Last Sunday our neighbor's eleven-year-old son came over to stay with Marley while she napped and we went to a meeting with the Stake President. Since it was Sunday and I couldn't pay him, I asked if I could make him a treat- anything he wanted. He asked for brownies and I prodded...what kind? Mint? Cream cheese? Caramel? He answered mint, and I smiled and sent him home.When the door closed, Eric asked, "Why did you do that to yourself? He would have been happy with plain brownies from a mix." And yes, he would have been, and I could have made brownies from a mix, and might have, under different circumstances. But just then, I wanted to make something special, because I could, and because even an eleven-year-old can taste love and time and care.
When you're a mother who devotes her talents and energy to raising children and making a home for them, you have to trust this. That they know. As small as they are, they can taste and feel and sense the thousands of small things you do each day to ease their lives. The wiping of the counters. The sweeping of the crumbs. The putting back...the endless putting back. Just before they close their eyes at night and finally surrender to the perfect oblivion of child-sleep, the warm assurance settles over them that things are where they belong, or will be, soon.
One thing I know with all my heart is that these things I do each day are important, significant. Even the putting back- especially the putting back.
Isn't it what we all long for in our deepest hearts? To be gently, lovingly set back in the place where we belong- with God, in his loving, accepting presence? Our lives are a journey back to that place, and when we get there, we'll have tales to tell of the time we were almost tossed in the trash, and the long months spent under the bed, with the dust-bunnies.
14 comments:
Oh the putting back is eternal. Lovely post, thank you.
Beautiful!
Wow. This is poetry. Thank you.
Very well put, and thinking of you guys and your new venture!
Just lovely. I read it yesterday and it has been on my mind since then!
Will you please come back? I need your wisdom in my every day life.
I'm with Lindsay. I miss you and your wise ways. Beautiful!
So true. Thanks. And I can totally see my husband saying exactly the same thing even though he would do literally anything for me or his own children personally.
Lovely and this is what you call peace, its like everything around him was so quite and warm....
Thanks for sharing it here... and the article are also interesting.
Log Home Plans | Windows Server 2008
man I have had a month with the dust bunnies...thanks for this, I really needed it. I cant' wait to be put back but I need to keep remembering "sometimes" I am doing okay...xoxo
Oh beautifully said. I love this post in so many ways. Thank you! :)
Just clicked on this blog from the next blog button. It was beautiful and just what I needed to read at the moment with my soul feeling a little distraught over mothering and how I am doing anything special at all for them with so much of my day being filled with simply cleaning up after, making a meal, washing hands, putting shoes on and taking them off little feet. Lovely post. Thanks.
Stumbled across this blog and L-O-V-E this post. =)
Thanks for sharing!
Katie, It isn't often I get a spare moment to read a blog, but I have to say that I love that you do this. YOu are so poetic-- even when you aren't trying to be. A very belated congratulations on baby #4! Do you know if it's a girl or boy yet? I'm really behind on the news. I don't keep up much-- it's too hard when you have 4 of your own kids.
Post a Comment