Words that Changed My Life--Part 2

This is the second in a series on how certain words changed my life. To read about how my mom's three words changed me, read here.

I knew how the story was supposed to go. Girl falls in love. Girl gets married. Girl has babies and lives happily ever after.

I knew because I lived it—as one of those babies, anyway, growing up in a stable home that just happened to have many different addresses.
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I saw good family life lived in my own home, watched love lived out. So, I guess I always figured I’d have a family, too. Except that I wasn’t one of those girls who absolutely adored babies and wanted to have bunches and bunches of them.

I was fine with falling in love, though. And when it finally happened to me, with a good guy, who loved me back, I happily married him. And stayed happy. But I just wasn’t so sure about those babies.

And so I waited and waited and waited, hoping for the right time, the details to get easier, even as my life became so very complicated by moving overseas.

Then one day, we decided to just jump into those diaper-infested waters of parenthood.

It was wonderful and hard and exhausting and beautiful and challenging and natural and crazy. And then, when I finally heard that one word, "Mama," after months of giving and giving, I knew I was hooked. 

It changed me. Not into one of those moms who can come up with a craft on a rainy day or who has her daughter’s hair in bows and her son’s Legos all sorted out according to size.

But I became the Mama that was just me. The one who likes to have adventures with her kids. Who loves watching her kids find the same faith that I find every day. The one who sees children without mamas and longs to give them what I’ve found. The one who has found new fears with the responsibility of caring for these little ones. But who has also found new strength, bigger courage, deeper sacrifice, and greater joy.

I love words. And I love hearing this one. It reminds me of who I’ve become and who I want to strive to be.