Perspectives

It’s easy to dwell on the “hard” of motherhood. The constant fatigue of the early days... Then the constant attention and supervision required as babies get a little older, with minimal time left for me to do what I want to do or even need to do...

Don’t get me wrong - I’ll be the first to tell you that Motherhood is the best, most rewarding and most thrilling job in the world, 100%! And I can’t wait to repeat it over and over again.

But that doesn’t change the fact that there will still be challenging times. Like, when my mother’s lamp went crashing to the floor and broke from my baby reaching out to touch it while walking by. Or cleaning up spilled food that perhaps didn’t just land on the floor but all over me too. Or having insomnia, watching my infant with a wretchedly high fever, and checking on him frequently during the night. Or just trying every thinkable way to calm my baby who is disconsolate for no apparent reason. (that by far being the most stressful aspect of motherhood for me) Or how about the days when it just seems like our little one woke up on the wrong side of the bed, and everything seems to be going wrong...  

Are these times exhausting? For sure. But there is one thing that has really changed my perspective about the draining, fatiguing, harder times that are inevitable in motherhood. 

The Bible says, “Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these... you have done it unto me.” Matt. 25:40.  And when I keep this in mind, it puts a whole new perspective on mothering. I’m not just caring for my baby, I’m actually in a way taking care of Jesus. And that in itself _makes the hardest times worth it._ 

Yes, there will still be hard days, but with the proper mindset, there’s infinitely more beauty that comes with motherhood. Yes there are imperfect days, but the perfect moments make the harder times slip out of view...

Indeed,  there is so much more joy, so much more beauty than hardships in motherhood. But again, perhaps the major contributing factor is all about perspective. Remembering that when I’ve “done it unto the one of least of these”, I’m doing it to Him gives me a completely different attitude on even the hardest moments.