Today I heard them. Early. Too early.
So I stumble down the stairs, push my glasses up my nose so it's stumbling I do instead of tripping, and shove my wild mane out of my face as I navigate stairs, corners, hallway. Hopefully in that order.
Into their room I go.
"Girls," I whisper, "It's too early to get up. You need to close your eyes and go back to sleep for a little while."
This is not met with agreement from Rye. She is not happy. As in not at all. I sigh. And in my head, I think to myself, Really? It's 6 am. Go. Back. To. Sleep. And it isn't said in my head in a nice way either.
K moans and says, "Mama, my eyes are still tired."
I love her.
I say, "Well, sweet girl, go back to sleep."
Rye is still not happy with my decree. So I give her a kiss. And she pouts.
I love her, too.
And then K sort of sits up and gestures, quite grandly for being half asleep, toward the window with her palm face up and her fingers squeezed tightly together and says oh so matter of factly, "Wyleigh, just because the sky is awake doesn't mean we get to be awake."
Hmmm...
How can one argue with that logic?
I, in fact, completely concur.
That's the best news I've heard in the 15 minutes I've been out of bed.
And Rye looks at her, nods her head, raises her arms up for a hug and squishes her lips together for a kiss and closes her eyes.
I close the door behind me, stumble back up the stairs to get ready for work and think how grand it is that sometimes your kids do the mama-job for you. These are the best mama moments when the little people listen to each other, teach each other, exhibit that 'Golden Rule' we mamas like to instill in our little people. And when the words I have said for eons have sunk down into somewhere deep and true, and I hear them repeated, I admit, my heart does a happy dance.
(Unless of course those words are the not-so-nice-words with that not-so-nice attitude that I hate to admit they heard from me, learned from me, because those moments where those words are flung furiously at me are not proud mama moments and they do not make my heart skip a beat in glee. And my heart sighs sad for all the words that sometimes spill forth from the brokenness of my own life onto the sweetness of theirs.)
But on those momentous and triumphant occasions when my children live out, act out, speak out the good that they've seen or heard from my own heart, I admit there is a moment of pride that swells up from some deep heart nook or cranny when my children help each other do the thing they are supposed to do, without me.
You know, like I have arrived at this unknown mommy-marker of accomplishment-dom.
Because isn't that our goal as mamas? To teach our little people in such a way that the truth sinks into a true and honest place so that they can live that out one day without us? Isn't that the measure of all teachers--when our students can complete the task without our input, without our guidance? And we can clap and cheer because what better reason for celebration could there ever be than watching your child, into whom you have spent years planting the seeds of love and honesty and forgiveness and faith, live. that. out.
These rare and precious moments puff my mama heart up a little and I marvel, briefly, at the lessons I've learned, and the layers I've grown, in my own life, in my own heart. Because the fruit of all those lessons and that learning are embodied, magnified, reflected in three little souls entrusted to me.
Sure, this particular moment didn't change the course of history, or even alter the course of our family. In fact, this particular moment could have easily been lost in a multitude of other seemingly insignificant moments, but there was something special and eternal about this transaction between two sisters.
And this transaction, albeit small, reminded me that it's the small stuff, the small victories, that lead to the mightier celebrations and the deeper lessons. Rome wasn't built in a day, and the ocean is full of millions of tiny drops and this is one of those tiny drops. This drop matters. This drop is important. Because without it, the ocean would be less. I have hope.
Still, in those darker moments where I've floundered and failed again, I need to remind myself that the dark moments are not the sum of all the mama love I've poured endless over my little hearts. That those dark, fragile, sometimes ugly moments lead me back, over and over again, to the feet of Jesus. Because He redeems those moments and makes beauty from those ashes which become the swelling crescendos in a symphony that ebbs and flows, just like any ocean, just like any life, just like any heart. And to Him it's all beauty.
And His mercies are new every morning.
Even if it starts at six a.m.
Grace Always Rises,
Jamie
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