Love is Only Found When You Give It Away

Motherhood 

A million milk stains on your bed sheets from night feedings.

You are the first one to wake, and the last to fall asleep each day. 

Crawling back into the covers multiple times, knowing that you will be up again in a few short hours. 

Never setting alarms because your baby knows when she’s hungry and will most certainly wake you.

Changing outfits (both yours and hers) up to four times each day and countless loads of laundry. 

Endlessly rocking, patting, and burping, praying those little eyes close so you can both sleep. 

Reading books and singing songs to help a young mind learn. 

Letting your food sit while you meet her needs first. Now you understand why ‘momma bear’s’ porridge was always cold. 

Counting fingers and toes and marveling at big beautiful eyes, wondering how a human being could be so perfect. 

Worrying and then trying not to worry so much. 

Imagining the next phase, yet finding grace and gratitude in the present. 

Learning to take life as it comes and accept what you cannot change. 

Enjoying every single smile, no matter how small. 

Wondering how you could ever do this again, and just as quickly wondering how could you not? 

As I wake for the fourth time tonight, I remind myself that milk stains mean I am able to feed my baby, and that is a precious gift. 

I am grateful for knowing that she knows she can wake me when she needs me. 

Loads of laundry allow for beautiful outfits and playing lots of dress up with my real life baby doll. 

Rocking in this chair for hours gives me time for reflection

. These moments are fleeting, and never again will she be so dependent on me to be comforted. 

I think of all the memories we will create from reading favorite books and singing songs. 

Microwaves allow me to heat up the cold food that sits and waits for me. 

You see, mothers do so much for their children, and those sacrifices teach us, shape us, and refine us. 

Perhaps we learn more from them than they ever learn from us.

Clothes can be washed, food can be heated, and you will sleep again someday.

Strength is found in doing what you have never done. 

Love is found in the giving and in the sacrifice. 

When you love your home or your car, you clean it, fix it, and take care of it. The effort put in strengthens the love you have, and the cycle continues. 

Children were meant to cause some sacrifice, for therein lies the love, and the love creates the strength to continue giving.

It is the love of a parent for their child that will change the world. It can heal the hurting heart, and create tiny souls who feel safe, brave, and strong. 

My prayer is to love so fiercely that my daughter will stand for the good and rise up when she falls. 

I pray that my love will spark in her the desire to one day become a mother, and realize how truly sacred that role is.

And when she awakes to a baby’s cry with tired eyes, that she will scoop that baby up into open arms and understand what a privilege it is to sacrifice, and what a gift it is to love.