Broken, Fragrant and Beautiful

It is a sight to behold when 3,500 mothers of preschoolers from around the globe gather in one room. Feather boas draped around necks, tall leather boots adorning the lightest feet, contagious boisterous laughter echoing off the walls, hugs galore, happy tears, chatty mouths with grins stretching ear to ear. Why? Freedom. Freedom from wiping snotty noses. Freedom from eating cold meals at odd times of the day. Freedom from interruptions. Freedom to speak in complete sentences. Freedom to pursue intimacy with friends. Freedom to focus, or refocus rather, on the One who often is neglected as a result of our daily demands of motherhood. Freedom to be a woman, in all of her essence, as she was created to be.

I had the privilege and blessing of being able to attend a MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) convention this past weekend in Kansas City, Missouri. It is always so good for my soul to be able to step away from my hectic life and have an opportunity to miss my family. And I did miss my men - all three of them - in the worst way. Just knowing that I am almost 500 miles away from my most precious loves makes my heart ache. But I needed this four day moment to refresh my perspective on mothering, engage in sessions meant to equip me as a ministry leader, and most importantly, reconnect with my God who hadn't been receiving much attention from me lately.

Being a mom is hard. Motherhood is physically and emotionally exhausting. It requires a full time commitment to placing the needs of my children above my own. I fight - hard - for my children's well being and security in all situations. I stay up all night with my sick children, comforting them, singing lullabies to calm their weary souls. But all those things I gladly do, with little degree of difficulty. It is in my blood. I am a mother - a warrior woman who will happily jump on top of a grenade if it means shielding my precious children from a blast. Those choices are not hard to make. At all.

What makes motherhood so hard are the lies I tell myself. I am not good enough. My children will grow up hating me because I screamed at them for ripping pages out of their bedtime stories. When I give my kids pop tarts I am doing them an injustice and they will most likely develop a rare form of cancer and it will be all my fault. I am too overprotective. I am not protective enough. Despite my professional grade camera, and the fact that I take a zillion pictures of my beautiful children every day, I have never paid for professional pictures to be taken of my kids and that is just not fair to them. I don't entertain my kids every minute of the day and if I stay at home with them this shouldn't be a problem. Because I stay at home my four year old should already be able to read and write, tie his shoes, ride a bike... I just don't do enough. These lies have been added to my very being, like sandbags tied around my waist, weighing me down, turning every moment - every decision I make as a mother - into a resonating question in my mind - "Is what I am doing good enough?"

As I sat in my chair this weekend, listening to amazing Godly women pour out their hearts in pure unadulterated honesty and vulnerability, I began to witness a beautiful, colorful thread weaving its way through the stories of these women. Real women. World renown Christian and inspirational speakers with published books, highly successful Bible studies, blogs, and thriving BLESSED ministries. Sharing stories of their brokenness. Weaknesses. Mistakes. Shortcomings. And it hit me - THIS is what unites us women together - our brokenness. Our weaknesses. Our mistakes. Our shortcomings. When the stone walls that protect our pulsing, vulnerable hearts come crashing down and we are left exposed like Achilles' heel - this is when our true essence is able to emerge.

         essence (n) - 1. fundamental nature or quality. 2. a substance distilled or extracted from another substance and having the special qualities of the original substance. 3. PERFUME.

This word... essence... has been on my mind lately. I am currently leading a Bible study with my fellow MOPS moms, and the question we have been asking throughout this study is "Do I have beauty to unveil? If I do, how do I unveil it?" How do we strip off the sandbags that weigh us down, the added baggage that pollutes our fundamental nature - our very essence? This past weekend I believe I got a glimpse of the answer. Mark 14:1-9 and John 12:1-8 reveal Mary's heart, a woman who poured an entire bottle of expensive perfume (worth a year's wages) over the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair. First of all, Mary did this publicly, and was criticized for it. She didn't care. She pushed any insecurities she may have had aside, knelt before her King and poured perfume over his feet. But I don't believe it was just perfume that she gifted Jesus with - it was her very essence - her vulnerability, her devotion to her purpose, her pure love for her King, that she poured over him.

I love how God has the ability to speak through Scripture that I have read so many times, and breath new life in it over and over again. In thinking about my essence - which by definition could also be my "perfume," I recalled a verse in Psalm that I used to sing back in college worship services. Psalm 141:2 (KJV) says, "Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense; and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice." The Hebrew word for incense in this verse is qetoreth, which can also be translated in the Bible as perfume.

I need to interject here that I LOVE pulling out my Strong's Concordance and uncovering the deeper meanings of the words used in our common Biblical translations. I have Beth Moore to thank for this (who, by the way I had the IMMENSE pleasure of meeting at this conference... if I lived in the 60's the Beatles would have had nothing on her.)

So we have this image of a wonderfully fragrant perfume being poured over Jesus. Could this be the ultimate picture of what it looks like to unveil our beauty - to reveal our very essence? May my prayers be sweet smelling incense... may my heart pay no attention to the criticism that resounds around me AND in me of myself... may I willingly and generously pour out my own fragrant perfume that is uniquely found in my soul alone over the King that longs to be covered with it.

I have spoken with so many women who long for transparency in their relationships. We CRAVE intimacy with other women. We have been made in the image of Christ, and this desire for authentic, transparent relationships stems from that likeness we share with him. Revealing our true selves - broken and choosing to recognize the beauty in that brokenness - will not only help us engage in deeper, meaningful relationships with other women, but also draw us into Jesus' arms, who is so jealous FOR us... how can we not feel beautiful in His presence?

My mind has been reeling ever since I got home from Kansas City... questions rolling through my mind of how I can improve my ministry, what I can write about that can even somewhat capture my experience... so much that I forgot to bring my 3 year old to preschool this morning. I think on most mornings I would have beaten myself up over this. But this morning, as we finished a late breakfast while all three of us got dressed - in less than 3 minutes - to get Gabe to school an hour late, I was thankful for the relief of the pressure to be a perfect mother. It's in my imperfection that my children will learn how to trust in their God. It's through my mistakes that my children will learn how forgiving their Heavenly Father is. They will learn that it is ok to be imperfect, broken and have moments of weakness because there is a God who can refine, fix and make strong absolutely EVERYTHING.

Being a mother is hard work. But being a mother who finds freedom in surrendering her heart to her King makes being a mother a whole lot easier.