The Power of Ordinary Motherhood

What you are doing MATTERS
By Leah Spina
 
I don’t think you get it, Mom. I don’t think you get it at all.
 
You think what you do each day is ordinary. Wiping bottoms and noses. Tossing a frozen pizza in your oven. Washing the same pan over and over. Driving the kids to and from school and activities.
 
But it’s not ordinary. It’s not ordinary at all.
 
IT’S EXTRAORDINARY. You are doing something absolutely amazing.
 
Have you ever stopped to listen to most people’s stories? Have you listened about their childhood?
 
Have you heard about their non-present father? Their mother that was sexually-abused as a child, then coped in adulthood by abusing alcohol? Did you hear about the things that were said to some when they were little? Horrible things that should never, ever be said to a child? Did you hear how they never had a family dinner, or a holiday together that was “normal”?
 
Do you hear how all these hurting, broken people are trying to recover and grow from their CHILDHOOD?
 
That’s where you come in, mom. Dressed in your activewear, with bags under your eyes from sleep deprivation and greasy hair because you put a child before a shower. Again.
 
I don’t think you realize what you are doing.
 
YOU ARE CHANGING THE WORLD.
 
I want you to do something for me. Tomorrow, I want you to stop during breakfast. I want you to look down at the faces around your kitchen table. Do you realize what you are doing?
 
You are gifting those children a normal, wonderful childhood. You are gifting them a beautiful start to life. You are gifting them a firm foundation of an ordinary home of love.
 
And someday, your children and my children will leave our nests. They will go out in the world, but there will be something markedly different about them. Our children will have experienced a normal, beautiful childhood. They will start their careers, their traditions, their marriages and their own families with a clean slate. They won’t be trying to pull themselves out of terrible memories and dark pasts.
 
They will be operating out of wholeness. They will be reacting out of powerful memories of their mother – you and me. Even though you and I make mistakes, on the whole, we are gifting them a normal childhood.
 
They will remember what you taught them. They will remember your kind touch. They will remember your goodnight kiss. They will remember your soft hand when they were sick. They will remember three words you said over and over: “I love you!” Do you know some people have NEVER heard those words from their father or mother?
 
Your children will be rooted in what is eternal and lasting. They will emerge from the love of God poured out of a flawed mother each day.
What you are doing matters, I say. Ordinary motherhood is EXTRAORDINARY.
 
One of the greatest people I have ever known was my Grandmother: Hazel Driggers. She had a smile as big as Texas, and a soft southern drawl. She lived in pine tree-studded Magnolia, Arkansas. She had four children. And those four children had children, and those children are now having her great-grandchildren. My three children are some of her great-grandchildren.
 
My grandmother passed away a few years ago, but her legacy lives on. She gifted those four children a strong foundation, who passed that foundation onto the next generation and the next. The women in our great big family often quote my grandmother. She is the rock of our family. She inspires us to this day. We all live in a different way because of her.
 
Ordinary mothers matter.
 
You are changing the world.
 
You are affecting generations upon generations to come.
 
Your children, and their children will be blessed because of YOU – the ordinary mother.
 
Tomorrow, after you stop at breakfast and look at your children, I want you to do something else. I want you to look in the mirror and remind yourself that you are a world-changer. When you wipe down your kitchen counter for the thousandth time, remember that you are gifting the next generation something powerful. You are gifting them a normal, extraordinary childhood.
 
And that, sweet friend, will change the world.
 
 “Your greatest contribution to the kingdom of God, may not be something you do, but someone you raise.”
– Andy Stanley
 
Leah Spina is an Amazon best-selling author of the book Stop and Smell Your Children: Laugh and Enjoy the Little Years and keynote speaker. She lives in the Dallas/Fort Worth area with her husband of a decade, David. They have four beautiful blessings from above: Samson, 9, Esther, 6, Hannah 4, and Joshua, 1. When she’s not burning mac n’ cheese, Leah enjoys musicals, traveling, golf and tennis. You can find her on social media.