I AM THAT MOM: Ashley

Life with a newborn was certainly an adjustment. Instantaneously a new mother becomes the overseer of hundreds of new crucial details. You can't even imagine how crucial some of the details are until experience shows you. So you end up learning a lot. And forgetting a lot. And laughing and crying a lot.

 When Miss C was around 2 months old, I lost my keys. I turned the house upside down looking for them. I had a spare set so I spent a couple days utilizing it with the hopes that the other set would turn up. It didn't, so I ventured to Home Depot to have some keys copied so I'd have two sets again. A couple more days passed and the beautiful early summer sun turned to rain. I was itching to get out of the house so I settled for a walk through the mall. Upon parking I got out, walked to the back of my car to open the trunk to get the stroller out. Lo and behold my keys were dangling from the key hole. They'd been residing there for about a week. I had been driven myself mad looking for them. I had driven my car all over town running errands, and yet there they had stayed. I had become that mom.

 The newborn phase is rough, because where your attention was once captivated by many things, all of a sudden you're just really focused on getting a good feeding in. Why should I also have to know where I left my keys? For a while I have been drafting a post on all the things I'd like to say to a new mother but have not been able to organize my thoughts into words. In the process of becoming a mom I was surprised by how much the Holy Spirit was showing me about learning to sow gratefulness and contentment in my heart. I was hormonal (a google commercial made me sob), tired, stressed out by the laundry, and often felt lonely and isolated because my husband was super busy and I was just home- living in 2 hour cycles.

 It's amazing how forgetful we really are - and I'm talking more than losing keys. The greatest tragedy of my life was losing a child in miscarriage, and since that day I had longed to hold my child in my arms. Now I had been given that child and I'd catch myself running a lengthy list of things I was unhappy about. There are days where I want to retreat from all my responsibilities, and then there are days I find myself so grateful that as my husband's wife and daughter's mother I have the gift to set a certain tone in our home. I'm grateful for the power in God's word, and for being in Christ because it enables me to change. In reading Ephesians today I was struck by Paul's directions in Chapter 5, and how apt it is that these verses precede the section of Instructions for Households In Christ.

  ¹⁵ Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, ¹⁶ making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. ¹⁷ Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is...Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

If I could go back to that hazy newborn stage I would preach the above to myself, with great urgency.


 

Many thanks to my Noonday sister McCall, who invited me to be a guest blogger on her own blog, for a series entitled "I Am that Mom" ...If you want to keep up with ministry life in New York, visit www.suttersaga.com where I'm normally found!