A gracious breeze travels from room to room through the open windows of our home. It’s been raining for days, and now this perfect, sunny, warm Memorial Day morning reminds me that in the eye of a storm there is rest to be found—solitude. I hear their little voices carry through the yard, bouncing off green grass and sycamore trees, their excited chatter creating a melody with the birds’ chipper singing—a praise song to a creative Maker. The oldest one runs across the yard at top speed, his face lit with wonder. “Daddy! Daddy!” he calls. He reaches the back door and unfolds dirt-stained fingers from the treasure within his palm—two bright red, plump strawberries from the garden. “Daddy! The strawberries are ready!” His excitement is overwhelming. He’s been waiting for this—for those shriveled brown stems from last year to move aside and make way for fresh green ones, for the leaves that protruded from those stems to produce those delicate white flowers. Finally last week the berries appeared, hard and white and altogether not ready, yet altogether promising hope. Today was the morning for his discovery, and now those two wonder-filled boys tiptoe through that tiny strawberry patch as their daddy points out which ones are ready for the picking, and then they all retreat to the porch to devour their treasures.
My head hurts as I watch from the kitchen. Two nights in a row of our newborn boy waking every hour of the night to feed—it has left me fuzzy-headed and body-aching. Soul-aching, also—for rest, for creativity, and to feel human again. Some mornings I wake up feeling very ill-prepared to care for three young boys. They smile and munch. I search for my own discovery and respite. I reheat my mug of coffee for the third time. I hear those little voices quiet as berries fill anxious mouths. I walk past that wall in our house, the one with the shelf with those jars full of promise and challenge.
Today is Monday. I always plan on depositing these pennies each Sunday—yet every week I put it off. I’ve put it off for weeks at a time, only to deposit three pennies from each jar to make up for my reluctance to do it earlier. I tell myself it’s laziness or forgetfulness, but in my heart I know better. I put it off for the same reason many of my blog readers tell me they could never set up these jars in the first place—it hurts too much.
It is too hard to visibly see those weeks being spent.
I stop, set my coffee next to the glass masons, and unscrew three lids. I take one penny from each of their jars and deposit them into the new jars. Another penny spent for each of them—another week. And I see it now—that these pennies filling these jars are not only theirs. They are mine. Those 936 pennies not only represent the time lapsing from their birth to their flying from the nest—but they represent 936 weeks of my own life. This adds to the difficulty of the task. As I place each penny into its “spent” jar, I think back through seven days. Seven days spent investing in little souls—and also investing in my own. Each week, each day—every moment I am entrusted to love, nurture, and grow my children—all of that time is also the time I am allotted to grow my own soul through the nurturing of them.
That morning I had woken weary and not ready for a new day. My husband got up with the older boys, leaving me to catch whatever scraps of sleep I could after another long night. The boys had crept into my room. “Good morning, Mama!” They jumped onto the covers and cuddled up beside me. “Good morning, Weyland!” They leaned in to kiss their new baby brother. My heart melted. My head hurt. I wanted to cherish the beauty of the moment, but more than that I wanted sleep. At breakfast I spoke sharply—telling them to hurry and finish their breakfast, to stop throwing food, to listen and obey. They bubbled over with excitement for a new day—one I’m not ready for yet.
I thought through these things as I deposited the pennies, of all of their beauty and excitement and discovery—and of all the ways I was challenged by those very things this week. Those pennies are not just shaping them, they are also shaping me.
The Bible tells us that children are a blessing. Sometimes blessings come in disguise. I now see it—that the blessing moments are not only wrapped up in the sweet cuddles, story times, “I love you’s,” or for mornings when everyone gets along and there is no bickering to be heard about who’s toy belongs to whom. No, the blessings are also buried deep in the trenches—in the groggy mornings, in the guilt-ridden moments after we yell hard and sharp, in the pain-stricken faces of our children when their feelings are hurt by a friend, in the fearful evenings when they don’t come home by curfew, in the uncertainties surrounding so many decisions we make with these 936 pennies—these all hold potential for blessing, because they shape us into who God wants us to be. They are His tools to hone and craft and chisel away all that is not of Him or His plan.
I asked the readers of my blog what has surprised them the most about motherhood, and I loved my friend Gretchen’s response. She said, “It’s a daily dose of the gospel. How God uses it to refine me. How the trials that He brings me through with my kids are as much a learning process for me and my own sinfulness and need for a heavenly Father to guide, protect, and love me. Every time I lecture my kids, God’s tapping my shoulder and saying . . . ‘Sound familiar?’”
My friend Hannah pointed out to me that being “chiseled” through parenthood is the best way to communicate the gospel to our children. She told me: “When I can be transparent about the work He’s doing in me, it helps my children to know that He will work in them, too.”
God uses these precious little ones who drive us crazy and challenge us hard—He uses them to show us himself and what He desires of us. Every one of these pennies is a grand opportunity for us as parents to be shaped and chiseled. And now as I deposit those pennies, I not only think back on how each week has shaped my precious children, but also how they have shaped me.
Questions to Reflect On