Ever Unseen Act of Love

“God sees every unseen act of love, and He is pleased.”

I read that on a random comment thread from Facebook. A friend of mine had shared an article about motherhood, and all the challenges it brings. The article was centered around the theme that God created you, given your child to YOU (not anyone else) and would equip you with the resources to faithfully raise them for Him. A woman I do not know commented, saying something like “Oh, I know, but sometimes I just don’t feel like anyone appreciates all the work I put in!” And my friend replied to her “God sees every unseen act of love, and He is pleased.”

How much that one sentence (not even directed at me) has been an encouragement and, at many points, my anthem to being a mother. Especially during those months when it’s just me and my child, when my husband goes to work. 

God sees me. He sees me take a deep breath and control my tone, my frustration and tears (and sometimes not as much). He sees me bend down for the hundredth time to clean up whatever mess has been made (food, pee, poop, snot, toys… you name it!) He sees me hold my crying babe who just bonked her head really good. He sees me lovingly prepare the thousandth meal for us to enjoy together, and the fun cookies or the playdough. 

And God sees you, mama. He sees you wake up in the morning after hearing your little one start to cry or talk. He sees you take a few moments to wake up, and get motivated for another day chasing them down and making sure they aren’t too cold, or too hot, or hungry or thirsty. He sees you read that one book for the tenth time in a row because (out of the fourteen other books) they only want to read “Goodnight, Princess” that day.

He sees the good moments when you’re both laughing and playing a game, or dancing, or learning. He sees the hard moments when they don’t stop when you say stop and that could have meant running out into the street. He sees the corrections, the “say please” and the “say thank you!”. He sees YOU. And YOU are doing everything He wants you to do. 

This world is upside down right now. We are cooped up all day (especially if the weather is horrible). There's the overhanging anxiety of not wanting to get sick, or be around anyone who even MIGHT be sick. There are all the things that we as adults are dealing with right now- the uncertainty of what is to come. How will the world look when we are finally able to emerge from our houses? What will the new rules be? Everyone is going through this weird, traumatic thing together yet separately and yet our job is to make sure our children don’t feel the worry. We can’t do anything about it, so we carry on. We continue to love and mold our children, and a lot of the effort is going to go unseen, unappreciated and unacknowledged. 

But God sees every unseen act of love, and He is pleased. 

The Two Year Old

April is here and for me that means that there is a birthday coming up! Specifically my baby girl will be turning two! TWO. I would hardly believe it except for all the definite two year old behaviors that have been making an appearance since January. It’s an interesting time to want to celebrate something like a birthday, when this world and country are in such disarray. Still, as the day has been coming closer I’ve been observing more and more what a wonderful and challenging blessing my almost two year old is. 

Yesterday afternoon for our snack, we sat on the kitchen floor and she watched avidly as I showed her how to help me peel an orange. We smelled the rind as we peeled off each piece and she helped throw the pieces away and we ate the orange on the floor. Each bite came with a messy result but the satisfied “yum” that came with each bite was too cute, and I knew that I could easily clean up the mess in a few minutes. The thing about two year olds is that they are such hungry learners! She watches everything I do! It can be kind of alarming- because I’m aware of how poor a role model I can be. The leaps and bounds of speech and communication blows my mind, even from just a few months ago. She strings together little two or three word sentences, narrates all her activities and makes sure I’m included when she does something “coo’!” 

We have rough days too. The waking up grumpy days. The “she didn’t get what she wanted days” and the days where I KNOW she can hear me but is clearly ignoring me. (How do they learn how to do that so soon!?) We have the days of many time outs. But even on those days, we take a bath and she puts on her jammies, we sit in the rocking chair and she lays in my arms for as long as I want and we sing songs, and read some bedtime stories and say our goodnight prayers to Jesus. Those times I get all the kisses and hugs, and the “luh yoo”s erase the day’s frustrations.

I can tell that she is going to be a very sweet and nurturing big sister, and that thought also makes these moments so precious! There are still three and a half months (ish) to go for baby #2 to appear, but these first few months have already flown by! It won’t be just the three of us for much longer, and there are less and less days when it’s just me and my first girl! 

Her favorite things are the Moana soundtrack (Moana muss-ee? Peesh?), apples (app-uh), bouncing off of anything she can (I bunce, I bunce!), dancing (‘anceeng), and generally wanting to copy whatever mommy is doing! Brushing teeth, brushing on makeup, cooking, and thankfully that includes cleaning! She’s a good little helper too (she loves positive affirmation, don’t we all?)

I don’t know how she can get any cuter or how I can love her more, but she proves me wrong every day and while I love watching her grow and learn, the phrase is TOO true: “The days are long, momma, but the years are short.”