Every time my fingers get itchy for a keyboard lately, it’s all mama hormones that seem to come pouring out. For obvious reasons. There is, after all, a one-month-old who’s moved in, twinkled and be-dazzled our testosterone heavy household.
But there are also some not-so-obvious reasons that I love to wade into the deep waters of motherhood with you and swim out as far as our brave hearts will carry us. I thought I might share them, since we’re on this journey together.
Because they matter to me. And that’s because you matter to me. Beautiful you who’s up to her eyeballs in laundry she can never seem to keep up with and those boot prints across the living room from the spring mud and the boys who can’t resist it (or is that just me?) and the running mental list of what she should have done today, how few items she got to, and does it even matter since it all seems so trivial in the grand scheme of things anyway.
{Deep breath}.
It matters.
For many years I worked in the human rights field as a legal specialist. Yes, I have a law degree. Have I ever told you that? I worked on issues of human trafficking in Ukraine and housing injustice for orphans and vulnerable children in my native South Africa. It was heart and raw blood and guts work. And I loved it. And I believed in it.
I still do.
It’s why I’ve blogged for Compassion International and why I support the work of my friend Kristen and her beautiful Mercy House.
But.
But, the thing is, there’s another kind of desperate, another kind of needy. There’s the two am cleaning up yet another round of projectile vomit loneliness. There’s the wondering if the Halloween costume you just spent a week on justifies your master of fine arts loan payments. There’s the mac and cheese times a zillion that defies all you’ve ever believed about nutrition.
There’s the desperate that is rarely said out loud because it sounds so petty, even to our own ears.
This is why I blog. This is why I tell you about my stormy days, my ick, and my fear of mothering a daughter.
Because after working for the last nine years in international development/human rights I have become convinced more than ever that God’s heart beats just as passionately for the women of Springfield, Virginia as it does for those living in Soweto, South Africa. The stay-at-home mom, the working woman, the student – with all the modern comforts money can buy – can be just as lonely and quietly desperate as the Swazi basket weaver.
Just because the routine of your life feels small does not mean that you are.
And sometimes, putting that into words is like throwing out a life preserver to a fellow mom.
So, this blog, these words? I guess they’re my way of saying, “catch!” And I’m so happy that we’re in this world of two am projectile vomit together.
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This? This! This post right here epitomizes why I absolutely adore you. Thank you for joining forces and holding hands with us, your Mama Posse!
Just this morning, I was reading from Psalms in the Message and jumped up and down over a passage that speaks of this:
“Open up before God, keep nothing back;
he’ll do whatever needs to be done;
He’ll validate your life in the clear light of day
and stamp you with approval at high noon.”
Psalm 37:5-6
XO
Oh wow!! I love love love that – never read that verse before; at least, not that translation. Thanks Kristen – I might need to get that printed out :)
I love this chapter! I’m actually memorizing it because it has spoken to me so much this past year! These verses right here are just awesome!
Thanks again, Lisa-Jo, for your honesty, your passion and your articulate way with words. You inspire me again and again, and help me remember that I am not alone in this journey of motherhood.
Not alone by a long shot.
Girl. Friend.
This is *exactly* the reason I hit publish on my first blog post nearly 4 years ago. I had a new babe at home and the quiet depression was choking me to death.
I found people like you in this wireless space.
Friends who understand.
Moms who KNOW.
xoxo
It’s also why I used to leave you comments way before we were IRL friends – because your blog spoke comfort and most importantly the ability to laugh at ourselves and for that I will always, always be grateful!
*You* are the real deal, Kristen Welch! So profoundly grateful to call you friend!
OH, this brought tears to my eyes. So sweetly written and oh, so true. I often have that same thought – my chemistry degree is good for what? Explaining why the sky is blue and how ice is made? Then I remember that for me, for now, my mission field is my home and my family.
Thanks for saying “catch”. That’s why I keep coming back for more!
i was *just* thinking about you this evening, and then you go and post this beauty. Thank you for sharing your lion taming heart with us. You inspire and encourage, and no, it’s not just you, my two boys are mud seekers and my floors are destined to be grungy perhaps until they go off to college? Does that part of a boy ever really change? Of course, their two sisters like the mud just as much, so I guess what I’m trying to say is, I share your frustration over muddy tracks. :-) bless you!!
