most rewarding job on the face of the planet...

“What is Motherhood? Smiles and giggles, endless hugs and kisses, chance to be amazed by how someone so little can be so much better at seeing the beauty in everything, huge lesson in not sweating the small stuff, your life revolves around giving and receiving unconditional love beyond measure, an opportunity to be trusted with God’s most precious gift and mold that being into an honorable person, an eye opening experience to prove that mothers are the ones that should be thankful for the blessings given….Most rewarding job on the face of the planet”
–Veena, Mother of Bindiya, 5, (India)

Now to add my own thoughts:
part of my personality is that I LOVE to see accomplishments - improvements around the house, making something that brings joy, getting something done... yet reading thoughts like those above, I ask myself - "am I getting something done, without getting something done?" So many times at the end of the day, you can't see anything accomplished. The clothes were washed, but hampers have clothes in them again - the meal was made, but eaten and gone - the house was cleaned, and was that way for a moment... so today I am thinking of the things that are getting done. If any of you are on facebook, you would know that our town is fighting a flood - and my husband, being the fire chief, is greatly involved. He is hardly home. Our kids make comments at the end of the day that they miss him. He comes in late and leaves early - and seeing each other for lunch has fallen by the wayside also. It won't last forever - in fact, since we've got the government to acknowledge our situation, they are building up our dikes in preparation for more water coming our way. Good news! Anyway, it has left me alone with our 6 kids. Saturday is here, and the projects that we were working on, are on hold, and any extra family activities aren't happening because Dad's away. It's me and the kids.
But - we are getting something done. The baby is getting held and talked to. He's growing so much it's happy and sad - I love to see him learn - he's smiling, cooing, and starting to use his hands - yet I'm sad because he's not a tiny baby anymore! It's over SO fast, it's crazy. It's been an incredible eye opening experience to have a baby when you didn't think you needed another one - and discover you did need him! He has brought our family so much joy ~! The older kids are learning to get along - we had one session today of boys having to go to their rooms for 15 minutes because they were calling each other names - but that's learning, isn't it? They said sorry when they were done, and were ready to get back to playing right afterward. Serena, Kira and I played Crazy 8's - that's getting something done too, I think. And joy of joys, Kira is reading now - and loves it - she has a little kids Bible, and has read 240 pages so far today. She asks - "did David ever sin?" So we went into a big discussion about that - "wheww" - that was a bit difficult - thankfully she was pretty easily satisfied. Her precious comment was that none of us are perfect - the devil just tries to make us do bad stuff. Another joy for me is to look outside and see an almost proper baseball game going with my kids making up half the kids - and actually seeing a lot of teamwork and connections with the ball - so in some views we might not be accomplish much, but when you look at the big picture - we ARE getting something done - and the best part about investing in lives, is it's for eternity.