Us mom’s can sometimes feel overlooked, underpaid, run down and run over. I am here to encourage all of you at home with little ones to hang in there. So many times I have failed as a mother and so many of my prayers have been, “Lord, please let them forget my mistakes.”
I am here to encourage you, that no matter what, if your heart is to raise up godly children and do your best to be a godly wife and mother, your children will one day rise up and call you blessed.
That’s a promise.
Five years ago, I entered an online kitchen contest. They wanted an uploaded picture of my outdated kitchen and in 500 words or less, to explain why and how a new kitchen reflects me. Only they weren’t my words I submitted, they were my daughter Meghan’s.
With only fifteen minutes before she had to drive off for work, my teenage daughter wrote these words for me at the bottom of my post. Like alot of families, ours has been through much. We’re far from perfect. Which makes Meghan’s piece below even more special. I cry every time I read what she wrote. Even though I never won that kitchen remodel on that website–my child’s words crowned me winner.
I’m sharing her words to encourage you. For every mom who is up to her eyeballs in baby diapers and sippy cups, for each one of you who had only about two hours sleep all week, and for those of you who have silently wondered Am I doing this right? Am I making a difference for my kids? Be encouraged. Hang in there. Your kids are watching.
Read Meghan’s letter to me.
A home is a reflection, a personal snapshot of a life, a family, a person. My mother has spent a great deal of her life as a stay at home mom, giving her all for her family and spending a great deal of her life in the kitchen. She doesn’t have nice knives, or a spotless counter space. The mustard yellow walls and scattered country antiques provide sparse decoration, and numerous cooking utensils and cookbooks are hidden in little nooks and crannies. The sink is broken, the counters are cracked, and the cupboards are outdated. Yet, the woman that I call mom is ever present in the kitchen.It’s not the physical aspects that reflect my mother, it’s the very atmosphere. As a child you don’t care about stained grout or bubbled hardwood floors. You looked for the after school treats your mother made you, or followed your nose to the dinner table when she called. I remember hot cocoa on rainy days, French toast on Sundays and Christmas brunch at that country table. I remember rolling out cookie dough with drinking glasses and spilling lemon bars all over the counter, just to be comforted with a warm hug from my mom.
When I think of the kitchen I grew up in, I think of my whole family, all six of us, smiling and laughing around a wonderful meal, something we so often took for granted. And my mother. Rarely ever complaining, she worked hard in that less than perfect kitchen, and created a warm, beautiful childhood, and memories that I will never take for granted. My mother’s kitchen reflects her well worn love and years of hard work.
She has spent so much time serving my family and others, opening her home every holiday to friends and family. She has watched her friends receive beautifully remodeled kitchens, and never use them. Yet, she doesn’t complain. She goes home and makes another dinner, trying new recipes and changing old ones to suit her finicky husbands’ taste. My mother loves her family, and that is what makes our old kitchen wonderful in my eyes.
But after so many selfless years of trudging through our less than perfect kitchen, I believe she deserves something new, something made entirely for her. I would love to see her proud to show off her kitchen, not just the delectable food she creates. She deserves a working microwave, ovens that work, a dishwasher that doesn’t leak. She has always dreamed of a little kitchen nook with a window seat where she can read, relax. My mother has given so much to me, I wish there was some way I could give back to her. Who can find anything more precious than a beautiful childhood memory? Yet my old kitchen isn’t really the keeper of my memories, my mother is.
Meghan
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