As Moms... we often have to put on a mask of joy and energy and positivity for our kids.
Just today, I took the long way around town to pick up my three kiddos from their Dads house after they spent half of Christmas with him. I just couldn’t get the mask on quickly enough.
Knowing the minutes ticking by wouldn’t be what made things better but getting my heart in the right place before they ran into my arms is what needed to happen.
Everything halved isn’t what I wanted. 🖤🤍 But in those halves can be two wholes... the math doesn’t add up, but the heart doesn’t know the reality as a logical equation.
We fall into our emotions when they go to sleep. When we are apart from them having coffee with a friend. When the onions we chop for their dinner bring the first stings of tears we have held back during the day.
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On Christmas morning I was freezing while they opened presents. Tired from the sleepless nights prepping and preparing for the holiday both with gifts and teaching moments of the Savior’s birth.
Dallas looked at my tired eyes, and went into the kitchen to make me coffee. Lillie-Mae told me to go cuddle in bed while we played with her new toys.
Mindy cut her new construction paper into my face shape to sketch me... She sketched a happy Mommy because that’s how she sees me. And that’s how I am, truly, most of the time.
The mask is a protection. A safety for them to not know the fullness of pain.
It’s a fence for their child-like faith that a Mom builds first thing around their world when they’re born...
Do I fall apart in front of them some
Yes.
Does that take away from the picture they sketch in their minds?
Never.
To the Mommas having to mask up, because they are working through things... don’t do it alone. Have people you can be real with. Journal your feelings and carve out quiet to do so. 🖤🖤🖤 Rest in the Father’s arms where you can be naked and vulnerable and unashamed.