You Are What You Most Commonly Do

Really?! Is the thing that I most commonly do really what defines who I am? If so I am a bottom wiper… or I am a cook, or a professional shouter? I don’t want to be a mom. I don’t want that to become my identity, though I feel myself fading away into the piles of laundry, the countless episodes of toddler correction and discipline, the countless mistakes made that make me lay awake at night and wonder if I have scarred them for life. I don’t want to be a mom because I know someday that won’t be the headline of my life…. maybe that’s the reason.  Someday when they can all wipe their bottoms and get a glass of milk for themselves and drive and move away I will still be a mom but I will again have this thing that I hear exists called, “free time”. I know it exists because there are many well educated people out there who will genuinely suggest that I use this, “free time” to accomplish tasks that I may complain are not being accomplished because of my occupation as mother. I am starting to wonder though if maybe these people are wizards and this “free time” is something that they conjured up out of bat wings and toad warts. “I’m so tired of having a mountain of laundry in my bedroom staring at me as I try to go to sleep.”  I say, “Oh maybe you will just have to use your free time this week to get that laundry out of the way” the wizard replies.  Apparently I missed that day of chemistry where they taught us how to brew a large batch of  “free time” … well actually I failed chemistry so there we go. I knew I was going to need everything I could have learned in that class for every day practical use!!! Well at least I will have something to tell my kids when they don’t want to do their homework. “Hey kid your gonna want to learn this because someday you may have a crazy schedule and you may really want to brew a batch of “free time” and you won’t know how if you don’t work hard at school”. Apparently my kids will be attending Hogwarts.  But really… I can honestly say without any pause or question that this is not a symptom of laziness,  disorganization or procrastination; I really don’t have any spare time. And that’s ok. Right now I should probably just plan on wearing slippers around the house so I don’t continue getting stabbed by dried rice clusters, I should buy some good smelling bathroom spray to carry in the pocket of my robe to use in various stinky situations and name the pile of laundry “Spot” so that people can think I have a cute fluffy dog that drives me crazy every week instead of a abnormal size mountain of textiles living in my bedroom. The only time that pile gets put away is when I remember that if I leave it, spiders will take up residence in it and then I will have not an annoying pile of laundry but a terrifying arachnid sky scraper apartment complex in the corner of my bedroom. Anyways….  maybe the fact that I will not be primarily a mom again someday is not the real reason that I want to say my habits don’t define me.  Actually I really need them to not define me because if they do then I really don’t know how to be happy. I really don’t want to have this responsibility at all; responsible for three human lives, three whom I love so much that if my love was gummy bears it would fill the grand canyon,  to the point that it hurts. I can’t do THAT! It’s WAY too scary. There are way too many variables and danger and just an endless pit of opportunity to fail. I don’t want to be a failure. I want to succeed, and for others to see my success, and pat me on the back as we take off in a celebratory hot air balloon ride  while we toast champagne to my great success in whatever I’m the best at. No failure.. failure bad…. Success good and warm and fuzzy and comfortable. But I want these kids. I don’t want to adopt them out, even though last weekend I did try to convince Phina that her aunt Kimmy was her new mommy. When I really think about it I do want to keep them. I really enjoy them. They are sweet and snuggly and they make me so proud. They sometimes obey me, they are beautiful, they teach me about Jesus and help me see His love more clearly, they love me. Oh these kids are awesome. They are wonderful! But they make me fail. They show how much sin I have in me. More than any other relationship, my relationship with my kids reveals the parts of my heart that are STILL so stinking wicked and I don’t want to see that. I don’t want to see how much I fail at things important and things not so important, like having a daily schedule, a “Structure” for my kids.. I’m totally failing at that. Maybe that’s the key here. I am not what I habitually do because when you are a mom you have NO habit. You can’t stay in the comfort zone when you have three toddlers dragging you out of it. If you have a life where you habitually do things in an organized fashion it’s pretty easy to not fail, or at least to avoid seeing your failures. When your not doing something of great value with your life it’s pretty easy to just ignore mistakes and character flaws but when you have great value for your job,  perfection is the standard. I love my kids, and  so I desperately want them to be raised with perfection, but I’m all they’ve got in the mom department and I’m seeing more and more every day that I am nowhere near perfection. So if anyone reading this is a perfect mom will you please adopt my children and raise them because I want the best for them. Oh wait, I’m supposed to be trusting the Lord here aren’t I and oh, um He is the one who chose me to be these awesome kids mama. Hmmm God’s perfect plan for my kids was imperfection? His perfect plan for them was me? Ok honesty warning  right here. The other night after quite a normal day I was crying in my closet saying, no pretty much yelling to God, “you chose the wrong person!”  and it’s not because I’m not doing a good job. It’s because I can’t stand to see my sinful reflection revealed any more by these little tools of sanctification. I guess I should have been more specific when I asked God to make me like Him NO MATTER WHAT the cost. I should have said, “Lord please make me like you through copious amounts of ice cream eating, make my trials consist of brain freezes and difficult walks to the freezer for refills.” That would have been way better. But  I need to stop worrying so much, because God is doing a great job. He is doing a perfect job AND his choice of application of sanctification through being a mom right now isn’t even that bad….at all! He chose an amazing and wonderful application, a form of teaching that will not hurt me or cause me great suffering, or require me to lose any limbs, an avenue that will bless me for the rest of my life, getting to see these people grow into whatever God is making them into and being able to know that I played a part in it. BOY am I getting a great deal here! Sanctification AND  wonderful children!? I think I figured out who I want to be. I DO want to be a mom, because being a mom really means being in the habit of seeing my failures, asking for help with them and becoming more like Jesus. And Jesus is definitely, positively, totally who I want to be like. You are what you habitually do? I’m choosing habitually do whatever Jesus wants me to do……Halelujah!