He had worked so hard on his Lego creation. For over an hour he had sat at the kitchen table carefully piecing each block in place. I’m not sure if it slipped or if his little brother reached up and grabbed it. But the next thing I knew, it was shattered into a million pieces on my kitchen floor… and my six year old had broken with it. He sat there sobbing while my eighteen month old scampered to grab the colorful pieces (that he knows he’s not allowed to touch.)
And from across the room in the middle of my own emotional mess, I shouted, “Clean those pieces up before the baby gets them! Hurry! Find each one!” – Never addressing the hurt, or the loss, or what my little boy was feeling.
It’s unlike me, really. It’s not who I am as a mom. I don’t just tell my kids to clean up their messes without getting down to help. I don’t ignore pain. I don’t overlook broken hearts. But there were a million other things swirling in my own heart, and on this day, it was just how I responded.
A few minutes later, I walked over and got down on my hands and knees. I helped my son pick up the scattered pieces, but even though we found each one, we couldn’t put it back together as it was before it broke. We couldn’t put any of it back together. Not the Legos… nor how I had responded. We were just left with broken memory.
You know, there are so many moments that I hope never become memories for my children.
The days that I am overwhelmed by work or the obligations facing our family, and as a result, I am not the fun mommy I want to be. I’m stressed, or tense, or distracted.
There are moments that I yell, or don’t listen to their hearts like I should, or punish unfairly.
There are moments that they get hurt, or sick, and I wonder what I could have done to prevent it. If I hadn’t let her swing she wouldn’t have fallen off and scraped her knee. If I had made him wear different shoes when he ran outside, he wouldn’t have tripped and hurt his foot. If I had covered the basket at the grocery store the baby wouldn’t have that nasty stomach bug…
The days I wish I had played more, or laughed more, or enjoyed them more.
The nights that I just don’t have five extra minutes to sit at the foot of their beds, or read one more book, or where I demand that they go back to their rooms instead of snuggle in close.
The moments I hope they forget…
Sometimes I get to the end of the day, and I wish with all that I am that I could erase the memories where I wasn’t the mom I wanted to be or hoped I would be.
But I can’t. None of us can.
I can’t change what took place any more than my son can un-break the Legos. But the beautiful thing in the middle of those messy memories is that I have a choice. I can’t undo what has been done, but I can scoop up my pieces and begin to build again. I can continue to create the memory of who I will be in the hearts of my children when they look back on our time together.
And while I cannot guarantee that they will forget every broken moment, I can promise that they will remember a momma who on bended-knee did her very best every single day to pick up every precious piece and carefully set each one right again.
Because that’s the promise of brokenness… it is always the opportunity to rebuild.
Hope Unfolding will officially release in stores and online March 15th, 2016, but you can pre-order yours today from your favorite retailer including Amazon, Mardel, Walmart, Target, ChristianBook.com, Barnes & Noble, BAM, and Indigo if you are in Canada, and Koorong in Australia, or any of the other many retailers around the world.
