Marathon training

I am being unraveled and remade.  Soft, and mushy ill-used flesh is turning to hard and lean muscle. 

Motherhood is like getting in shape.  

It's marathon training of the mercilessly mundane. Each day: rising, toileting, feeding, cleaning, rocking, soothing, and shelfing your own desires minute after minute. Society puts much meaning on motherhood and it is meaningful.  But meaningful, in my mind, meant that it would be glamorous.  All sparkly and shiny. 

But it is by no means glorious or exceptional.  It is life, raw and pure.  Laughter and loving, spit up on the carpet, yesterdays clothes, back aches, isolation, coping, and racing to the potty.  It is not an interruption to real life, it is not a 'season' or a 'stage' where you put on the mommy hat for a moment and then gain back your previous existence and carry on.  It is life.  It is relationship.  It is a lifetime.  Bodies carried on bodies, souls helping shape souls. Sweat, mud and tears.  Moments of great accomplishment, picture-worthy and bursting with sentiment.  And 'click' that picture is gone and the next one is marked by wailing and yelling, feeling embarrassed and undignified and the baby is awake again.  And where did you put her soother, and why are there no clean receiving blankets, and how many days has it been since their bath, and what am I going to make for dinner?

Never had I imagined that motherhood would be such work: gritted teeth, muscles aching, feet pounding on the pavement, emotional and physical and spiritual straining. I think I believed it was something else entirely. I figure I was naive, or misinformed, or just had never walked in a mother's shoes before.  Which, of course, you cannot do until you are already knee deep.  Sleeves pulled back to the elbows, praying and fighting for joy, burdened and blessed with the responsibility of the formation of childhoods.

It is life.  

I have to remind myself, this is where the training happens.  I imagined motherhood as race day.  Crowds cheering, applause ringing, music blaring, the hope of glory a few miles away.  But no. Motherhood is the training.  It is being rain drenched, getting up at 5 am, choosing to run instead of sit on the couch, going through the motions even when you don't want to.  Face against the wind, tears streaking down, arms pumping, training until you want to quit, HARD WORK.  There is glory.  There is hope. There is JOY.  But it's also a lot of work.  Dogged determination.

And here I am.  Surrendering to a motherhood I could have never imagined.  Every moment an effort, but full of the kind of rewards only gained by doing the work.  So I decide again that the outcome is worth it.  The outcome for my children, my family, and in my own character is worth every laboured step.

I need Christ for each breath, but I will keep going and will not quit.  

p.s. this makes me also want to get in shape (I say this as I eat a handful of chocolate chips)
p.p.s. I read this blog post after I started writing mine and I like hers better