Wow. Just wow. Probably my pregnant mommy hormones, but I can’t even find words to express how much you mean to me, and I don’t even know you irl. God really does care for each of us, and about each of our situations. I’m glad he doesn’t compare us to anyone but unconditionally loves us the same. What a great reminder, and at a time that is very much needed. Can I say “I love you”? Cuz I feel like this would be a good time/place to say so. :) Thank you, Lisa Jo.
Oh you sure can – when can a girl ever get enough love, eh? Right back atcha!! :)
We are blessed by your transparent beauty. It is such a wonderful thing to have companionship along this journey of motherhood. The Lord has always blessed me by giving me a mentor, one who is farther down the road, to encourage me and lend me wisdom until I can acquire some of my own. And as we, over the years, become the ones who are speaking encouragement to those coming behind us, we long to be able to offer hope when this job of mothering feels heavy. During those two o’clock projectile adventures, just remember we are here and we are praying for Him to sustain you and protect your heart.
I love this! Speaks oh so clearly to my heart and any mom that is worn out by spit up and sleep deprivation. Yes and amen!
love this. i didn’t know you had a law degree, but i’m certainly not surprised either. motherhood changes us. good, bad, indifferent…and it’s nice to know we’re not in it alone.
I just had the worst day, and I may be a tad hormonal…I’m due in June. I went out and cut some flowers, but this was the balm that really made me feel better. It was an encouraging post, like pink roses in Spring (not poetically speaking, LITERALLY speaking).
Thanks.
Oh what a delicious compliment! Pink roses, eh? Yes, now there’s a beautiful way to describe words – thank YOU!
Thank you so much for this. I’m not a mom, just a twenty-something ready to graduate from college. But I read your blog because I love how you are showing every day that God’s heart beats for me. And everyone else living in material comfort but still aching every day for God’s comfort and grace. Thank you for putting this into words. And congratulations on your daughter’s birth!
Thank you for saying hello, Elizabeth. I was that twenty something what feels like not too long ago -and I remember how it feels to want to live a life that matters. Just know that yours does – you do. Just as you are. Truly.
This? Amazing. yes, and yes, and amen.
Wow, love that. Thank you for being open and honest. Very encouraging, right at the proper time for me. Thank you.
Awwwww. I totally felt caught.
Great blog and well said! It can’t be more true. And if you are really in Springfield, then we are neighbors! I am in Alexandria. The world is really just so tiny sometimes…
amen!!! so true…god cares and it definitely does not mean it’s small or we’re small or insignificant…no matter where we are and even if our heart’s are aching for more.
thanks for being real and honest…and letting me hang around here even though i’m still waiting on that man and those babies….god willing =)
You sit right here by me while you wait – I love what I learn in your patience and beauty.
We matter to God. He is indeed passionate about our 2 a.m. goings on, thanks for reminding us!
We live so close and yet so far in terms of both of us with three under age 5 and the car seats and the naps and the diapers required to get from Springfield to Sterling. :)
Thank you for this. Isn’t it strange how much motherhood makes you automatically part of a community, but it can make you feels so lonely — all at the same time?
I love your writing. It always resonates with me.
Yes, strange indeed – so close and yet so far at the same time.
I have been reading your blog for a few months now and I always wondered why you wrote as openly as you do. This answered it. Thank you! Not only for this post but also for being a good mom who is open enough to share with the rest of us. I have an 18 month old daughter who I love more than words. No one has ever made me cry more, or grow more, or laugh more than she has. Reading about your family makes me smile sometimes and my heart break others.
God Bless YOU!!
Hey Tila – yes, sometimes I wonder myself if I should let a little less hang out there in public than I do :) But then I remember what it’s meant to me to hear from other moms on this journey and be able to relate to their real stories. So those are the ones I keep writing. Because, they’re really the only ones I’ve got.
Thank you so much for being part of the story with me.
