You Might Be a Courageous Mom if...Chapter 5
You might be a courageous mom if...
You are returning to work with your 3 month old baby who refuses to take a bottle and only breastfeeds. Youtube video on this topic posting on November 21st or 22nd on my PrayerLights channel if you want to hear more about this struggle of mine.
You get into a car with your kids and drive them around. Seriously...there are crazy drivers out there and nothing will make you more thankful than avoiding being side swiped by a silver Nissan pick up truck with the front bumper already hanging off. Obviously this guy doesn't care if his car gets damaged. He also doesn't care that you have a fragile newborn strapped into a precarious piece of plastic called a carseat.
Your child is sick and has to have blood drawn but it takes 6 nurses to hold your child down because he suddenly has super human strength for a 7 year old.
You have to leave your baby at daycare to go back to work.
You have to leave your job to stay home with your baby.
You are "let go" from your job, get a severance pay through the new year, and are a single mom.
Your child has cancer or CP or autism or ADD or diabetes or...
YOU, yes YOU, are a courageous mom if you are reading this! Every day we moms make tough decisions and we don't always share our grit or our tears with others. We may post a pithy sentence on Facebook or share a brief story on instragram but never truly convey the depth of emotions we feel. At times we are so courageous that we don't feel strong at all. We may feel the weight of the stress or the sadness or the despair but we do what we have to do to make things the best they can be for our child despite current circumstances.
I am currently praying for many of you. I keep a running list of prayer requests in my planner and sometimes in the notes section of my phone. I'm praying for you at 2:00AM as I'm nursing my baby girl and again at 4:00AM. I scroll through my Facebook feed and find the short posts and the long posts that are cries for prayer and solidarity. And I know that many of you are praying for me. Thank you. I seriously cannot thank you enough.
We moms need each other. We feed off of each other's courageous stories. If you can survive then so can I.
When I think of courageous women, Hagar comes to mind. In Genesis 21, Hagar is forced to flee her home with her son as not only a single mom but a slave and a "concubine." Here is a woman who was considered property in her home and told to produce an heir with another woman's husband. Of course there would be trouble! This plays out like a bad reality show.
Sarah, the wife, is supposedly "fine" with her husband bedding Hagar but then becomes jealous that Hagar ends up having a son. Hagar fears for the safety of herself and her child, finds her courage, and leaves her home in search of a new life. This woman has courage in spades! I can't imagine being a single parent today much less in ancient Israel. Scripture says that Hagar couldn't feed her son or provide for him but she had courage and turned to God for help:
When the water in the skin was gone, she cast the child under one of the bushes. 16 Then she went and sat down opposite him a good way off, about the distance of a bowshot; for she said, “Do not let me look on the death of the child.” And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept. 17 And God heard the voice of the boy; and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven, and said to her, “What troubles you, Hagar? Do not be afraid; for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. 18 Come, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make a great nation of him.” 19 Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. She went, and filled the skin with water, and gave the boy a drink.
20 God was with the boy, and he grew up; he lived in the wilderness, and became an expert with the bow. 21 He lived in the wilderness of Paran; and his mother got a wife for him from the land of Egypt.
Genesis 21: 15-21
Continue to be courageous! Turn to God for your strength. Support one another!
Peace out,
Shawn