A mother goes through stages in her life. At first their child is dependent on them for their every need. It’s exhilarating and exhausting at the same time. You cannot catch your breath because it may interfere in the next feeding or diaper change.

Mothers of toddlers are tossed to and fro. From the highs of learning to walk and crawl and eat by themselves, to the terrible twos, the torturous threes and the fickle fours. They can’t catch their breath because they are too busy moving.

School starts and a Mother’s life switches gears. Slowly they go from hearing about the excitement of a day to being more of a taxi service to seeing them as they go from one adventure to another.

A Mother will accept each season of their lives with grace and a few tears. Eventually a Mother is someone who will text or call or be on the receiving end of a text or call.

At the end of their tenure, they are grandma and their breath is lonely for the days of being needed. We accept this as mothers, and it is a hard pill to swallow. I can remember a few years back when I tearfully complained to Dale that the girls no longer needed me. I expected consolation. What I got was a reminder. He looked at me and hinted to me that I had taught them to be strong independent women who could take care of themselves. The hint was supposed to comfort me and in a way it did, but it didn’t help my feeling of not being useful.

Last week we received a call from our oldest. It wasn’t a panic call. It wasn’t a call where she called me Mommy (those are dangerous ones). She simply asked when we could come up. They needed some help. Our son in law needed another set of strong hands and our daughter just needed some help.

I hung up and all at once Motherhood came to life. I felt needed. It was a great feeling, one I am enjoying thoroughly.

“So give your father and mother joy! May she who gave you birth be happy” Proverbs 23:25 (NLT)