Motherhood is a marathon. Not a new idea, I know - and I'm only on about mile 3, with my preschooler and toddler and still focused on the one-foot-in-front-of-the-other challenges of diaper changes, potty training, wiping noses and bottoms and faces and hands, reading books (over and over and over again) and doing battle daily with naptimes and bedtimes. But every so often I see or read or hear something that reminds me of the bigger picture: where it is we're going. The goal, eventually, for my two guys to become men; men who love God, who are kind and courageous and brave, who run fearlessly themselves in the race they have been set before. And I realize how humbling and awesome and terrifying and crucial this role of Mother is in shaping them on that journey.
If you haven't seen Stephen Colbert's tribute to his late mother Lorna yet, watch with tissues in hand. The powerful forging of a mother's love and laughter is clear in all the words he says, and what he doesn't say. I don't know right now what my boys would say about me in eulogy. God willing, they won't need to think about that themselves for many, many years. But I know what it is to pay tribute to a mother after she's gone, and to think daily about the impact she continues to have on my life.
As my feet hit the ground, one after another, with my eyes fixed on a horizon that seems so very distant right now, the prayer that has become a pulse, a rhythm, for me is just this - may I be a mother like my mother was. May my boys one day remember me like this.
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