Excerpt from a Journal Entry:
Beautiful moment yesterday — when we were at Coronado Beach and had only another 20 minutes or so before packing up to go home. I was comfortably seated in my beach chair, enjoying reading my book, On a Mission, by Patrick Madrid, when Cody came up to me after having finished building his amazing sand castle creation (huge!) with Mark, Nic and Noah — Nic took over Mark’s work 1/2 way and even incurred a blister on his hand from the digging out the sand — what an awesome big brother! And Noah as well — so dedicated in spending time with his little brother!! Especially playing plastic gun wars around the house lately . . .anyway, I digress. So Cody invites me into the water with him. I REALLY don’t feel like going — I had already wandered into the ocean a couple of times by myself and it was frightfully cold! Even though I worked up to enduring the numbing coldness up to my thighs, I felt like I already had the experience (and it was beautiful . . ) and now I just wanted to sit and rest and read. But Cody insisted when I suggested he ask one of his brothers to go with him instead, by using these words: “But it’s not the same as going into the water with my Mommy,” and that was all it took to get me out of my chair and back into the frigid waves. Even though I still felt tired, once I had committed to going back to the water, and even though I had resolved not to go in deep myself, I delighted in watching my baby run back after he realized how cold the waters were and then with the daring of an 11 year old, run back toward the ocean, and submerge himself completely — jumping up and running back towards me and repeating the action several times, as I laughed and squealed as my beautiful boy touched his freezing hands to my warm arms, and then the cold water hit my legs as well and I gave myself over to the best of motherhood — sacrificing my own desires for my child, and delighting in watching his joy and sharing the moments of experiencing the wildness of the sea with him, as he tried to body surf the waves, and I cautioned him not to go too far out, but he felt safe because he knew I was watching him (even though I am a poor swimmer, compared to Mark and NiNo) — and at one point, Cody wanted my approval as to whether he did well with his body surfing, so I gave him a thumb’s up as his dripping head poked out of the water and he looked expectantly my way . . .… I eventually went back to check the time, but even though Mark suggested coming in, I decided to let him have a few more minutes and returned to watching him, with pure enjoyment, going in deeper myself and feeling immersed in happiness.
Sometimes it is easier to be sacrificial than at other times, and as a mother, we have opportunity after opportunity embedded in every day to serve our family, even when we don’t feel like it. But love isn’t a feeling, love is a decision. A decision we make over and over and over again. But how these little sacrifices of love build up our families! And how these internal denials of self enriches our own mother’s heart — when we deny ourselves not out of guilt or in anger, but totally out of love. And when we do this, we often find that “feeling” of love that is better described as joy or contentment washes over us and refreshes us and incredibly blesses us, reminding us how wonderful motherhood truly can be.