motherhood is my prayer :: a look at the ivey league

I was reading a book this weekend and something jumped out at me. What caught me by surprise wasn’t so much the words (they were actually kind of off topic from the rest of the book) but my reaction to those words. Tears stung my eyes and it took a few good, deep breaths to get my heart to slow down again. And it’s funny, you know? It’s not something I haven’t heard before but this time I really heard it with open ears.

“I long to follow Mother Teresa’s example and perform some transcendent, life-changing act of service. I mean real, selfless service when there is nothing in it for me but the act itself. But what action can I really take right now? I have three young children at home demanding every minute of my attention. I can’t jet off to India to work with lepers or spend a month in an AIDS clinic in Africa. At the moment, my calling is motherhood, and motherhood is my prayer. It’s difficult to think of it that way all the time, given the quotidian life of a mother – the carpools, the cooking, the laundry, the shopping, the homework. But I have to remind myself that all of those labors are service to others and therefore service to God.” (Suzanne Oliver)

This is what really got me: “At the moment, my calling is motherhood, and motherhood is my prayer.”

I sometimes feel like I’m not doing enough. I see friends who are out doing big things – starting companies, traveling the world, writing books – and I wonder why I’m not getting any of those things done. Well, here are four reasons why I’m not getting that done:

Now I know some really fantastic parents who can do it all and do it well. They can write while children wrestle at their feet. They manage to make naps actually happen when they’re supposed to so that they can have conference calls in peace. They have the resources to either find childcare while they travel or take their children with them. To that I sincerely say: I’m proud of you, friend. Great job! But I’m just not that person. I need quiet to write. Naps never happen on time. And traveling with four small kids makes me crazy no matter which way I do it.

Sometimes I look at those do-it-all-and-do-it-well people and I lose sight of what’s really important to me. I get side-tracked by things that shouldn’t really matter. I start trying to make my dreams look that the dreams of other people and I get stuck on the what ifs and why not mes.  But this one little sentence about motherhood snapped things back into focus. I mean if I want to be more like Mother Teresa, what is more life-changing, real, and selfless than parenting?

In this season I have been called to motherhood and it is indeed my prayer morning, noon, and night.