I love a good quote...

especially one from Martin Luther...on mothering, no less!  I've been mildly obsessed with a fabulous blog called MamaMonk, and read her daily.  This was a quote she posted last week.

“When . . . our natural reason . . . takes a look at married life, she turns up her nose and says, ‘Alas, must I rock the baby, wash its diapers, make its bed, smell its stench, sty up nights with it, take care of it when it cries, heal its rashes and sores? . . . What then does the Christian faith say to this? It opens its eyes, looks upon all these insignificant, distasteful, and despised duties in the Spirit, and is aware that they are all adorned with divine approval as with the costliest gold and jewels . . . I confess to thee that I am not worthy to rock the little babe or wash its diapers, or to be entrusted with the care of the child and its mother . . . Neither frost nor heat, neither drudgery nor labor, will distress or dissuade me, for I am certain that it is thus pleasing in [God's] sight.”

-Martin Luther, Luther on the Christian Home: An Application of the Social Ethics of the Reformation

I'm finding myself in a very pensive stage of my parenting.   Trying to find ways to reclaim joy in my mothering, balancing my part-time work with my kids, learning to focus more on the real needs of my kids, and figure out how to love them in ways they can feel.   I want to hold my daughters and feel the weight of  the burden of being entrusted by God to be their Mother.   Like everyone, our family has it's challenges.  We have a daughter who defines the words 'intense' , 'energetic', and 'strong'.  All fabulous descriptive words, I've been told,  for adults.  And my baby, well she's not really a baby, my toddler, is about as attached as it gets these days.  She is glued to my leg or lap all day long.   It makes parenting most days an exhausting marathon.  On days where there are wet beds, major spills, issues with the dogs, a day where I have to pull our daughter out of school early for behavior problems, or apartment repairs (which in China are always happening), I just want to turn  and run into a selfish abyss of 'woe is me, aren't I great for putting up with all this, I deserve a break.'      But recently I've found a few 'mom' blogs that I like, a few books that I'm inching my way through, and a few friends who I can be honest with my thoughts, my failures, and so on.  And then tonight this quote really struck me.  It's such a good reminder that this parenting thing isn't all about me at all.  It's about God and his love for me and Alex and our kids.    It's easy to read this at 10pm when my three little ones are sleeping peacefully.  When chaos arrives at 6:30am tomorrow, my prayer is going to be 'Lord, help me remember, it's not about me today.'