The Good Friday of Motherhood

I’ve placed this baby in his bassinet 2 times and he wakes up every time, day after day, the so called struggle is real. I have dishes to do, floors to clean, laundry to dry after washing it twice because life happened and it was left in the machine, I feel defeated by the unsuccessful transfer to the bassinet but then…

slowing down to intentionally enjoy holding my baby while he is still a baby, so I won’t have to look back and think “I didn’t realize that was the last time I held my baby” and try to recreate a moment I wish I enjoyed every time it happened organically.

It occurs to me now that the most productive thing I will do today is hold my baby, even while he sleeps.

Share this with a mom who needs the freedom to be productive today. To release the pressure to accomplish and to embrace the joy of the productivity of nurture. Nurture that attaches. Nurture that releases. Nurture that heals.

Funny how turning the tables on a definition can suddenly turn motherhood into the best board room you’ll ever sit at the table of.

The only board room where no one will say you are too womanish because your tears streamed down the head of your top client baptizing them in your love.

Friends, there are some moments that birth US in motherhood, it took 3 times for me to get here, but Selah.

I’m resting in this.

Dishes are stacked from not just today but the whole week. I’m not here for the ones that have the picture perfect life but rather to change the NARRATIVE of the picture and release the pressure.

No filter.

The text I sent to my husband after snapping a photo of myself and realizing this is how I been walking around.

Because for every picture of a well put together wife, mom, house and home you see, I can promise you that there are a ton more of unfiltered moments lived out.

And here’s the thing, unfiltered is not always  as depressing as this photo might be illuding you into believing, because this for me…is JOY. The tears are healing even in the chaotic overwhelm. Because this is the only kind of overwhelming that calls me blessed with incessant cries of MOMMY MOMMY.

…and even when i want to escape the yoke of such an anointing and yell out in the word of my Mema “call me Pa!” I am reminded that Ma is all I was made for and she is enough. I have had the GREATEST laughter in the chaos. In moments of sending this selfie to my husband, not looking like a baddie but looking like his. The woman he sees all the angles of. And so be not mistaken that what looks like a photo of electrocution and what the world would call unkept and unattractive, it is the unfiltered that has filled our home and our marriage with electrocuting love.  So be free my sister, release yourself from the burden of the perfect and filtered beauty. My life is a hot mess and I’ve been spending so much time trying to work myself out of the mess that I almost missed the message (Yɛ frɛ no Baby Yaw) lying on my chest waiting to free me from work.

SELAH

It means pause and take a Rest, enjoy it, take it in it’s soooo good.

s.e.l.a.h., sister, s.e.la.h.

Because when my rib received the picture he laughed after we walked around for 30 minutes stressed and lips pressed together whether in pain or anguish…in the seeming stress and mess of our life…

And then the unfiltered, unmade up version of the woman he loves cracked him! - making his lips pour forth with a smile, wild and uncontrolled and full of laughter.

I S A A C

This is our Isaac year.

Divine laughter is our portion, even when life does not seem fun but heavy.

Here we are in the trenches, And there’s joy here.

This is the unfiltered bloody essence of Good Friday. This is Motherhood.

If motherhood were a glimpse of crucifixion I’d imagine it looks like this, heavy a cross to carry, but broken and bruised just to hold close the ones I cherish and love with an everlasting love.

See me broken and busted today, but the baddie will be back on Sunday and up to good trouble in Christ crushing the head of the serpent. I might be feeling the nails today but Ima get up …when Sunday comes…stay tuned, you might just think it’s a filter when you see the 3 day turn around.

But I assure you, nothing is filtered about Resurrection.

“Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”

‭‭John‬ ‭2‬:‭19‬ ‭KJV‬‬

Selah.

