Seen

It's still silent in my house this Mother's Day.

I remember the days when I would've given anything for silence in the 7 a.m. hour...and the 6 a.m. hour, and the 2 a.m. hour...

But time marches on, doesn't it? And no one is more aware of it than the mothers. It seems to jump and skip forward suddenly some days, and other days it feels like the season that will never end.

As I sit this morning, I am pondering on my current life season, with just the gurgling fish tank and my coffee for company. It isn't lost on me that I used to get extra hugs and kisses from my kids as Mother's Day gifts...but this morning I awoke to a vase of fresh flowers that my 18 year-old went and purchased with her own money. Also, the gift of mostly grown man-children who sleep all night long and half the morning...that's a magical present that never gets old.

I have been thinking about all the different places in life that all the women in my sphere find themselves this morning. And how no matter what emotions greet us today...it's hard to imagine what it will feel like when this particular season ends, changes, looks different than it does now. I know I couldn't actually picture what a full night of sleep would feel like, even though I was assured by all the mom's of older kids that it was a real thing that would one day be part of my life again...but now I regularly sleep the whole night, and the memory of waking up every other hour to feed a baby...well, it's just that, a memory.

We feel unseen sometimes too, don't we? In that place, in the plodding forward of days and time and work...does anyone notice that we haven't showered or brushed our hair or changed our clothes or manicured our eyebrows? As women, as the multitaskers of the human race, we just move forward and keep DOING ten things at once, and then ten new things, and then more...and our minds are whirring through all the things still to come...and I swear if I locked myself in a room that no one used but me (so, the laundry room, am I right?) the first creature to notice I was missing would be the first creature who went hunting for something I regularly kept supplied that had suddenly run dry. My husband would wonder where his clean underwear were. Or my daughter would be out of her special, lactose free coffee creamer. Or the dogs would have an empty water bowl. Or one of my sons would not understand why his iPad was mostly dead and sticking between the couch cushions rather than waiting, plugged in and fully charged, on the counter, like it usually was every day. Or there would be no pop tarts when the pantry was opened. No neatly straightened sheets and blankets when they went to crawl in bed. No extra rolls of toilet paper waiting nearby when they sat down without checking the current status of the holder. No bills paid. Or dentist appointments scheduled. No one else in the whole house who knew where to find the thermometer or the Tylenol or the bandaids or the broom or the laundry room where I was hiding.

SO much of what we do is unseen, unless its left undone. Our work goes unnoticed, while our lack of work is a pain clearly felt.

Not all the time, obviously, and lest you think I am complaining...I am not. I am simply pondering on all that my own current life season requires of me, and wondering how much of it I will notice has changed as years go on. And will anyone else see?

So, this Mother's Day, my 19th celebration as a mother, I want to remind all the ladies out there, whatever your status, of something the Holy Spirit whispered to me in the quiet of my home today.

Our God sees us.

In His Word, He tells us it's one of His names. "The God who sees..." You know who first calls Him by that name? A mother. (It's in Genesis 16, if you want to go read it for yourself.) 

I'm so glad, so grateful, that He sees me today. That He saw me when I was awake at 2 a.m. with a baby. That He sees me in 10 years, with no children at home anymore.

Being SEEN by HIM and KNOWN by Him...it's life, isn't it?

For all who were up all night with a baby...

For all who are empty nesting...

For all who long to be mothers...

For all who have lost their moms...

For all who have lost children...

For the ones drowning in laundry...

For the ones paralyzed by loneliness...

For the ones who feel overwhelmingly blessed and happy...

For the ones who feel only pain and longing...

No matter where you are, what season of life greets you today...

You are seen.

I am seen.

We are known.

Because the One and Only says it.

And I believe it.

And you can too.