There are certain times in your life when you meet someone and know that they were brought into your life for a reason. I had one of those moments this past weekend when, at a blogging conference, I discovered I was sitting next to Rachel Martin, the author of the website Finding Joy.
I try to write motivational things on my blog every Monday, but to be honest, sometimes I’m just not feeling very motivational. Just like every other mom out there, I have days where I just need to have someone tell me I’m doing okay. I need to go somewhere to just feel like someone gets my life and to feel like I’m not a complete and utter failure at motherhood. I need to have someone tell me that it’s okay that I have dirty dishes in the sink and that I’m up to my elbows in laundry. I’m having more and more of those days lately and then I have moments when I have to stop and laugh because I see my life and my 4 boys and I think, “When did this happen? There is no way that I am a mom to 4 human beings!!”
A few months ago I came across an article that was spreading across the internet entitled: “Dear Mom Who Feels Like She is Failing.” I read it and I cried and immediately printed it out to read over and over again. I had no idea at that time that several months down the road, while sitting in a conference room in California with 50+ other bloggers, that my world would collide with that one mom who had penned the words that had sunk so deep into my heart that I would turn to them for reassurance time and time again.
I’ve heard those words during the moments when I’ve forgotten things (lunches, ball practices, school projects, etc.) and in the moments when it looks as though surely a hurricane has hit my house. I’ve heard those words during the moments of anxiety that I have felt over whether or not I am making the right choices in regards to my children and in the moments when I’ve questioned every single parenting decision I have made. I’ve heard them in the moments when I feel as though I have let my kids down or when we have pancakes for dinner for the fourth time in a month.
And so for this week’s Monday Motivation I just had to introduce my readers to Rachel and her series of letters for moms, so that you can also find strength in knowing that you are not failing and that you are not going through the struggles of motherhood alone.
You can read more of Rachel’s letters to moms at FindingJoy.net.
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