Comforting

Last night, I was quite discouraged about being a mother. I was weary of it's relentlessness...I was exhausted from the sleep deprivation (who would have thought this would go on for 2 yrs?)...In my minds eye, I was a failure as a mother because I forget to ask God for His help, because I often feel like I have no idea what I'm doing, because I'm so impatient with Sam...In that moment, every mom I know seemed like June Cleaver, except me. I knew my feelings were exaggerated, but I was still overwhelmed with sadness and frustration.

I woke up this morning to a beautiful spring day, which made me feel a little more hopeful. But still I struggled with feeling inept. And as I was checking my email, I glanced over at Sam and observed this little scene:

Sam had gone and picked up his baby doll (we got it some time ago, but he rarely plays with it) and began to feed it a bottle. I wish I had a video clip to show you how tender and nurturing this rough and tumble little guy was towards this doll! You can see in the first two photos how carefully he is positioning the baby in order to give him a bottle. As he was playing with the doll, he was asking if he was hungry and offering him a bottle, and referred to the baby as "Sam". I was encouraged by this scene because it made me realize, I have done some things well! I felt, for a moment, like I could see myself as Sam sees me. In the day to day, yes, I have moments of failure and weakness. But overall, I'm a mother who faithfully loves her son. More importantly, I realized that God is gracious in spite of my failures. Who Sam becomes can be affected by my parenting, but it does not depend on my parenting. I'm so glad that at the end of the day, God is the perfect parent that I cannot be. May both my strengths and my weaknesses teach Samuel seek his Father in heaven! And as for me, I will seek His help more often in raising this child. I NEED it!