FINDING PURPOSE
AND THEN I FOUND MYSELF SITTING UP IN BED, LATE AT NIGHT, HOLDING MY WEEK-OLD SON, TEARS FLOWING UNCONTROLLABLY DOWN MY FACE. POSTPARTUM WOMEN ARE CRAZY AND HORMONAL AND CRY A LOT, BUT THIS WASN’T ONE OF THOSE TIMES WHERE I WAS CRYING BECAUSE I NEEDED ICE CREAM.
I WAS LOOKING DOWN AT MY TINY SON, SO NEW TO THE WORLD, SNUGGLED TIGHT IN MY ARMS AND ALL I COULD THINK WAS THAT THIS WAS MY PURPOSE. THIS WAS MY MEANING. THIS WAS EVERYTHING I NEVER KNEW I NEEDED.
I’m not saying that you can’t find purpose in a career. After all, that’s where I imagined I would find it this whole time. I’m also not saying that this was my “handwritten note” moment and I never questioned this whole purpose thing again.
I’m just offering up the idea that perhaps for me, at this point in time, my purpose is found in being “just a mom.” I searched high and low to find purpose in the perfect career, and maybe it was by God’s grace that I never did.
My point is simply that sometimes the very things that give our life the most purpose and the most meaning aren’t at all what we spend so much energy searching for. I never planned to be just a mom. I planned to be a mom with a career. I was going to do “important” things, like be an Olympian, remember?
To be honest, I had to put aside a lot of pride when I started staying at home with my baby because to the world, I am either a spoiled brat, unimportant, a failure, or sometimes awesome, you just never know.
But one thing I do know is that I have spent many nights praying that I would know my purpose, and never did I feel like I found that until I became “just a mom.” So I would be a fool not to put down my pride and consider the fact that maybe this was the purpose I’d been searching for.
SO YES, KIND SIR, I AM JUST A MOM AND I THANK MY GOOD LORD FOR THAT.
**This article appeared originally on RelevantMagazine.com.
