Motherhood is…

 

May always gets me reflecting about motherhood.  For one, the obvious, Mother’s Day takes place in May but also the Princess was born in May as was my Little Milk Monkey.  I have been blessed with 3 healthy children.  I’m so thankful for this.  It’s seriously something I thank God for every single day and some days more than once.

This year I seem to be inundated with stories about the lives of brave mothers everywhere who are going through or have recently been through trials with their precious children.   These amazing women are faced with challenges and devastation that no mother should ever have to experience.  I’ve quietly cried for their losses, pain and disappointment, I’ve prayed for them often, sometimes daily, and I’ve silently cheered for every little victory they’ve shared.   My heart goes out to those mummy’s who would give anything to make their children well.  I want to hug them and tell them they’re amazing!  Instead I pray, I pray hard and I enlist those I know who are prayer warriors around me to pray also.  I don’t know what it’s like to have a child in the hospital fighting for their life or what it’s like to lose a child and I pray I never do.

I have had my own struggles as a Mummy.  After my Little Professor was born I started experiencing a lot of anxiety which was unusual for my normally care free self.  Every night as I lay in the dark trying to get to sleep I would go through different scenarios in my mind.  What if there was a fire, how would I get to the babies room, what if the natural gas heater blew, what if the people downstairs has a gun and shot it through their ceiling, what if someone breaks in how would I protect my children?…it just went on and on.  Leaving the house was even harder.  I would dread a trip to the grocery store.  What if we were in a car accident, what if someone showed up with a gun, what if someone tried to take my babies?  I would constantly assess situations and try to figure out potential hazzards to my children.

To the reasonable mind those scenarios are unlikely but they would reverberate in mine.  I would become paralyzed with fear.  It was clearly controlling me and the decisions I was making.  It was interfering with my ability to be a good mother.  I saw it reflecting in my children at times.  Some days, when the children went to work with their father I would sit on the couch and cry in fear that they weren’t coming home.  Some nights were so bad that I would lay in bed shaking, pleading with my husband to pray for me – pray for us to be safe through the night.  I often wondered how much torment my mind would be able to handle before I snapped.

Thankfully, I have been able to overcome the fear with the help of God.  I started reading Psalm 91 every single day.  Whenever I would start to panic I would read it again.  I realized the fear and anxiety started with thoughts and whenever one would start forming in my head I would think to myself “no”.  Sometimes, I’d even have to say it out loud to myself to drown out the thoughts.  There have even been times when I have struggled with a thought to the point of tears and shouting “no” to myself until it passed.  I am determined to not allow fear to dictate what I do.

For so long I have kept this to myself, only sharing it with my husband and a few other close to me.  I always felt ashamed about it.  I didn’t think anyone would understand and maybe they won’t, but sharing it now is liberating!   I have been to a very dark place and with God I’ve survived and overcome and I’m so very thankful for that!  Every Mummy has an amazing testimony because Motherhood is hard and challenging and amazing and rewarding!  We need to tell our stories and we need to pray for each other and we need to celebrate our victories!!!

 

 

One thought on “Motherhood is…

  • 11 May, 2012 at 10:15 am
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    Aw gee…..I never knew you were going through all that – I wish there was some way I could have helped! I am glad you managed to work through it though, for the most part anyway – it was very brave of you to tell everyone! I am sure many, many of us have our internal Demons to deal with – I would be willing to bet you are not alone in these fears and insecurities; it’s just that most people don’t talk about it.

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