I listened to my mama's voice this afternoon on the phone, warm and promising, like the moment before the rain falls from the summer sky, clouds heavy. It's the kind of sound that makes you want to run out into the yard and dance around in your bare feet, arms wide and face toward heaven. Like rain falling heavy and wet clothes dripping when you finally take shelter on the front porch, heart singing.

And I wanted to be with her so badly, my chest ached for her. For her touch and her smell and her special way of making everything alright.

It made me think of this one moment from my childhood. I was all knees and elbows and when I fell, I always bled because I could never understand what it meant to stay within the lines or off of the barbed wire fence. It was in the middle room at my daddy's old farmhouse when we all lived there together, so I must have been 7 or 8. She saw the blood on my knees and instead of running for the bandages or neosporin, she just knelt down and wrapped me in her arms and held me close. And I still remember the way her hair smelled and the way my sobs stilled and I finally caught my breath. She wiped the salt from my cheeks and I grinned at her and she grinned back.

Somehow, I know she looked into my eyes and saw a part of her soul. The way I look into Jubilee's and see mine.

And that's the secret. The magic of being a mommy. It's looking into your child's eyes and seeing a part of yourself, but at the same time seeing an entire different universe and the depth of a soul that you are responsible for. It's the bone-shaking truth that your actions will mold and shape this little tiny person's world. The responsibility of feeding and bathing and clothing and snuggling. The waking up at 3 am and rocking a crying baby back to sleep and then looking at your tired eyes in the mirror and seeming somehow hollow, somehow wiser, somehow more beautiful in your new mama skin.

Being a mommy is the best because... you are new. You have shed your old self and you have become a mama. It has been beautiful, breathtaking, heart pounding. It's the shedding of your old self, the person you were before you heard that first cry in the hospital and your whole being shook at the newness of this little life cradled in your arms. It is the shedding of your old self that happens in those first few days at home with your new infant. Those hollow eyed, full hearted days when you forget what it's like to sleep and you wake up if the baby moves even the slightest bit because somehow you know that she needs you.

Being a mommy is the best because... you feel. You feel all of the emotions, the deep ones, the wild ones, the hard ones. Sometimes you teeter on the verge of insanity and sometimes you cry because you are so grateful, and sometimes you want to claw your own skin just to make sure this is real. The rawness in your heart is raging and you stare at your ribcage in the mirror because it is defined again after 9 months of carrying a life in your womb. It's those first moments of shrinking back into your new body and it's the new marks on your skin and the scar where they pulled a daughter from your womb because she refused to come any other way. It's this joining together with every other mother that you know and understanding exactly how she feels, all of the love and the joy and the frustration and the anger. It's looking in your own mother's eyes and understanding her like never before. And it's realizing that it's not wrong to feel angry or exhausted or wanting to have just one moment to yourself. Sometimes growing in your new mama skin is painful, and sometimes it's beautiful, and the beauty is in understanding that you are not alone and you are not the only one who has ever felt this way.

Being a mommy is the best because... that first smile. The first giggle that catches your heart by surprise and makes you grin wide. The first time your baby rolls over and your heart aches because you are proud of her and your heart aches because the time is passing so quickly. The moment she begins scooting across the floor and then crawling. The way her eyelids fall heavy when she's cradled in your arms and you memorize her face, the curve of her cheek, the pout of her lips. A million moments like these, special treasures that you will keep in your heart forever. Secrets that only the two of you share. The way she reaches for you and snuggles into your chest. Moments when you lay her in the bed with you at 5am so she will go back to sleep and she molds into that spot under your arm and next to your ribcage, because it was made just for her. A million moments, a million smiles, a million treasures that fill your heart so full that you think it may burst.

Being a mommy is the best because... you look at her and you see parts of you and parts of her daddy and parts that are uniquely hers. You see a life that was woven together and formed by the hands of the Creative God. You see the way he painted her eyelashes long, her smile sweet, her cheeks full. You watch her develop the most wonderful little personality and you marvel at this little soul that you have been entrusted to care for.

I think it will always be this way. I think being a mother means that you never stop aching with all of this emotion, that you never stop marveling at the child that grew in your womb and now grows at your side. You never stop collecting moments that fill your heart. You never stop growing in love that threatens to consume you.

There is beauty in honesty and vulnerability and it is something that I found here, in motherhood. I found the beauty of admitting that I need help. I found the safety in telling my husband that I can't do this anymore and reaching out for his hand to pull me up. I found the vulnerability in the sleepy eyed, messy haired woman in the mirror staring back at me. The one who has spit up dried on her clothes and hasn't had time to do anything other than take care of a baby in days. The one who never could admit that she needed help before but is just now learning that asking for help is beautiful. That sharing a funny story about motherhood bonds us all together. That admitting that this is HARD sometimes unites us because I don't think we need anymore perfect pictures or fairytale stories that make other mothers feel like they don't measure up. I think what we need is to sit back and breathe deep and join hands in this tragically messy, this stretching to the limits, this collecting of moments, this learning to grow in your new mama skin, this incredibly beautiful becoming that is motherhood.

I want to share with you, once again, the scripture that I have been reading and re-reading lately. It is the one that inspired me to write about the different seasons of my life, about why being single is the BEST and about why being married is the BEST and now about why being a mommy is the BEST. Because, dear one, each season is specifically wonderful and specifically challenging. Each season has it's own version of gold. Each season is important and what happens within our hearts in each season is so special and so very important!

~Ecclesiastes 3:1-8