The audience is expectant. The first notes play. The curtain rises. The dancer nervously waits.
At the side in the wings, heavy black velvet
curtains stretch from ceiling to floor. The hidden dancer, though ready, quietly marks the
choreography one last time. A final rehearsal. A final remembrance of each breath. She pauses, listening to music that has
become a part of her, waiting for the note that cues her entrance.
Countless hours in studio. Months of rehearsal. All of it in preparation for this: the
performance.
And then in what seems but a breath, it’s over.
The closing curtain.
The final applause. A black, velvet line separating past from present, preparation from performance.
A baby is born; the
curtain is pressed aside; the family spills into the room, joyful, thankful; motherhood begins.
Motherhood: a dance with soaring highs and quiet lows, with joys and sorrows alike. We dance to the music and, when we listen carefully, the subtle quiet always leads to rousing crescendo.
But we’ve got it all
wrong if we think the crescendo is the most important part.
In motherhood, there
is no watching audience, no applause for the sweet moments of success. In
motherhood, there is no black line separating forgotten rehearsal from moments that matter most. All we know is that the curtain has gone up and one
day the curtain will fall and, when we look back on all the moments in between,
we don’t want to carry the regret of wasted time.
We watch, listen, and learn from those who have gone before us. These women are our teachers, and they've taught us well. But though we've heard their words and know it’s the ordinary
moments that matter most, we still sometimes miss them altogether because we
dance like we’re still marking it in the wings.
The ordinary days--this
is it. This is life’s choreography, and we only get to perform it once. Am I dancing full out?
Or am I marking it in the wings while the dance of my life--the dance that is life--is passing me by?
I have some friends
who do this thing called motherhood so incredibly well. They would say it isn’t so, that they struggle along in jerky movements like everyone else.
But I watch them love their little ones and they move with an effortless,
natural grace. It’s like they were born to do this. I surround myself with
mothers like these. I watch them. I learn from them. I write about them. And
then I go home and I practice and pray because I want to move like them.
You’ve seen these mothers, too.
They’re the ones who
care more about enjoying the walk home than getting quickly into the house.
They’re the ones who
realize that it’s not ultimately about getting their kids to read, but about
how they encourage and teach them during the process.
They’re the ones who
aren’t in a mad rush to hurriedly fix every conflict between siblings because
they realize the value in teaching their children how to resolve conflict without sin.
They’re the ones who
don’t hurry through bedtime stories and goodnight rituals because they know that
sleepy conversations are among the most precious they’ll ever have.
These things—these
little, everyday things—this is the dance of motherhood.
Quiet notes, quiet love, in quiet moments.
The curtain doesn’t
rise on our kids’ first day of kindergarten or when they’ve finally grasped how
to read or when they’re graduating from college or on their wedding day. The
big moments are sweet, for sure, and should bring deep thanks. But it’s all the
little moments in between that make up life's dance.
"If I could go back in time, I would go back to when they were little so I could just hold them one more time."Am I listening to the music? Am I slowing long enough and fully enough to really hold my little ones yet small enough to be held?
