The Mommy in the Mirror

For many years, I wanted to be the perfect mom. Then I had kids... and what I wanted most then was just to survive the day. Not one single desire to be the perfect mom came even close to preparing me for all the details of real life. And just when I think I've survived the diapers and bottles, along comes the teen years. Now my prayer may have to be that MY KIDS survive having me as a mom!

Why does it seem that things are rolling along, life is being lived and then BAM! God decides maybe mommy needs a wake up call. My wake up call came today in the form of a teenage daughter (and you have no idea how I struggled to type that!) who is just a little bit too much like her mom.

The reflection I saw in my daughter today was that I...
...really want to do the right thing, I'm just not so good about putting that into action.
...find it much easier to do the things "I" prefer to do, not necessarily what has been asked of me.
...want to please my parent (God) but I just really don't like doing some of the stuff He wants me to do.
...think maybe God doesn't notice if I take the shortcut but He does (DARN!).
...find it really easy to lose my purpose and direction.

My heart is heavy. I want to reflect the love of Christ and if my children are to reflect me, then that is what I want to see in them. But I am human and unfortunately I reflect my human-ness pretty well. So my prayer as I close this post is that, as we draw closer to the birth of our Lord, the mommy my children see will be one of the ACTION of LOVE. That what they see in me will draw them closer to Christ and not farther away from Mom.

In love and recovery,
ThereO