Shooting Star Moments

I wrote this devotional message for a recent baby-shower for a dear friend’s daughter-in-law. If you have an expectant mom you know or a mom in the early stages of her mothering journey, share this message with her to remind her that despite the hard stories people love to share, there is a lot more to motherhood. And if you aren’t anywhere near a stage like this, think here on how we shape our days and our lives, by the things we choose to remember, by the stories we tell others and ourselves.

The other day I was by myself–(as a mom of six–let me tell you being by myself is rare), but I happened to be by myself that day driving  from my home in northern Virginia, through Maryland and into West Virginia on my weekly grocery run through 3 states in search of low prices to feed my brood of boys. 

Anyhow, the sky had looked threatening when I left, but now all of a sudden, the downpour started. It was one of those fierce and torrential rains that grinds traffic to a near halt, where you must fix your eyes on the tail-lights in front of you or veer off the road. 

But while I’ve been in some torrential downpours before, this one was quite different for one unexpected reason. Although the sky had been incredibly dark and foreboding when I left, here in the midst of the downpour, it was inexpressibly bright as if the full power of the sunset and the pouring rain were working together to blind me with light and liquid off the windshield of my car. The combination was almost paralyzing, but also astonishingly beautiful. I inched along hands clenched to the wheel, blinking, knowing I was nearing the bridge where the Potomac and the Shenandoah join at Harper’s Ferry, and feeling my heart thumping at the thought of crossing that bridge in that bright and awful deluge.

And almost as if God had heard that fear, right as I reached the bridge the rain came to a quick taper and was done. And I was left with this intensely bright, clean vista of those gorgeous rivers and mountain ranges, as if they had just been brought through the waters of baptism, all glistening and joyful. 

The experience left me feeling astonished, grateful, and kind of perplexed that at that moment I literally had no one to share it with, no one there who had seen what I’d seen and could talk about it with me. It was a moment of glory that I glimpsed and it felt like it was just between me and God.

Most moments of awe we see in the Bible, happen in crowds or at least with a few others: the parting of the Red Sea, Manna from Heaven, the walls of Jericho collapsing, but a few happen with one person alone with God–Moses and the burning bush or in hidden in the cleft of the rock, or Elijah hearing God in the whisper.  There are moments where God reveals his Glory very personally, almost, privately.

For me, motherhood has been full of such moments of personal awe. They came in the midst of labor, God meeting with me in the pain and in the praise while laboring in the tub. They came in the middle of the night, watching the rise and fall of my baby’s chest and the dream-flutters of eyelids reminding me of the wonder of breath and life itself. And they came in holding a sweaty little three-year old boy who’d outgrown falling asleep in my arms and yet somehow, just did. These moments have been shooting star moments of God’s glory. They come sandwiched between the hard stuff of life, mastitis and meltdowns, poison ivy and sibling squabbles, but even though they come in between the hard things, they are nonetheless real.

Sometimes I wonder if Mary, the mother of God, did not also have these moments. Like two bookends around the only verses we have about Jesus’ childhood, we see the refrain that Mary treasured all these things in her heart (Luke 2:19 and 2:51). She was amazed at the shepherds coming, at the words of Anna and Simeon, at finding boy Jesus teaching at the temple, and evidently, she made a point to stop and treasure that amazement. We can surmise that we likely have these stories in our Bible because she stopped and treasured them and later related them to the Gospel-writers.

 I’m not sure what it is about human nature, but in my life, at least, I’ve noticed that we all tend to share the hard parts about life. When we were students, we swapped stories about how long some paper had taken us or how hard our class schedule was this year or “Can you believe who I have for homeroom” or who “I have to endure in fifth period.” As we get older the backdrop changes from blackboard to boardroom, but the conversations are similar. And then we reach parenthood, and we swap tales of sleep deprivation and colossal blowouts, meltdowns at the grocery and the vicissitudes of potty training. 

And while there is definitely a place for commiserating and sharing the hard stuff, sometimes I wonder if all the woe-is-me doesn’t reshape our brains a bit. The stories we tell are the stories we remember. The narratives we rehearse are the narrative we believe. And there is much more going on in the early years of motherhood than tales of exhaustion and blowouts would betray.