The Art of the Pivot

Ok y'all it's another day. Day 2 of my writing consistently to my deadline. I'm feeling sad-frustrated. I'm ok, just annoyed (but in the greatest of ways too lol - mom life). And what I'm learning from this is, I'm going to have to have a quick pivot muscle. Today what that looks like is that I sat down at the desk in a moment of great inspiration. If nothing were going on around me I'm sure I would have cranked out at least 500 words and likely more. I know when I get that feeling inside. You know when it wants to come out. My husband understands my process(most times lol) so when I told him about the urge to write he said “go for it.” But surrounding that “go for it,” was him coming into our room (where I’m writing) to bathe the baby, baby crying for her mama, 5-year old knocking on our door....all while in the middle of me writing. So he understood the assignment but he doesn't always translate it to the way I need it lol. I know he actually thought it was supportive. I had to drop my pen even after having armed myself with noise cancelling headphones in an effort to be unstoppable. 

The house is now quiet. It's baby's nap time, 5 yo is at school. I'm sitting at the desk with a lukewarm cup of tea that was brewed for the initial moment of inspiration. Here is where I make a choice. Sit in frustration or turn the fire back up. I may not feel the fire, but I can stir the fire - I choose to put this tea in the microwave, receive my husbands gracious gift of going to buy me some small pastries/donuts called "bofrot" to enjoy with my tea, schedule a focusmate, put my headphones back on, and pick up the pen. Somehow I managed to get 250 words on paper in the midst of the earlier described chaos. Somehow my heart has slowed and the words and inspiration have seemed to slow as well. But in the choice to pivot I am stirred as well. 

My family is not a distraction. It definitely feels distracting, but they are not a distraction. They are a gift, and they are the reason I will write this story and many, many others. My son is quite fascinated at current with a children's book by a good writing friend of mine, Patrice Gopo. Today he asked me to call her. My son has never met Patrice. He read the book for the first time yesterday and is completely in love with it. Shortly after asking me where did I put his book "All the Places We Call Home," he nudged “Mommy, can we call Patrice?” A bit surprised I asked him why he wants to call her and he said “I miss her.” I noted, but you don’t know her. He said confidently, “Yes I do…she is a daughter of Jamaica.” My brilliant boy who paid attention to the story. He ran and grabbed the book, and showed me her picture at the back of the book jacket. See, Patrice! Can we call her?(first of all, can we talk about the fact that my child thinks it’s normal to be able to pick up a book of an award-winning author and ask to call them? Like, that part!) I said ok, mommy will ask her if she can talk to you sometime soon (who’s gone tell him he can’t just pick up random books and call the author! Or maybe, he just inspired his mama with a witty idea for a children’s literacy event… Call the Author: For the Love of Reading) He was satisfied only with this answer, not the “You don’t know her” Because he read the story and he felt the heart of the author. His lived experience even at 5 years of age, connected with the experience of the characters in the book. This is why representation matters. This is why our stories matter. Someone is waiting to know you. Someone is waiting to connect to your heart. My sweet boy that banged on the door ever so loudly that the noise canceling headphones muffled it but the knocks vibrated through my body, was not a distraction, he was just inviting me to another revelation, another story to tell this morning. 

My husband was not attempting to distract me. After I told him I was dreaming of having a quiet morning, to worship, rest, and write… he said “and there’s nothing stopping you.” It felt like his alternative plans in the midst of my writing setting/our bedroom in our small abode where our love is bound to collide and children can’t be siloed away to their own wing while I foster an altar to write on in my private office, were stopping me. But again as I release the frustration I am able to receive the fullness of his words and heart “There’s nothing stopping you. I bless you to do that.” The altar where I write is not fostered in the silence, it’s fostered in my heart. It’s fostered in my surrender to the Holy Spirit who has breathed a fresh wind on my life and birthed a new thing in my soul through this life of writing. 

Thank you, Lord, for my beautiful family. I will write anyhow. I will pick up the pen again. The words will find me, and I will surrender to the page again. Here on day 2. Completed Book Manuscript, here I come.