For months now I’ve thought about how I’m not good enough to write to you, mama.
I’m not.
When I started writing again after a long hiatus, I was just barely this side of a hot mess. I had been for about 18 months (from the time that wonderful pregnancy test turned pink to the day I finished nursing my then-9-month-old). Even now, another 9 months later, I am constantly adjusting, shifting, learning, and re-learning as I try to balance the responsibilities of home, wifehood, personhood, and raising four kids.
So here’s the thing:
I don’t feel good enough, and I’m not ready, but still this longing and calling have filled my heart: I have to write to you. I have to. I can’t not write. I gave myself time and grace, but now I have to sit here with my hands on the keyboard and pour out to you the best things I know how to give.
I don’t know why. Why me, or why now. I don’t even know why I crave to write about this–about motherhood–which is something I often rail against as I struggle to piece myself into a whole, breathing person.
But I do. I want to write to you so badly. And today I am okay with the fact that I don’t feel good enough or ready. I’m starting to understand that there isn’t going to be a magical point when I feel those things simultaneously. And waiting means I just I keep letting days upon days pass me by.
So I’m here.
I’m offering my words to your hands, your mind, your heart.
Because even imperfect and unprepared, we can still try. You can still try.
It feels a little cheesy to write that, but it also feels really vulnerable and uncomfortable and a little scary, because it is something that is piercing my heart lately.
Because it is true.
You can still try, even if you’re 98% sure you’re going to fall on your face. Or if you’re not sure you can follow through. Or if it’s not as convenient as you’d like.
You can still try to do a little bit more, be a little bit more, of what you deep-down in your heart of hearts want to be or do.
You don’t have to push, or hustle, or make it hurt. But if you’re standing with your toes right up at the edge of the pool, wondering whether you have what it takes to jump in… Well, why not just check, mama? Why not jump in?
Or, if that’s too much, put a toe in. Dangle your feet in the water. Go fast or go slow, but just move a little closer to where you’d like to be.
Small moves matter.
Teeny tiny, itty bitty steps matter.
And if you don’t get it right on the first try, or the second, or the six-hundredth, it doesn’t matter.
You know why?
Because your value is not in the things you do.
Oh, mama, this is a hard one to learn. It is really hard. I’ve heard it a million times, I’m sure, but it was in the first chapter of Emily Ley’s Grace, Not Perfection that it suddenly sank deep into my heart so quickly and powerfully that I almost physically felt it lodge there.
There can be value in the things you do, of course. But they are not what give value to you.
Does that make sense?
Your value is intrinsic.
It is a glowing spark of magic already inside you, simply because you are a child of God, a piece of the intricate, interwoven, glittering tapestry of the universe. You are valuable because you are. Valuable, and precious, and full of potential.
So this is just to say that I love you, and God loves you, as you are. Sitting on the couch scrolling through your phone in your sweatpants and a ratty shirt with dried spit-up on your shoulder, gritting your teeth as you cook dinner for a pack of hungry children whining at your feet, or crying in the shower so no one will hear you.
As you are, right now, this very moment: you are valuable. You are precious. And you are worthy of love from all of us–but most importantly, from yourself.
xo,
Jamie
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