MOM GENES? By Gretchen

I have anxiety about the label “mom” and I dislike writing. So when preparing to write this blog post for you all, I hope you can imagine the internal conflict I am facing evening as I type this. 

There was a BIG part of me that just wanted to cut and paste Olive’s birth story that yes, my husband wrote. But the whole point of this blog is to let you into our transparent lives, and hopefully someone will be encouraged by what we have to say. 

So here I go.

There was never really a point in my life, during pregnancy or even this last year, that I spent a lot of time thinking about motherhood. Yes, I knew one day I’d most likely be a mother. Yes, I did set up a nursery. And yes, I was up every three hours breastfeeding… but truly in all of that, I spent most of my time thinking about that unknown 4^th lyric in the rhyme “First comes love. Then comes marriage. Then comes baby in the baby carriage”… 

Really, what happens after baby carriage?

For the longest time I believed that maybe I didn’t have the “mom gene”. You know, that feeling inside of you that supposedly get’s all excited about onesies and small socks? Never felt it. It was a real confusing time for me, because I LOVED my daughter, I believed this was God’s best plan for me, but I just didn’t seem to really care about all the “hoopla” that somehow attaches itself to motherhood. Because of that I started to believe lies that maybe I just wasn’t cut out for this new job, or that there was something wrong with me. 

It took me awhile to finally see the truth in this matter, and that truth is there is no “ONE SIZE FITS ALL” to motherhood. If God did not create us to be robots then He didn’t create mothers to be either. I remember so clearly the friendships I made as a new mother. It was so freeing and encouraging meeting and knowing other moms who felt the same way I did. 

Don’t get me wrong, there is a time and place for the feeding, the napping, the sippy cup conversations, but what I want to encourage others and be encouraged in, is that motherhood is a very important role we play - but it’s not our identity. 

The author of Ecclesiastes said, “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:” How true is that! There will be a season for baby rearing (I’m in that), but let’s not loose sight of the big picture. While every role we play is important and the season God puts us through doesn’t last forever, my charge to you (and myself included) would be: what do you want your legacy to be? How do you want to be remembered? How do you want your kids to remember you? For me, I want Olive to see her mom doing more than just folding laundry and house cleaning. I want her to know that her mom loved God and loved people well.

So, how are your mom genes fitting these days?

Fighting for you,

Gretchen