On mothering…

This Mother's Day, I am a mother times four. Four! Me!?! In a conversation with my mother this morning about family, I mentioned how funny it was that of all the cousins, I would be the first to be married and be a momma. I am a brainiac; a dork; an all around two left feet kind of a gal. I never thought I'd really fall in love, let alone fall in love with four little gifts of life. I remember finding out I was pregnant with Ben. I was scared. Terrified. I just couldn't fathom being a momma- I was so afraid of messing up, of not knowing what to do, of being responsible for another life other than my own.  But he arrived, and although I was terrified, God be thanked, I found my way. Suddenly I realized it wasn't about me. Mothering rarely is.  It is such a tension between the now and the not-yet that it's almost breathtaking. Time speeds by and yet creeps slowly. This was David and I, just a short six months ago, and now he is big and tall, beginning to eat table foods and babble and teethe. Blink, and it's gone. It seems eons have passed since then. The slow nights of sleeplessness and endless dragging on of days in the newborn fog have disappeared. Yet I am already looking forward (as I do with all my children) praying over them, watching, waiting, guiding. Ben is looking less and less like a little child and more like a boy-man.  He speaks in full complex paragraphs full of searching questions, blithely counting to a hundred.  Academe is calling him- the next years spent answering some of the Big and not-so-Big Questions.   I can't believe how amazingly blessed I am. It's funny like that- I thought I had Dreams- but God dreamed bigger dreams for me than I could have ever imagined. For these moments in time, I am forever grateful.