Five Minute Friday: Paint and Hope

I'd almost decided to pass on today's five minutes and the words floating around over in The Grove at Velvet Ashes, but then I got the urge to write.

My 5 minutes on "Hope" and "Paint"

I walked out of the room for 2 minutes. What amounts to a small lifetime for a toddler. Enough time to paint the world, her world, a half dozen shades.

She's painted my world and on a Friday morning we lay nose to nose and she scrunches her's into a toothy grin and I feel that lurch in my stomach. The one that tells me that I have to hold onto these days. These days are fleeting and they are the hardest thing that I've ever done and some days I wish they would all be over and other days I feel like I am trying to catch the wind, to capture it and keep it forever right here.

I meet with a friend on a rare day wee person free and she is expecting her first any day. We walk and we talk and I want to tell her all the real honest things about motherhood.

I want to let her know that she isn't alone and that motherhood is really hard but it is also so so so good. In a world that takes offense at motherhood I wanted to fill her with real hope that it is a good thing. I want to tell her not to miss what God is doing in her. That motherhood is God's means of caring for little people, but it is also God's way of making us like Jesus.

It's the kind of good that burrows it's way into your soul and let's you know that somehow in all the constant chaos you will find your way. It is the hope that pulls you along when you are wrung dry from a day with the needs of a little person on the front burner and your own not even on the radar.

Motherhood is at it's best the most optimistic of endeavors, full of hope, and ever reaching forward.