The odd music of motherhood

I wrote this piece back in 2014 when our daughter, who will soon be a senior, was only 10-years old. I’m so grateful for thoughts like this to look back on since they help me remember the magic of the little years. Happy Mother’s Day to all who know how this odd music of motherhood can stir your soul on an ordinary Monday morning.

My life is set to a particular soundtrack. Even now, the familiar whoosh of a tired washing machine sets the rhythm for late-night writing.

Each day is filled with its own songs of motherhood:

The excited ramblings of a little boy as he dresses for another blissful kindergarten morning. A cat meowing on the other side of a glass door, waiting impatiently for breakfast and belly rubs. A toddler bathed in early morning light in her tiny room. She sings while no one listens.

But I do.

I stand in the hallway bare faced, still half asleep, and hear the rhapsody of early morning. Snoring Hero still asleep in my bed. Singing baby. Chattering 6-year-old. Drawers open and close in the never-ending sock search.

This early rhythm is punctuated by a squeaky lock turned by the eldest beauty. She opens the glass door and lets the meowing cat join in the chorus.

And underneath all of the sounds of the beginning of a day, I hear something else. It is all at once a complete symphony and a simple pulsing beat. It is a cadence that spells out the beauty in all the noise, all of the songs, all of the quiet spaces. It is a tempo that has played in my soul since the day my first child counted down the orchestra and pierced the silence of my peaceful world with her opening shrieking cry.

When I stop in the hallway, simple Mama, in no way ready to face the world out there, with my wild hair and mismatched PJs, God whispers into the rhythm of motherhood. His voice comes clear through the beeping of a thermometer in the groggy middle of the night. I see His face in a smiling 2-year-old’s announcement when I reach into her crib: “Mama! It’s you!” I feel His strong hand holding me up when the noise gets a little too overwhelming when the music hits some sour notes. And when the evening lullaby sounds like a crying child hanging his head over a toilet.

Yet, through all the tempo changes and the unexpected breaks in the music that I know by heart, He keeps me listening. He helps me hear. And He shows me how to find the beautiful tune in the hallway on a Monday morning.

As for the meaning hidden in the thud-thud-thud of a mama’s heartbeat, all I know is that I see glimpses of my God and His love in this rhythm. And I am so grateful for the strange and glorious soundtrack that has followed me for the past 10 years. God writes odd and beautiful music in this mother’s heart. I don’t want to miss a single note.