We are coming empty handed - Brittany​ Hunt

“Fair warning, we are coming empty handed. It has been a heck of a day! Also, there is a chance my children hate me!”

I typed this text to a group of my mom friends from the front passenger seat as my husband and I pulled out of our driveway with two screaming toddlers in the backseat. They had been like that all day, and it felt like one of those moments where their moods perfectly exemplified every other aspect of the day. Nothing had gone according to plan. Nothing had gotten done. So off we drove with everyone getting on everyone else’s nerves, and without the desserts I had volunteered to bring.
 
What made that moment unique is that I pressed send.
 
Not too long ago, sending a text like this would have left me feeling like a failure. My kids acting up reflects me being a bad mom, right? Aren’t the cookies not getting baked indicative of my skills as homemaker?
 
At some point though, something changed. It had to. A text thread started with several relatively new moms who had been friends for years, but who now had a shared experience that bonded us in a new and different way. We all have different lives, different kids, different personalities, and different insights, but sharing with each other in these tough moments helped us grow together.
Arriving at our friends’ home without cookies but with them knowing how I was really doing completely changed the complexion of the evening. The superficial fun that we might have had was replaced with deep, authentic understanding. As these other moms came alongside me, I was struck by the accuracy of an old idiom: it takes a village.
 
What has since hit me even harder is that this is not just a convenient expression, but rather a culmination of Biblical truth. In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul uses the imagery of a body with all its unique parts to highlight the importance of different spiritual gifts (1 Corinthians 12:12-31 ESV). Elsewhere is scripture, Paul writes that we are to “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2 ESV). And what is the law of Christ? It is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” and to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37,39 ESV).
 
As moms and as followers of Christ, this is what we are called to. We are called to walk through hard things together; to provide solidarity and comfort. We are called to use the gifts the Lord has given us to serve each other. We are called to love one another. 
 
We are not called just to share the Instagram versions of ourselves but unfiltered truths that don’t always paint us in the best light. We are not called to a lifetime of pretending like we have it together because that’s what everyone else does. We are not called to do this alone. We are part of a village and more importantly we are part of the family of God.
 
Written by one of our own Sky Ranch Staff...
Brittany​ Hunt
Human Resources Generalist - Van, Texas