A Student of Motherhood

Of coarse I'd like to be the ideal mother.

But I'm too busy raising children.

-from the comic strip "The Family Circus" by Bil Keane

I got to thinking recently....which is always dangerous, as Rob says. I was challenged by a thought, from which i derived the title. The question that sprung to my mind was, 'are you being a student of motherhood?' Now I really don't know how i came to think about it in those terms, but what follows is a bit of my thought process.

As children we spend an enormous amount of time in school. Our parents spend an equally amount of time and energy 'teaching' and 'preparing' us for life. Once we've completed what the country has deemed acceptable for an education to prepare us for life (h.s.), many of us realize that it probably is going to take a lot more school to satisfy that. And so on to college we go. While there we choose a profession/career to study and we continue to be students, following on with internships, externships, discipleships, apprenticeships, ecetera-ships. Most of us really try to get and glean everything we can from these opportunities in the hopes that we will be good at our jobs (or in my case...with the hopes that i won't kill anyone...). Then somewhere along the lines marriage happens, and with any luck (well, i don't really believe in luck, but you get the drift) (or unluck) children can happen. And just before you are forced to spread your legs to give birth, and all the modesty you have tried to preserve all these years is thrown right out the window...you suddenly realize that life will never be the same. And then what? And there's my question?

I've embarked on THE most important job of my life, and what I'm wondering is, am I being a good student? We tend to forget that this isn't just a come as you will by day and night sort of job. It's a job where your actions leave life-time consequences for better or worse. No matter who you are or how old you are you will forever look back to your childhood as a molding of the person you are today. So many factors play into your character, I do realize.

Here lets put it this way. When I wanted to grow a garden I went out and bought all the 'stuff' I needed. At the time I was living in an apartment, so it was a container garden. Although my dad had grown gardens when i was a child, I never did one myself. And so my plants grew and grew, but to my dismay, as large and bushy as they were, I still had no tomatoes. So I paid a little closer attention. I had yellow flowers, moist soil, green leaves. But no tomatoes, then I realized that the flowers were simply falling off the plant before the tomato bud had time to start. I tried every remedy I could to keep those flowers from falling off. But in the end I had large bushy green plants that looked beautiful, with no fruit to show for it. (I seriously didn't even know how perfect this analogy was until I started typing). You may get a child that looks good on the outside, but has no fruit or substance of character, and by the time you try and remedy the problem, it might be too late.

2 summers later, in Chico, I decided to scratch out an area of our backyard and try again. This time, I felt that I had what I needed to remedy the above problem. Again I bought the 'stuff,' with a few extras, and I was ready to go. I was so proud of what I had started...it really looked beautiful. Well, as things go...I got engaged that summer and really wasn't around Chico all that much. The drip system I set up worked beautifully, however, and in my absence did it's job like clock work, keeping my plants alive. In the end, I did have fruit, not very good looking fruit, on overgrown, un-manageable plants, with tomato slugs and all. Children need time spent with them to produce good fruit, and just having the right 'stuff' won't always make good looking fruit.

Well, I hope the analogy isn't getting lost in the details, it is actually precisely in the details. 2 summers later, married and in a house on fertile soil, I was bound and determined to be patient and do this right. So instead of equipment and plants and 'stuff,' I bought books and seeds. I needed to start right, I needed to study it and learn what I was doing to have the best outcome. What an incredible time in the garden I had that year and the harvest was so magnificent and abundant. If I am going to dive into anything now, I try and read and study as much as possible about it before hand...for the best outcome. Can you see the children in the above analogies?

For the most important job I will ever have, however, I don't think that I am investing all that I can into 'learning' to be the best mom possible. This doesn't come easy. We are not all equipped with the right tools for the job (I certainly am not), or with the right attitude or goals. These are things that we have to learn. And while I will admit that a lot of this is on the job training, there is so much out there to study in order to make us the best mom possible.

** I just feel guilty that in all the things I have studied over the years, and the time I poured over them, none were half as important as my current task. And for that I don't feel that I am allowing myself the same amount of study. **

Colossians 3: 23 - "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving."

I WANT TO BE A STUDENT OF MOTHERHOOD - WILL YOU JOIN ME?

This is a poem from a book that I'm going to start again (I never finished it) called "The Power of a Positive MOM" (thanks sandy).

I took a piece of plastic clay
And idly fashioned it one day;
And as my fingers pressed it still,
It moved and yielded to my will.

I came again when days were past,
The form I gave it still did last
And as my fingers pressed it still,
I could change that form no more at will.

I took a piece of living clay,
And gently formed it day by day,
And molded with my power and art,
A young child's soft and yielding heart.

I came again when days were gone;
It was a man I looked upon,
He still that early impress bore,
And I could change it never more.
-Author Unknown-