The Invisible Mother

My friend Elise sent this to me this morning and I thought I would share. Get out the Kleenex!



Invisible Mother...... It all began to make sense, the blank stares, the lack of response, the way one of the kids will walk into the room while I'm on the phone and ask to be taken to the store.

Inside I'm thinking, 'Can't you see I'm on the phone?' Obviously, not.

No one can see if I'm on the phone, or cooking, or sweeping the floor, or even standing on my head in the corner, because no one can see me at all.

I'm invisible. The invisible Mom. Some days I am only a pair of hands, nothing more: Can you fix this? Can you tie this? Can you open this? Some days I'm not a pair of hands; I'm not even a human being. I'm a clock to ask, 'What time is it?' I'm a satellite guide to answer, 'What number is the Disney Channel?' I'm a car to order, 'Right around 5:30, please.' I was certain that these were the hands that once held books and the eyes that studied history and the mind that graduated sum a cum laude - but now they had disappeared into the peanut butter, never to be seen again. She's going; she's going; she is gone! One night, a group of us were having dinner, celebrating the return of a friend from England ..

Janice had just gotten back from a fabulous trip, and she was going on and on about the hotel she stayed in.

I was sitting there, looking around at the others all put together so well. It was hard not to compare and feel sorry for myself.

I was feeling pretty pathetic, when Janice turned to me with a beautifully wrapped package, and said, 'I brought you this.'

It was a book on the great cathedrals of Europe ..

I wasn't exactly sure why she'd given it to me until I read her inscription:
'To My Dear Friend, with admiration for the greatness of what you are building when no one sees.' In the days ahead I would read - no, devour - the book. And I would discover what would become for me, four life-changing truths, after which I could pattern my work:

No one can say who built the great cathedrals - we have no record of their names.

These builders gave their whole lives for a work they would never see finished.

They made great sacrifices and expected no credit.

The passion of their building was fueled by their faith that the eyes of God saw everything. A legendary story in the book told of a rich man who came to visit the cathedral while it was being built, and he saw a workman carving a tiny bird on the inside of a beam. He was puzzled and asked the man, 'Why are you spending so much time carving that bird into a beam that will be covered by the roof? No one will ever see it.' And the workman replied, 'Because God sees' I closed the book, feeling the missing piece fall into place.

It was almost as if I heard God whispering to me, 'I see you. I see the sacrifices you make every day, even when no one around you does. No act of kindness you've done, no sequin you've sewn on, no cupcake you've baked, is too small for me to notice and smile over. You are building a great cathedral, but you can't see right now what it will become.' At times, my invisibility feels like an affliction. But it is not a disease that is erasing my life.
It is the cure for the disease of my own self-centeredness. It is the antidote to my strong, stubborn pride. I keep the right perspective when I see myself as a great builder. As one of the people who show up at a job that they will never see finished, to work on something that their name will never be on.

The writer of the book went so far as to say that no cathedrals could ever be built in our lifetime because there are so few people willing to sacrifice to that degree. When I really think about it, I don't want my son to tell the friend he's bringing home from college for Thanksgiving, 'My Mom gets up at 4 in the morning and bakes homemade pies, and then she hand bastes a turkey for three hours and presses all the linens for the table.' That would mean I'd built a shrine or a monument to myself. I just want him to want to come home. And then, if there is anything more to say to his friend, to add, 'you're going to love it there.' As mothers, we are building great cathedrals. We cannot be seen if we're doing it right.


And one day, it is very possible that the world will marvel, not only at what we have built, but at the beauty that has been added to the world by the sacrifices of invisible women. Great Job, MOM!
Share this with all the Invisible Moms you know...I just did.


Hope this encourages you when the going gets tough as it sometimes does.
We never know what our finished products will turn out to be because of our perseverance.

I Forgot!

I forgot I was going to mention a cute picture that we took on Friday night! After a while of trick or treating, we realized that we didn't have a picture of ALL of the kids together. So as they were walking down one of the driveways, I grabbed my camera and said "Everyone go stand by that tree!" and pointed to a tree in the parkway. All 6 of our kids we had that night went to the tree I was pointing at.

When I looked through my view finder, there was a little girl in a pink poodle out fit that did not belong to us. Her dad was standing on the sidewalk cracking up, telling her to get out of the picture. She had been walking past when I said everyone get to the tree, and she did exactly as she was told :) We took the picture with her in it and the kids talked about it for the rest of the night!

This weekend

What an absolutely FANTASTIC Halloween weekend. I could not have asked for better weather (I probably could have asked, but would I have really gotten anything better?) Even though I made the kids costumes to fit over winter clothing, we were able to trick or treat for 2 hours, coat free! We had a great time in the neighborhood in town and Mason even saw a few friends that he knew. One little boy did ask if he could come trick or treat at our house, and Mason had a little bit of a hard time telling him why he couldn't come to ours. It was cute listening to him trying to rationalize to another 5 year old that our house was in the country, with a really long driveway, and also that we didn't have the light on in front of our garage, so he shouldn't knock on our door. (At least that means he was listening to the rules for Trick or Treating!)

I got a couple of pretty cute pictures of all of the kids in their costumes. I was a little bummed that this year the kids were big enough to pick their own costumes instead of being willing to let mommy pick a theme and make them all coordinate. They looked cute anyway, and they truly show their personalities.

We took some out of town friends trick or treating with us, and when we were done walking, we headed back to our house for pizza. The kids all had a great time completely destroying the play room. Garrett enjoyed eating almost half of a cheese pizza by himself (yes, we are talking about my 7 month old child!) I thought the other mom was going to fall off her chair!

Saturday night we had a bonfire to celebrate the end of fall. The weather was perfect, the fire was warm, and the kids again were thrilled to get to roast their own marshmallows! One little snafu on Saturday was noteworthy. I had run into my parents house to grab some more crackers. When I opened the people door to the garage, one of the cats darted past me. Then, a large bouncy animal went under the car. The bouncy animal happened to be our pet rabbit, Bob. No, Bob is not a free-range bunny. He lives in a cage outside my parents back door. He was NOT supposed to be wandering around the garage. It took Madelin and I almost 15 minutes of chasing him around the garage before we finally were able to catch him.

It seems that one of the cats had pushed hard enough on the bottom of Bob's cage to slid it open. Then, probably in an attempt to escape being eating and fully not realizing that he is as big if not bigger than the cats, Bob jumped free. I have no idea how long he was hopping around the garage waiting to be saved. I just thank heavens that we didn't open the large garage door before realizing he was out! It was have been nearly impossible to catch him outside, in the dark!

That was pretty much all the exciting stuff that happened this weekend. I am very excited that I may be heading to Florida during Thanksgiving break to spend some time with my Nana. I am sure that 24 hours in the car in each direction will leave me with some fun stories to post!