Building "Mommy Muscle"

This morning I am thinking of my special friends who are in the early years of babies and toddlers. I have chatted with a few over the last little bit and I hear the repeated phrases of "tired" or "overwhelmed" or "harder than I thought this would be". It has brought back a phrase that came to me quite a while ago that I call "Building Mommy Muscle".

I must say that I have never spent much time in a real gym, but I have heard that as you begin to seriously train at one, your muscles can ache and hurt as you push yourself to lift more and build that muscle. Over time, you may continue to work out at the gym but the same pain of the early stages is not quite as intense. This is what I sometimes equate to "Mommy Muscle".

It is in the during our first pregnancy that we begin to develop the first signs of "Mommy Muscle" - it comes as we realize we need to watch our food, activities and rest, as for the first time in our lives it is directly affecting someone other than ourselves. Then, that little, amazing gift from God arrives and we are full swing into growing our "muscle" as we have someone that is in our world that depends on us 24 hours a day, 7 days a week - no holidays! That is okay, though, because as God has so beautifully designed us - we adjust and love the experience, as we grow into that new role.

As the years start to come and go that little baby moves from crawling, then walking, then running and opening up our world to new things at the same time they discover their world. They move into testing boundaries and finding out what they can and can't do...all this time our "muscle" continues to grow, sometimes with pain and sometimes without us realizing it. Another baby may arrive in the meantime and that "muscle" grows even faster.

At some point every mother stops, usually more than a few times in those early years, and realizes this is really hard work. It is not as easy as we had expected and don't even feel like it is what we signed up for - this is when we choose to keep building "Mommy Muscle". At these points of crisis, so to speak, we have the choice whether we are going to take the easy road and lower our standards for our children's behaviour and give in to some of the world's operating systems OR push through, even though we feel like giving up, and be blessed by the respite that WILL COME!

A dear friend sent me Galatians 6:9 the other day and it is a perfect verse to close with. "Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up."

I believe that with all my heart - as we pursue God during these years of "Mommy Muscle" building, we will look back and see His hand on us through all those times! IT IS WORTH IT - it will get easier, AND God is doing something special inside of us that could not be formed if life were easy!

Love you, my sisters,

Kristen