Village Awards

A Blog Hop about Acceptance Speeches with the women of Exhale Creativity

[This is a celebration of the mamas in my village. May you see how very worthy you are. ]

If given the opportunity, I would toss around awards like confetti, letting the celebration rain down on your middle minutes so you can see just how brightly you sparkle and shine. Because you, mama, are worthy of celebration.

Kudos to you, Mama!

(This one is for all of us, really. Because we are a village of mothers doing the holy work of mothering. )

Sitting at the table completing homework with your child. Again.

Digging dried up Play-Doh from the cracks in the table leaf. Again.

Vacuuming under couch cushions, and between mini van seats, using the minutes you wish you had to savor a midday almond milk latte but instead hand sippy cups of milk to the ones who call you Mama. Again.

You feel like your days are measured by the messes that seem to keep piling up. You are more than the messes.

Congrats to you, Mama who folded another load of laundry while the toddlers swing outside and the twin babies sit cooing in their bouncers. You remember when the middle minutes of your day were filled with Bible studies and coffee dates and a mid day workout at the gym. Now they are filled with peanut butter sandwiches and apple slices you cut while wearing a milk stained camisole. And you wonder whether you feel lost now more than ever. Or wonder if you finally feel found because this gift of motherhood- you realize- is holy.

 I see you there, the one who deserves the award for showing up.

Who sits at your child’s hospital bedside while the doctors try to determine what is wrong when scan after scan doesn’t reveal what they wanted and your child is still withering in pain from his bleeding insides and his fears.

Who sits alone in the pew pleading for your children to know Him the way you know He longs for them to. Who opens the hymnal to sing the ancient truths penned by people who walked this road before you. Who raises your hands in worship trying to believe the words you don’t feel but know are true.

Who drives the carpool again. To football practice again. To swim lessons again. To dance class again. Wondering how you ended up becoming a taxi.

But weren’t these the days you used to dream about?

Kudos to you, Mama, who deserves the award for persevering.

When you see your daughters’ arms swell up red from the needle pokes necessary to keep them alive. When you cry alone on the bathroom floor because THIS ISNT FAIR and I THOUGHT THIS TIME WOULD BE DIFFERENT.

Please come up and receive your reward. Your gold star. Your platinum star. What is the strongest material that can be used for your trophy? Because you are made of that, my friend, of grit, and grace, and belief in a God who is bigger than Type One Diabetes. 

Kudos to you for showing up in love, with honest desperation, to love those babies He gave you.

Congrats to you, Mama. Please come up and receive your award for faithfulness.

Because your kids are now grown and they are a plane ride away and sometimes a plane ride feels like punishment when they used to walk down the hall to crawl up into your bed each night for cuddles.

I see you there pulling weeds alone, recounting the days when your kids made their handprints on the stepping stones in the garden. Recounting how their hands used to squeeze yours when they crossed the street and how you used to lay in the grass and look up to the clouds and try to make out their shapes together.

Now they do things like teach in classrooms and lead companies that want to change the world all because you spent your days telling your children you believed in them. And they listened.

These are the moments only God sees.

Laundry piling up as tall as America’s Mountain out your window. 

Dishes overflowing in a sink that hasn’t been wiped down in weeks.

Scrubbing toilets while mumbling prayers: this isn’t what I thought it would be like.

You deserve every award in the universe, Mama.

Kudos to you, Mama, when you think nobody sees your work, but you do the work anyway. You deserve a billion stars in a billion galaxies and an entire spa day and warm, gooey, chocolate cookies where the calories don’t count.

You deserve the smiles your children give you when they see you pull up in the carpool line, and when waving excitedly from the stage of their first grade music concert when they finally see your familiar face in a sea of someone else’s parents. 

You deserve an award for every time you sat and played Barbies and built LEGOS.

You deserve an award for showing up to every practice, rehearsal, and performance.

You deserve an award for each rendition of Happy Birthday you sang, (but especially the one where you realized he’s taller than you now and you wiped away a gently falling tear as he blew out the candles on his cake. )

Because motherhood is made up of these million little moments, that add up to a really big life.

We only have one, and its worthy of celebration.

Together we are a village of mothers, doing the holy work of motherhood, one moment at a time.

Congrats to you mama. Please come take your trophy and display it proudly for everyone to see.

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This post is part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to view the next post in the series "Acceptance Speech".