Yes. This quiet desperation has me hanging by a thread most days…and then I remember that there are others going through much the same. That this life that I lead quietly here echoes loudly in God’s ears…that sometimes it needs to echo in the ears of others too. And the days when I listen to the echo of others soothes the restless spirit in me and helps me “look not only at my own interest but also to the interests of others” (Phil. 4). Thank you for keeping our interests at your heart too.
Today, I needed this…”Just because the routine of your life feels small does not mean that you are.”
I needed it so much that just reading the words makes me cry. Thank you. More than any words can express, thank you for this post.
How in the world did I EVER get through mothering my 3 under 4.5 without blogs?? This writing, this community across the wireless waves, this gift of companionship along the oft-times lonely road of mothering – wow. Thanks once again, Lisa-Jo, for your open, honest and compassionate heart so beautifully expressed in these written words.
And the bone-searing fatigue, the endless chain of mess and mud, the acting out in the grocery aisle, the projectile vomiting in the GARDEN SECTION of the local hardware store – it is all worth it. It really, truly is. I had only one boy – and he was the last – but he could live in the most horrendous, messy confusion, causing me angst untold. Somehow, he (and I) survived and now he’s all grown up with 2 girls of his own, a burgeoning medical practice …. and a very neat house. And it’s not all his wife’s doing, either.
What you – and your loyal readers with little ones – do every single day is the most important work anywhere: raising up children with love, attention, structure and discipline when needed and most importantly, a clear sense of what it means to live a godly life of love, grace and service. Thanks for this beautifully expressed reminder of this truth.
Thank you so much for this! I have often struggled with guilt over my “struggles” or “suffering” because I always feel like really it is all so trivial compared to what people in other parts of the world have to endure. Your perspective is a great comfort to me!
Stages of life—thank God that He finds us in all of them! Beautiful post. And though I’m past the baby stages, sometimes the teenager stages are starting to feel somewhat reminiscent. . .
Blessings to you–although your sleep habits, as a mom, are most likely forever wrecked :-)
Wow. Tears flowing here. (But maybe that’s partly hormones and tiredness? My baby is just a few days older than yours.) Thank you! I’ve just started reading your blog, and I love what I’ve seen so far.
You forgot one more reason why you blog…you’re a gifted writer and the words must. get. out. You’re spreading truth and inspiration with this post, and as a fellow writer, you have my admiration and thanks!
Thank you so much for such honest words, for healing paragraphs and for being a life preserver for so many of us. My family is older now (16, 15, 7 and 5) but it still feels like the “small routine of my life makes me that way”. Like the work I do day after day in no way should be a result of my $100,000 education. And then I see a post from The Gypsy Mama pop up and I my heart settles just a bit, my stomach starts churning. I know – really know – that at least one person out there understands! Keep writing!!!!
How much I remember those early days of sleep depreviation and a colicky baby! While I didn’t blog or read blogs then, it was a phone call to a trusted aunt-in-love that kept me going….
Your words are powerful, and I know that they give hope and encouragement to many (especially me, even though my daughters are school-aged now). This is the modern day equivilent of talking over the fence, gathering at the stream to wash clothes or a barn-raising.
And it is so needed.
P.S. I took 4 1/2 years off from my career to be full time mom. Would have taken more had it been possible. I am *thrilled* that you are blogging, working with incourage and hopeful for you that it becomes “sustainable”
I couldn’t agree more. Money and stuff could never fill a void of loneliness, and it doesn’t. I have literally thought about this notion several times. I sponsor a child through Compassion and though we are world’s apart, our hearts are not so different. We both crave the same thing and it’s not more stuff – it’s more Jesus.
Amen I say and Amen! This is why I love blogs and became a blogger too. May you have a Blessed Easter!
Wonderful post, mama. Thank you for sharing.
so glad you get itchy fingers needing to blog :) you matter to us.
I just like you, that’s all. With no kids yet, I can’t speak to that, but I love reading your thoughts and have a mental “for when I have kids” file inspired by you and other bloggy moms. And I couldn’t agree more about God’s heart for ALL of us…. that’s what I’m passionate about, too.
