs for and a mother dreads and it comes in a variety of ways.

It was the day to let my daughter go.

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Giving my little girl a goodbye hug…but it’s not the last

For years I have known that the day would come…the day that I would take my baby girl, my only daughter, to college.   I used to count how many years until the day, then months, and then weeks.  Now I’m counting days.  I wasn’t sure how I would handle it, but now that it is here, I’m finding that I’m handing it okay.  As long as I don’t think of “the lasts.”

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In Spite of Me My Children Turned Out Well

It was a Sunday morning, and my teenage children and I were together at church. My son Gregory was in the worship band, rocking it out on his bass guitar.  He was swaying back and forth, almost dancing, and belting out the song lyrics with a strong confidence.  Later, during communion, I found a quiet place to pray with my daughter Hannah.  I let her pray first, and she prayed so long that I didn’t think I would get to have a turn.  She prayed a beautiful prayer that touched my heart.

It was later in the day as I was relaying these events to my husband that I realized that in spite of myself, my children had turned out well – they are hard workers, they have tender hearts and they unashamedly love Jesus.

In Spite of Me My Children Turned Out Well

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