Bread for the Journey

What in the world am I doing?


Have you ever asked yourself that question, as a parent?  I'm not talking the superficial question of running around and walking into the same room a gazillion times having no more clue to what you are looking for than the last time.  (Baby brain, is what I call it.)


I mean in the deep, raw, keeping-you-up at night way.  What in the world am I doing?  Parenting is such.hard.work. It makes me feel as though my head is being twisted and turned in a million directions and all of the competencies that I have (or thought I had) are shattered. Talk about a reality check.  What in the world am I doing?  How in the world did I ever think I could raise a human being?

And sometimes, if I am honest, really really honest, I answer, "I...don't...know..."  Thinking like this makes it nearly impossible to get out of bed.  To think of all the things that are waiting to fill the day. The dishes.  The laundry. The wrangling.  The feeding.  The modeling.  The teaching. The cleaning.  The diapers.  The diapers.  The diapers.  Do I really have what it takes to do this? Again? And again?  And again?  What in the world am I doing?  "I...don't...know..."


But then I hear it.


"Mama."


I arise at this sound and go to the One calling my name.  And as I reach down to pick him up from his crib, nuzzling him close whispering, "I love you," I understand.


Jesus asked Peter, the disciple who was lost, disheartened, overwhelmed, in a crisis of faith, four simple words (John 21):


Do you love me?
Do you love me?
Do you love me?


And each time Peter responded, "Yes, you know I love you."
And each time Jesus replied, "Feed my sheep."


As I held this One in my arms, whispering "I love you" in his ear, deep down (way, way down) I knew that I was really answering Him.  


His response?  
"Feed my sheep."  


For the care and love and energy I put forth into nurturing my boys is ultimately, not really even about them.  It is about the One that created them...the One that shines in their eyes. Calling out to me, that in the mundane, in the fatigue, in the tedious work of being a parent, this is not the end.  But rather the means.  The means of loving and serving the Holy.  


It is then, to this ends that I receive strength and bread for the journey.  That I can get up and put one foot in front of another and digest my breakfast of Manna--given as a gift, even in days of desert wandering.