LJ, this post should have come with a tissue warning. you are one warrior mama and warrior…woman (i mean that in the best and most fantastical way you can think of that). beautiful touching words friend!
This is just what moms need to hear. I remember those early days with newborns and toddlers. Days of never enough sleep, too much for any one person to handle, and the choking anxiety of “can I have just 5 minutes?” Giving moms permission to speak of anything and everything is such a blessing. Even now with my own two teens, the need to write it out is still there, though very different than when they were small. Thanks for reminding us moms that it’s okay to say it all, Lisa-Jo.
When you said,“Just because the routine of your life feels small does not mean that you are.”, oh wow. That feels like it just sums up everything and with blogging, its just a way to say, “Hey, I’m here”!
Thank you. Thank. You.
Oh, these beautiful words. Life-giving, heart-reaching, soul-lifting, words.
They matter.
They encourage this mama heart.
Beautiful how the Father, uses us wherever we are, if we are willing. How His daughters are His daughters no matter where they are on the globe.
All of this wonder. Him.
Just beautiful.
Wow, thank you so much for sharing that! This is my first time reading your blog and it brought me to tears. I already feel connected to you! Blessings!
I am holding onto that life preserver ring also. New baby girl – 4 weeks old here also… and the pits of tears, lack of sleep and loneliness in the moments of perserverance.. I totall love your post!
Finally feeling like life is out there again somewhere,,, maybe we will find that day together.
Thanks for posting… real. So real.
Thanks for your honest soul-notes and for reminding us all of how important we are to God in every moment, every occupation, every season of life. This one really touched my heart.
I’ve been clinging to this one lately: “So we’re not giving up. How could we! Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without his unfolding grace.” – 2 Corinthians 4:16 – The Message
While I hope I’m well past the projectile vomit days of my now 21 and 19 year old children, I so agree with you! We need to connect. To feel–to know–that we are not alone in our journey. That we can reach out to others–even virtually if that is all we have to grasp at that moment–and find compassion, understanding, and even humor in it all. And, to know that when we feel we are alone, that God is present in the messiness and loneliness. Love ya! –Godspeed, Elizabeth
“Just because the routine of your life feels small does not mean that you are.”
Wow. Good words right there. Thank you for sharing.
I am so glad you wrote this. I have thought of this too. I would have such times of loneliness in church. And while I knew I wasn’t comparing the pain of literal hunger to me, I did feel like GOD shared in my spirit…’hungry is hungry, starving is starving.’
I think in the same way its easier to ignore the injustice in the world sometimes b/c it hurts too bad, we face the same challenge in that its easier to go to the injustice and miss that Jesus is trying to show YOU something right where you are about your state. I love this verse in the message: Psalm 36:5-9
God’s love is meteoric, his loyalty astronomic,
His purpose titanic, his verdicts oceanic.
Yet in his largeness nothing gets lost;
Not a man, not a mouse, slips through the cracks.
How exquisite your love, O God!
How eager we are to run under your wings,
To eat our fill at the banquet you spread as you fill our tankards with Eden spring water.
You’re a fountain of cascading light, and you open our eyes to light.
Not a man, not a mouse, not a mom – :)
What a smile-inducing comfort it is to have an empathetic friend, miles away, yet ever-so-close on my computer screen, standing with me in the piles of laundry, the midnight toddler-didn’t-quite-make-it-to-the-potty clean up duty, the crack-of-dawn cuddle-close peace of nursing the baby, just before rushing out the door to get the big kids to part-time high school classes in the morn…
ahhhhh….
Teri
And I’m an amateur compared to you – oh mother of many!!
Beautiful! This is my first time here, and you have put these thoughts into words so seamlessly…thank you! I think this is something so many women should read.
Hiya Sarah – thanks for stopping by – feel free to make yourself comfy around these parts!
Wow, what a beautiful and oh-so-true post!
I can’t remember if it was late last night or in the wee hours of this morning that I read this but, when I did, I just thought “Yes!” Someone else understands.
