A few months back, around Mother’s Day, I wrote a series from the perspective of a broken mother’s heart.

Those bitter tears came in seasons which brought various kinds of pain, the kinds a mama feels for loss, for change, for challenges. They have broken me.

I have often wished for something different. 

I have wished my children were schooled anywhere but with me.

I have wished for less children. More children. Different children. Yes, this is an ugly truth.

I have cried out that God would just calm that child down, make them do their work, get them to submit and obey.

I have asked and pleaded in prayer for “the right’ things when it came to my children, only to see them live out all the “wrong things”.

I have wondered…Lord, do you see? Do you care? Have you ever been there?

Fear, loneliness, frustration. 

They crept in all too often. My eyes looked around and focused on that which was not.  I could not see that which would be. I got stuck in the whirlwinds around me and missed the peace to be found in the midst.

I would pray, “Why Lord, why should I be a single mom, a grieving mom, a foster mom, a home school mom, a ministry mom, a lonely mom, a frustrated & angry mom, an anxious mom, a woefully inadequate mom?”

I have wished to live something different and it caused death in my heart while God was wanting something different to come alive in me. 

I have failed time and time again.

God did not. God does not. God will not.

What I couldn’t see was the something different God had for me.

Today I still find myself fighting that same struggle. One day it feels as though I’ve come so far in this journey of life. On other days it feels the journey will never end.

I fight for my something different and he keeps his something different tenderly close, always patient. He is faithful.

He sees every tear, every mess, every worry and every night filled with exhaustion.

He sees my mind struggling to know what to do and how to do well and offers a place of rest.

He knows my heart’s desires and has compassion.

He allows the scraping of my soul and soothes it, fills it, covers it.

He does not give all the explanations, but he gives a glimpse now into the beauty that he desires to bring.

He reminds me of the beauty He has brought, of the something different that He has done.

You know what? I never wanted to say this. I never thought I could say this, or admit to it. I am thankful that things didn’t turn out like I had planned. I am thankful I didn’t get the something different I was looking for.

Because of all the wrong things in my life, I have seen a more righteous God.

Because I have been weak and failed, I have seen a mightier God.

Because I have not gotten what I wanted, I have seen a good and grace-filled God.

When I have wanted something different, there was something different God wanted for me.

In the end, his something different has been, and will be, far greater.

Today and tomorrow, may it be His something different I wish for.

This post is one of several written in the early years of healing post serving as foster parents. They include broken thinking, rambling thoughts, and a fight to survive as well as a desperate clinging to the hope only God can give. I pray God uses my story as an encouragement to those in the midst of the battle. You have God with you even now.

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