When you feel like quitting but you press through, when you’re patient with your children, when you clean up their messes, when your heart lights up at their smile, when you despair at the continual messes they leave behind, do you feel like no one knows, no one notices, no one cares?
We do. We see you. We care, and we are in awe of your devotion, your compassion, your perseverance, and your steadfast love for your children. We may not always say it, but we see your continual alertness and your never-ending sacrifice. Your work matters, you matter.
We may not express it very well, but listen for it when your husband kisses your cheek and offers to take the kids for the evening, when your friend tells you that you’re doing a great job, when your toddler shares his toy with you, when your baby smiles in her sleep, and when the clouds reflect the sun’s rays into a spectacular sunset.
Motherhood. The word is sacred. It radiates warmth, joy, love, security, sacrifice, hope, peace, unconditional love. All because of you, because of me, because of every mom who devotes every day to nurturing the little ones entrusted to her from above.
Every young mom lives in that strange space in between who she used to be and who she will become. Your life used to be your own, it is no longer. And yet your new identity feels unseen, unappreciated, unobserved and perhaps even unimportant.
Dear mom, your life is none of those things. You are seen and appreciated, everything you do as a mom is observed and important.
You must know, I need you to know, that we see you, and we know. You are part of the universal sisterhood of mothers, and we don’t need to know you to know you, or to see you to see you.
When we see you for a moment in the store or for an afternoon at the park, and we see happy, healthy children, we know what they represent for you. We’ve been there too, maybe just this morning, maybe last year but you are not alone, and you are understood.
Be at peace, breathe. Slow down and enjoy your children. Embrace the mess, and the work and the simple moments of joy. Time will pass and then the season will be over. And you will be seen for who you were and who you have become.
The toddler who drew on your walls will turn into the preschooler who lovingly draws you wonderful artwork. The baby who cried will become the school age boy who gives you daily hugs and asks how to make you coffee.
So know that we see you, and be released and freed in your soul – to see them. Truly see your children. Soak it up and drink it in, savor their uniqueness, feed their soul with your love and your strength.
(This is the key to raising a toddler by the way. You must approach them with the confident security of unconditional love, because they are frustrated with themselves, with reality, with the mismatch between their understandings and their abilities. You are their safe place to grow into themselves, to discover life and their place in it.)
Feel our support, be filled in your soul and let it energize you so that you are no longer empty but full of patience. And hope. And love. Because young children require all of this and the mystery of motherhood is the ability to give of ourselves daily, joyfully, at peace with being seen and unseen.
Dear mom, you are seen and loved. Your children see you, your husband sees you, your Heavenly Father sees you. And your fellow moms see you and we know. We know you as you are, we rejoice in your journey and we share it. We share your successes and your failures and we say yes, this is motherhood.
Alicia Eichmann