Beautifully said….. God’s heart beats for humanity (Period!)….. whoever we are and wherever we come from. Thank goodness he doesn’t have geographical preferences – all lost without him. A wonderful post.
This is one of the best posts that I have ever read! A quiet statement of the HEART of God and the quiet dilemna of so many SAHM…. thank you Gypsy Mama! I am a new visitor and will be back again soon!
Hiya Nicol – yes, the quiet dilemma of so many mothers, daughters, students, and grandmas I think – we are all often lost in the seeming smallness of what we do, we forget how great the God is that made us and is interested in everything about us.
Thank you for the reminder that we are in this together as a community of mothers and for being an incredible support for that. With Joy, Carey
So beautiful. As a mother of six, I sure do get the quiet desperation. Mom’s need other mom’s, whether IRL or through our blogs. Thanks for sharing.
Amen to that!
Loved these words of yours, love your heart. Thanks for throwing me that life preserver. I desperately needed it today. I’ve been drowning in feeling completely average. Oh my thoughts, I do hate to even verbalize them, they are so stinkin’ petty. But thanks for this reminder…”Just because the routine of your life feels small does not mean that you are.”
You verbalize so well what my heart cries. I love to read your thoughts – so often my own.
I love that we are all together; that we are not alone!
{Look at how big she has already gotten}
I know, right? One month. One month!!
I am a fairly new reader, but this post hit home. THIS is exactly why I blog. And although I know there are hundreds of mommy bloggers out there (like you) who keep it real and extend a hand to those struggling, I have felt strongly that I need to keep blogging too. I know that there are so many women (including myself) who need to hear they are worthy in Christ’s eyes. So thank you for being so honest and gracious and loving. You inspire.
Oh Cheryl, thank you. And yes, yes, you must keep blogging – because it’s only in sharing our true stories that we can truly encourage. Because no matter how many bloggers there are, there’s only one you and your story might be just the one that another mother needed to hear. So thank you for keeping on, keeping on!
I love Springfield, VA. I grew so much in my Christian walk in a great church there for 5 years. This summer I am traveling there for a reunion of sorts with my old small group. I love coming here, too. Your words feel like a reunion of sorts, too.
I just fell in love with you…amazing post…
THANKS.
This post tugged my heart’s strings and made me cry, and then I struggled to leave a comment because of the fear that I might sound too desperate and petty.
Lisa-Jo,
Your words are always so encouraging, even with projectile vomit . . . ha!
Let’s be friends.
I just discovered your blog. So happy to have found you!
This is beautiful – and an inspiration to me to get back to blogging if for no other reason than to preserve my sanity and to give me an outlet as I adjust to life with a newborn and an almost two-year-old. It’s crazy these days, but I know that eventually I’ll want (need!) to look back and remember.
Oh Lisa-Jo! I was just cleaning out my reader when this post caught my eye, and now it has me in tears (the 7 months worth of pregnancy hormones don’t help the situation). Beautiful… thank you for sharing this. Thank you for putting the words from your heart to the keys.
“God’s heart beats just as passionately for the women of Springfield, Virginia as it does for those living in Soweto, South Africa.” – Goosebumps.
This means so much to me. There are times when I silence my own desperate exhausted emotions because there’s a mom in Africa who can’t feed her babies, and my feelings of defeat come from lack of menu planning. This post will be one of those I come back to again and again. It’s what my heart needed to hear and has reminded me of the kind of writing and encouragement I want to give to others, whoever they are.
This post is so encouraging to me in a time of much discouragement as a momma… Thanks!
This is a beautiful post. A good reminder. Thank you for writing it. I’m a mama who has tried to figure out how to be who I am and be a mother. I have a child with special needs, and it is sometimes very lonely and very joyful, too. But it is good to hear that in those hard, lonely times God loves me.
Dixie
Thank you. Today is one of those lonely frustrating days for me, where you just wonder if God really hears my trizillion prayers per day….begging for mercy to know what is wrong with my child if he doesnt stop screaming and every medication and dr can not help him!! I really need to hear that what I do matters to Him and He knows I am trying my best. And He cares. Thank you.