Sometimes I just need to be encouraged. I try hard, working my way through my trials. But sometimes I just need to be refueled. My To-Do list is endless, there are always more dishes to be washed, the latest squabble to settle, and a long barrage of “shoulds” keeps me awake at night. Admittedly, it’s exhausting. Just thinking about my To-Do list is exhausting, let alone getting anything done.

In the venerable words of marketing—Calgon! Take me away!”

Then I have to chuckle, as I hear my own mother say:

Go away. Not very far, and not for very long. But just for now, go away.

That’s a mother’s reality, isn’t it? We give and give and give and give. We serve and serve and serve and serve. We wouldn’t have it any other way. But every once in a while, we recognize that our tank is pushing the red E, and we need some help.

Whenever I’m feeling depleted, it’s usually because I’m neglecting the Word of God. God promises refreshment for our spirits, if we spend time with Him.

²⁸My soul weeps because of grief;
Strengthen me according to Your word.
⁸⁸Revive me according to Your lovingkindness,
So that I may keep the testimony of Your mouth.
¹⁵⁶Great are Your mercies, O LORD;
Revive me according to Your ordinances.
—Psalm 119:28, 88, 156 (NASB)

Also, it’s often because I’ve been listening to the wrong voices. I don’t intentionally listen to them, but they are out there, floating in our cultural airwaves. These voices say that I could be spending my time much more productively, doing something really worthwhile, instead of being a mother. I compare myself to other mothers I know who’ve got it all together, who can always keep their house clean, keep up with the laundry, and make supper every night, on time, with candles on the table. Their children look so well put together. Their husbands always have freshly ironed shirts, I just know it.

I’ve found that to combat these attitudes, I need to hear words of affirmation. Just last week, I thought I was being over-protective with my younger daughter. She periodically has breathing challenges, and we keep the nebulizer in the living room for just such times. I made sure she got her breathing treatments for a couple of days. Of course, it was the weekend, and we couldn’t get in to see the pediatrician until Tuesday. When we did see the pediatrician, she commended me for hitting the breathing challenge hard with the treatments, thereby averting a much more serious problem. I can live for several days on one compliment to my parenting. Honestly, for moms, affirmations are rare. So, I have begun collecting quotes that I come across that affirm, support, and nurture my motherhood-ness. Allow me to share just a few of these with you.

The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed, but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new.
—Rajneesh

I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life. —Abraham Lincoln

Women's Liberation is just a lot of foolishness. It's the men who are discriminated against. They can't bear children. And no one's likely to do anything about that.
—Golda Meir

The real religion of the world comes from women much more than from men—from mothers most of all, who carry the key of our souls in their bosoms.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes

The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness. —Honoré de Balzac

Thou art thy mother's glass, and she in thee
Calls back the lovely April of her prime.
—William Shakespeare

An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy. —Spanish Proverb

She never quite leaves her children at home, even when she doesn't take them along. —Margaret Culkin Banning

When you are a mother, you are never really alone in your thoughts. A mother always has to think twice, once for herself and once for her child.
—Sophia Loren, Women and Beauty

Women are aristocrats, and it is always the mother who makes us feel that we belong to the better sort. —John Lancaster Spalding

The sweetest sounds to mortals given
Are heard in Mother, Home, and Heaven.
—William Goldsmith Brown

What are Raphael's Madonnas but the shadow of a mother's love, fixed in permanent outline forever? —Thomas Wentworth Higginson

My mom is a never-ending song in my heart of comfort, happiness, and being. I may sometimes forget the words but I always remember the tune. —Graycie Harmon

The formative period for building character for eternity is in the nursery. The mother is queen of that realm and sways a scepter more potent than that of kings or priests. —Author Unknown

I love my mother as the trees love water and sunshine—she helps me grow, prosper, and reach great heights. —Adabella Radici

[A] mother is one to whom you hurry when you are troubled. —Emily Dickinson

Any mother could perform the jobs of several air traffic controllers with ease.
—Lisa Alther

That best academy, a mother's knee. —James Russell Lowell

A mother's arms are made of tenderness and children sleep soundly in them.
—Victor Hugo

Hundreds of dewdrops to greet the dawn,
Hundreds of bees in the purple clover,
Hundreds of butterflies on the lawn,
But only one mother the wide world over.
—George Cooper

A mother's happiness is like a beacon, lighting up the future but reflected also on the past in the guise of fond memories. —Honoré de Balzac

My mother is a poem
I'll never be able to write,
though everything I write
is a poem to my mother.
—Sharon Doubiago

With what price we pay for the glory of motherhood. —Isadora Duncan

One good mother is worth a hundred schoolmasters. —George Herbert

Who fed me from her gentle breast
And hushed me in her arms to rest,
And on my cheek sweet kisses prest?
My Mother.
—Anne Taylor

Mother's love grows by giving. —Charles Lamb

The tie which links mother and child is of such pure and immaculate strength as to be never violated. —Washington Irving

Youth fades; love droops; the leaves of friendship fall; A mother's secret hope outlives them all. —Oliver Wendell Holmes

Most of all the other beautiful things in life come by twos and threes, by dozens and hundreds. Plenty of roses, stars, sunsets, rainbows, brothers and sisters, aunts and cousins, comrades and friends - but only one mother in the whole world. —Kate Douglas Wiggin

If I was damned of body and soul,
I know whose prayers would make me whole,
Mother o' mine, O mother o'mine.
—Rudyard Kipling

The mother's heart is the child's school-room. —Henry Ward Beecher

Women know
The way to rear up children (to be just)
They know a simple, merry, tender knack
Of tying sashes, fitting baby shoes,
And stringing pretty words that make no sense,
And kissing full sense into empty words.
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Every beetle is a gazelle in the eyes of its mother. —Moorish Proverb

All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel Mother. —Abraham Lincoln

One of the very few reasons I had any respect for my mother when I was thirteen was because she would reach into the sink with her bare hands—bare hands—and pick up that lethal gunk and drop it into the garbage. To top that, I saw her reach into the wet garbage bag and fish around in there looking for a lost teaspoon. Bare hands—a kind of mad courage. —Robert Fulghum

Quotations are good for micro-vacations. But there comes the time when a mom might need to just get away for a day or two. Even Jesus felt the need to get away from His pressing responsibilities from time to time. In my eight years of being a mother, I’ve purposefully gotten away twice. Both times was to go to a Hearts at Home conference. Hearts at Home (www.hearts-at-home.org) is an organization devoted to their vision: Invest in a mom, influence a family, improve a community, impact the world! At these two conferences, I laughed until I cried ... and cried until I laughed. But both times I found myself refreshed and renewed, counting the hours until I got back into my husband’s arms and got my arms back around my babies.

In addition to their conferences, Hearts at Home have several books that they have published, all to promote the profession of motherhood. I personally have several of their books and have found them to be tremendously helpful and encouraging.

No doubt about it—mothering is a tough job. But with the strength that God provides and encouragement from people who value motherhood, I face each day, treasuring my precious bundles.

Copyright © 2008 by Anni Welborne Share

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