Why

Guest post by Jenna

“Why are you here?” It was the first question I was asked when I jogged up the stairs to Bible study this Sunday. It wasn’t supposed to make me feel like I didn’t belong there or even question that I was in the wrong room. It was for me to know why I showed up every week. Was it the fellowship I enjoyed? The food? Why did I bust my buttocks doing homework for this study every night?, since I swore off homework the moment I graduated from college, possibly before.

Do you ask that of yourself as a mom? I know I do! “Why am I here?” How in the heck did I get to be a mom? [Wait, don’t answer that one.]  Why do I bust my buttocks washing and putting away laundry and matching up little bitty socks and picking up toys and putting down toys and picking up children and washing dishes and ironing shirts and pants and things I didn’t even know needed ironing and putting down children and picking up children and DUSTING and vacuuming and fixing dinner and pushing in chairs and putting on jackets and taking off jackets and putting away shoes and cleaning up messes and finding That Paper for school and why oh why do I go to sleep at night just to wake up and do it all over again?

I’ll tell you why we do it. Because as hard as it is, as hard as every. single. day. is, we blink and it’s over. Gone. I’m not a hugely sentimental person, or at least I wasn’t until I became a mom. I tend to live in the moment and really enjoy every day instead of wishing I had done things differently. I have 3 kids, ages 4, 2, and 1. This week I was realizing how much my youngest child reminds me of my oldest child – in looks, mannerisms, even the developmental markers have been the same. I think God allows us the pleasure of realizing these sorts of things because he wants us to understand that as our children grow, we grow too. We aren’t the same moms that we were a few years ago, heck even a few days ago sometimes. But we still see the resemblances of our lives as we look back.

I hope I’ll always ask myself  “Why am I here?” – it might make me cry sometimes to realize that I have no idea what I’m doing. But I hope that it also spurs me to evaluate why I do the things I do, why I parent the way I do, and what results from my behaviors. There will be a time when my children need to know how completely human I am, that I mess up at every turn, so right now they don’t need to know my reasons for Why. They just need to know that I am, and always will be, here.

Jenna blogs at kevinandjenna.com. Right now she and hubby Kevin are in the midst of a photo project – taking a picture for every day of 2010. But she misses getting her thoughts out on the blog, so you might see some others there soon.