more thoughts on the beauty of motherhood

My friend, Rebekah, posted this quote on her blog and I really liked it.  Encouraging to me at the end of the day when I feel like I've answered a million and one questions and dealt with 2001 quarrels about NOTHING!! (I'm pretty confident that we exceeded the 30 opportunities for conflict today, but we should be down to six ops for a few days now - my 3 older kids are gone!  LOL!).  

The Flourishing Mother added in a good quote about this a while ago:
"The exponential nature of conflict in big families:
If you have two children, there are two possibilities for conflict (two times one)
Three children – six possibilities for conflict (three times two)
Four children – twelve opportunities for conflict (four times three)
Five children – TWENTY opportunities for conflict (five times four)
Six children – THIRTY opportunities for conflict (six times five)
Ay, yi, yi.
But I thought to myself: Andrea, that's silly. Remember that famous quote... from Stepping Heavenward?
A friend says to Katy (the character):
"You shall now have one more mouth to fill and two more feet the more to shoe, more disturbed nights, more laborious days, and less leisure or visiting, reading, music, and drawing."
Her response?
"Well! That is one side of the story, to be sure, but I look at the other. Here is a sweet, fragrant mouth to kiss; here are two more feet to make music with their pattering about my nursery. Here is a soul to train for God; and the body in which it dwells is worthy all it will cost, since it is the abode of a kingly servant. I may see less of friends, but I have gained one dearer than them all, to whom, while I minister in Christ’s name, I make a willing sacrifice of what little leisure for my own recreation my other darlings had left me. Yes, my precious baby, you are welcome to your mother’s heart, welcome to her time, her strength, her health, her tenderest cares, to her lifelong prayers! Oh, how rich I am, how truly, how wondrously blest!"
Despite the conflicts, the sorrow, the worry, the time lost for other "things", there is another side of it that must balance it out: the Joy. "

I really do find myself grieving sometimes because I want to be doing some things that I just flat out don't have time for.  I long to figure out more things about my camera and take the pictures that I see in my head all the time - to somehow capture the beauty and glory of God on film.  But at the end of the day, I don't want to think (and have very little capacity for it) anymore, so I sit around piddling my time away on the computer and giving little Piper Joy more late night snackies, usually dairy if you know what I mean!  :)   There are books I haven't read, movies I want to watch, people I want to have long conversations with, and mornings that I want to sleep in until the ridiculous hour of 8 a.m.!  But these things get to wait for now (and for who knows how much longer).  I love how God keeps reminding me that He pours out His life and His grace by the minute and He is giving me the life that WILL produce the most joy!  I was visiting with a friend the other night and she quoted this really old man who was glowing with the joy of Christ that she had just recently met.  He said that "Living is giving.  When you stop giving you become like the Dead Sea."  This seems like a no-brainer, but it has returned to my mind several times this week.  I like glowing-with-the-glory-of-Christ old people - they remind me that doing what I want to do when I want to do it is not the road to contentment and joy.  Good to remember on these days when I feel like I can't give one more iota of myself.  God is incomprehensibly good.  

I rented a couple of movies to watch tonight since my hubby is gone, but there is a HUGE list of things that I think I should be doing due to the fact that my youngest 3 are actually in bed at this hour.  We have recently entered into the new and unchartered world (for us, anyway) of adolescence and I'm finding that what little time I used to have during the evening alone with my spouse is quickly dwindling away as we find ourselves involved in more late night conversations (some pleasant and some not-so-much) with our eldest.  I wouldn't trade them for the world - really.  Just amazing how those new seasons of parenthood sneak up on you, especially with the firstborn!  Poor McKenna gets the best of the rookie parents every time!!  And so it will be until the day we die!  :)  She is a beautiful gift from God and I can't wait to see how she blossoms during this new season of her life.  Maybe I'll get crazy and take some pics tomorrow; post them on the blog for everyone to see....