Month: April 2011

You know you’re a single Mom when…

/ heartmomma / 2 Comments
  • The thought of adult interaction makes you salivate.
  • You can go four days without a shower and no one in your house notices or cares.
  • There are smiles when you serve peanut-butter (or in our house, sunflower-seed butter) and jelly for the third night in a row.
  • The only time the other side of your bed gets used is when your kids climb in.
  • Your son takes your hand or when your daughter says you look beautiful, can fill your heart in ways you didn’t think possible.
  • You have a running tally in your head of how often the “fatherless” are mentioned in the Bible.
  • You think you’re forgetting something if you’re not carrying at least two bags, have a toddler on your hip, a child by the hand, keys in your pocket, camera around your neck, and talking on the phone.
  • Your Friday nights are now filled with exciting things like paying bills and folding laundry.
  • You continually surprise yourself by how big of a mess you are willing to put up with just for a few moments of peace.
  • What you consider a massage is letting your son roll his hot-wheels up and down your back.
  • Your new heroes are Lois and Eunice (2 Timothy 1:5)
  • You have never had so many strangers ask you if you need help.
  • The crayon artwork on your walls is there for months because a) you just noticed it, and b) there are about 100 things more important on your to-do list.
  • You are more thankful for your kids than ever before.

*These were written a little tongue-in-cheek, so please take them that way.  Also, I fully realize that most of these could apply to any mom…I just find them more intense as a single mom.

14 months

/ heartmomma / 7 Comments

If I had written this post this morning it would have sounded very different.  I’m glad I waited.  It’s been 14 months since my husband passed from this life to the next.  14 months shouldn’t be that big of a deal except for one thing.  Today marks the day that my son has lived as long without a Daddy as he did with one.  That breaks my heart. I didn’t sit down and try to figure that out, it just occurred to me a few months ago.  It feels too soon.  My precious boy who not only doesn’t remember his Dad, he doesn’t even know what it means to have a Dad.  He has no idea what that feels like.  To him, “Daddy” is just a face in a photo.  When he sees something big and little together he always calls them a “mama and a baby”…it’s never a daddy and a baby.  And I hurt for him because he has no idea what he’s missing.

I’m sure someday he will grieve this loss and I’ll be able to tell him about his Daddy and his deep love for his son.  But this morning when I woke up and knew what this day meant, it just hurt and made me so sad.  I wondered how I would get through the day and I knew I needed a word from my Savior.  God impressed on me two things: He was faithful and His grace.  So, I went to church and every song we sang had those words and spoke to my heart in a way that I needed.  And I prayed and thanked God for being who He is and has been and will continue to be.  I thanked Him that, in spite of my doubt, He met me exactly where I was.  Why had I forgotten that my Heavenly Father knew what day it was and He knew that I would hurt?  Why had I forgotten that He would have a plan to lift me up?  God’s promises are true and I can trust Him (which was the message this morning…very appropriate I think!).  God will continue to be the Father to my precious fatherless.  He sees me in my struggles as a single Mom and He has a plan for that too.

We are entering a new chapter, my son and I…at least that’s what it feels like.  I’m still hurting…but I’m able to have joy because nothing has really changed.  My God is still God and He’s still on His throne.  That’s all that I need…and, what I think I sometimes forget, that’s all the my son needs too.

“You therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus”         2 Timothy 2:1