Guest Post: Is motherhood all it's cracked up to be?

Doesn't it seem like there are a lot of new babies when you look at your FB friends? Well, I thought I'd ask one or two momma's I know to share their experience as a new mom and how it has pointed them back to Jesus. This is Ysabel. Besides being a good friend, she's also a stay at home mom, and wife to seminary student :) Their son, Adiah, was given to them December 28th 2011 looking just like his daddy. May you be encouraged by her post...

Ysabel & Adiah

Motherhood. It’s what I’ve always dreamed about. Well, to be a wife AND a mother is what I’ve always dreamed about. Now I’m just that, a wife to the most amazing man and a mother to a beautiful baby boy. 

Is it all it’s cracked up to be? Yes and no. 

I love being a wife! I’m married to a man who loves me endlessly, who reminds me that my righteousness is not in my ability to keep a clean house but in Jesus. Who encourages me to have dreams and to pursue them. Who is such an example to me by how he loves our Savior! So yes, marriage was exactly what I thought: pure bliss!! So why wouldn’t being a mother be the same?? That’s where I was dead wrong! From the time he implanted in my uterus, it has been the start of a VERY sanctifying journey.  

Being a mom is very hard work. It’s a round the clock kind of work. There are moments when I think, “I really wanted this??” or “if he cries another minute, I’m gonna cry,” “sleep. That’s all I want, sleep.” Then there are moments where I look at him and my heart feels like it will burst because I just love him so much that I can barley handle it. Or when he’s snuggled on me and sleeping so sweetly I think “Please, please don’t ever grow up.” I’m such a bag of mixed emotions these days.

But one thing is for certain, idols are being exposed! Like One. Right.  After.  Another. One of the many is my need for comfort. Pregnancy was the most uncomfortable 39 weeks. Recovery after having him wasn’t fun either and being sleep deprived hasn’t been a walk through the park. But what I’m learning and having to be reminded of is that I’m not promised a comfortable life nor am I entitled to one. There is one thing in this life that I am entitled to and that is hell (Rom. 3:23). When I think of that I’m reminded of my NEED-my need for someone bigger than myself and my lack of sleep. I’m reminded that I need something that has more strength to get me through the day than my tall iced coffee. One who will make my idols “fall to the ground on their faces” (1 Sam. 5:3-5).That One is Jesus. His life didn’t revolve around what made him most comfortable and if anyone was entitled to a comfortable life it would have been Him. He suffered a horrific death on the cross so that a selfish sinful girl (me) could be forgiven (1Cor. 15:3-5).  So motherhood may not be all that I dreamed it would be, no, but it is refining me and making me cling to the Gospel more than I ever have before, so I’ll take it! :)