Maybe it’s because we don’t want to sound like we are bragging or look like a goody-two shoes, or maybe because it’s simply hard to verbalize moments of goodness, but I can barely remember ever hearing anyone tell me about the daily wonders of motherhood: the near weightlessness of that delicate soul placed in your arms at birth, yet whose weight of glory you can barely fathom, the softness of that newborn head nestled underneath your chin, the wonder of how tightly those tiny fingers curl around your own in the grasping reflex, a physiological reminder of how we all come out of the womb grasping for someone to hold onto, our hearts “restless” as Augustine would say until we find our rest in God.

I’ve been awake in the wee hours of the morning and witnessed the soft rise and fall of my baby’s breathing, seen the dreaming eyelids flicker. I’ve witnessed the sunrise of a first smile at 6 weeks. I’ve heard the coos of a 3-month-old, and the rhythmic thud of little pajamaed feet kicking on the playmat floor. I’ve felt the reverberation of raw joy in the giggles and squeals of delight of my 6-month-old, whose laughter was utterly infectious. I’ve seen the fierce determination of will in a rugged army crawl and the ecstasy of delight when those awkward legs and hips master a few hesitant first steps. I’ve felt the joy of the dance in exchanged peak-a-boos, facial expressions mirrored, or airplane on the living room floor. And I’ve witnessed a rebirth of my own wonder as a little cheek pressed against a cold glass watching first snowflakes fall or raindrops swallowing other raindrops on the windowpane. And I’ve treasured all these things in my heart.

I could sit here for days and catalog the wonders of motherhood. Perhaps some would roll their eyes or say I’m over-sentimentalizing. Sure, these moments come sandwiched between the hard things we love to talk about. But the deeper truth is something every mother knows if she is honest: life is a miracle and the very fact that we get to cradle it in our bodies, and our arms is an extraordinary wonder we never quite get over.

I could sit here for days and catalog the wonders of motherhood. Perhaps some would roll their eyes or say I’m over-sentimentalizing. Sure, these moments come sandwiched between the hard things we love to talk about. But the deeper truth is something every mother knows if she is honest: life is a miracle and the very fact that we get to cradle it in our bodies, and our arms is an extraordinary wonder we never quite get over.

Jesus scolded his disciples when they tried to keep the children away. Don’t you know, he admonished, the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. In some mysterious way, children show us something of God, of his kingdom, of His ways.

In the weeks before my third son was born, my then 4 year old and two year old and I had been working on memorizing a verse: “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of heavenly lights who does not change like shifting shadows,” James 1:17. We had a catchy tune with it, and we sang it again and again for weeks.  And so, when my husband and I came home from the hospital and shared that we’d named baby brother James, the boys wanted to know if his middle name was 1:17. I’ll forever attach his birth and that verse in my mind. But the truth is so simple and yet so profound. If we can remember that every wonder of motherhood is a gift from God, we will more naturally be inclined to stop and praise Him for each shooting star moment of his glory that we get the privilege to glimpse on this journey. We will thank him and praise him and bless his name for the privilege of it.

But the truth is so simple and yet so profound. If we can remember that every wonder of motherhood is a gift from God, we will more naturally be inclined to stop and praise Him for each shooting star moment of his glory that we get the privilege to glimpse on this journey. We will thank him and praise him and bless his name for the privilege of it.

I think we all know intuitively that motherhood and parenthood will be hard. I hope you know just as deeply that God will be with you, in abundant strength and perfect grace in every moment of the hard. There is no sleepless night where he is not awake with you. But what I want to remind you of today, is that motherhood will also be full of thousands of shooting star moments of glory. I hope you will treasure these. I hope they will lead your heart to praise and thanksgiving. I hope you will find some way or someone to share them with, as a testament to the goodness of God, but also to shape the stories we tell ourselves, the stories we believe about the bounty of God overflowing in our everyday lives, and the stories we will tell them one day, about who they are, who God is, and how they were loved.

If you enjoyed this piece and someone you love is expecting a baby or in the early stages of motherhood, consider gifting them a copy of one or all of my three devotionals for moms: Waiting in Wonder: Growing in Faith While You’re Expecting, Watching in Wonder: Growing in Faith During Your Baby’s First Year, and Walking in Wonder: A Devotional Journal for Moms of Toddlers. Also if you have a baby shower coming up, and want to share a spiritual message, I’d be happy for you to read my words to a new mom you love. Enjoy!