I overheard a lady years ago answering the question, "What do you do for a living?" with the answer, "I'm just a mom." I interrupted without realizing by exclaiming, "Just a mom?" I couldn't help myself. I know the value of what moms represent. I've seen bad ones. I have a great one!
Superheroes have nothing on the mom population who value their role. Besides mothers, they are wives, nurturers, cooks, gift coordinators, friends, daughters, sisters, volunteers, co-workers, business owners, entertainment chairmen, referees, seamstresses, and coaches. Just a mom? These women sleep in 32-minute intervals for 18 plus years. They fix dinner and re-landscape yards with what is the equivalent to 30-pound weights strapped to their legs. They mop floors, make phone calls and organize a week's worth of meals with a 10-pound weight attached to their breast. You try it! And then some of them greet a man at the end of the day who strangely wants to be strapped around her leg and attached to her breast. Seriously!
I work in the business world and I am a mom. Comparatively, the roles and responsibilities of moms are much more vast and important than those I face everyday in business. In the business world, we clock in and out or come to work and leave work as if everything we do is a segmented portion of our lives. There is nothing segmented about a mother's job. We don't clock out at night. We don't clock out on the weekends. We don't even clock out when we clock in to go to work. We don't clock out at high school graduation and we don't clock out after they walk down the isle. It's not what we do. It's who we are. There is no comparison!
Business woman get corner offices; moms get kindergarten graduations. Executives get yearly evaluations; moms receive unsolicited hugs and tender moments just before kids drop off to sleep. They attend board meetings and budget committees; moms go to school plays, spelling bees and soccer practice. They read profit and loss statements; moms read "I love you to the moon and back" over and over and over again. CEO's hang documents that have no eternal value on their walls; a mom hangs pictures with toothless grins that contain the very image of God Himself. In the morning, they wake up to an annoying alarm clock suggesting that it will be yet another day at the office. We get to be awakened by those beautiful blue eyes standing by our bedside requesting cartoons and Captain Crunch. Managers get to explain why deadlines weren't met or why the budget busted. We get to explain why that other kid acts the way she does and why we should love her anyway. No comparison!
I have a front row seat to history. I witnessed her first step, heard her first word, took her to her first day of school and her first dance class. I will help prepare her for her first date and her first time behind the wheel. More importantly, I will help prepare her for her first opportunity to reach out to someone in need and her first time to share her faith with somebody who might need some hope. I get to help prepare her for that. I do! I will be there when she fails, when her heart is broken and when it seems nothing will make the pain go away. I get to be there for that. I do! Clearly, this is the most powerful role on the planet. Perhaps moms are valuable beyond our own comprehension or perhaps our own comfort. But, "Just a mom?"
God's message to the next generation is being fed macaroni and cheese at the tables across the world and influenced most directly by "just a mom." Whether we are seven years old or seventy years old, it is our mothers who set the stage for the rest of our existence. Good or bad. On this Mother's Day week, to "just the moms", who know the value of what you do, I would like to say; "Thank you, for doing the most important job there is!"
Thank you for this — just what I needed to be reminded of