From the Driver's Seat

I was driving in the van the other day with the farthest backseat filled up with my treasures.  My five and my seven year old sit on either side of our sweet, tiny newest.  I was quiet in the front and I just listened.  I listened to the voice of my dear seven year old change to mine as she spoke words of mushy praise over our little prince.  Like a true momma, she was slathering him with love of all sorts making sure he was the right temperature, that he had his pacifier, and that his little hands wouldn't move too much and startle him awake.  This little girl, who so unfairly was denied the kind of momma love and nurture that she was now delivering,  looked up at me and said, " All I want when I grow up is to be a momma like you!"  What a beautiful and incredible wish that is held so highly in that girl's heart.  This girl, who has so desperately wanted to know the love of a momma herself and who fought so long to keep the walls around her heart so rigid in an attempt to protect herself from further abandonment nearly stealing her deepest desire for love and belonging from herself, wants to be a momma just like me.  Just like me..flawed, broken, and imperfect.  She wants to love and nurture a dear one of her own, and to see her model me in every single way as she lives out her mothering role with this newborn is absolutely beyond words.  That God would give me the place of momma in the hearts of my little girls, and then allow me to see how my love is molding them..what a privilege!  How dear and incredible this life I am living has turned out to be.  Bigger and better than my wildest dreams, and while the chaos is real each minute of everyday I wouldn't change a minute as my hands are certainly full, but my heart is much, much fuller!