sarah elizabeth lowe

Mother, oh Mother, come shake out your cloth,

Empty the dustpan, poison the moth,

Hang out the washing and butter the bread,

Sew on a button and make up a bed.

Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?

She's up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.

Oh, I've grown shiftless as Little Boy Blue

(lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo).

Dishes are waiting and bills are past due

(pat-a-cake, darling, and peek, peekaboo).

The shopping's not done and there's nothing for stew

And out in the yard there's a hullabaloo

But I'm playing Kanga and this is my Roo.

Look! Aren't her eyes the most wonderful hue?

(lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo).

The cleaning and scrubbing will wait till tomorrow,

For children grow up, as I've learned to my sorrow.

So quiet down, cobwebs. Dust go to sleep.

I'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep.

Song for a Fifth Child

by Ruth Hulburt Hamilton

{in case you are curious, the pictures from top to bottom are:

Bethany, Abigail, Abigail, Bethany, Abigail, Bethany}

I came across this though a post on Instagram the other night from this precious mama,

and was totally moved.

I had heard bits and pieces of this poem years ago...before I was a mother.

Now the words speak to me more than I can express.

I am not usually moved so deeply by poetry.

But I know the Lord needed me to read this.

Isn't it beautiful?

I really don't want to write much more right now, because I don't want to take away from those precious words that we all, as mothers, need to remember.

so grab a kleenex, read it again, and then go love on your babies

and worry about your to-do list a little less today.

Mamas...

In the midst of feeling like you need more grace that you can "muster" in moments with your littles...it is paradigm-shifting to remember that

HE is enough.

HIM. HIS love, His perfect love and grace and favor for us.

Like today, when I was carrying a crying, (way) overtired 6 month old up the stairs to put her down,

following behind my 2 year old as she climbed with us.

Then Abigail jammed her finger into one of the steps and lost it. like, LOST it people.

So here I was, in the middle of my very steep stairwell, two crying babies, now one on each arm, trying to keep everyone from falling,

including myself.

Kissing the flowing finger-jammed tears while shhh-ing my tired infant.

My heart became overwhelmed with how to "do it all" in that quick moment.

How am I supposed to comfort these two crying babies, convince an injured Abigail to keep climbing so we can get up the dangerous stairs, keep Bethany from crying even louder which made Abigail cry even louder...

I wanted to just sit there on the steep stairs and cry myself.

You get the picture. You've been there.

But as I looked at Abigail's big sad eyes, I remembered:

God is with me on these stairs.

God is with my babies on these stairs.

I need HIS strength right now.

It was like a sudden wave of supernatural peace came over me,

encouraging me to make it back up to the top.

And telling me that He was near and close to us.

That HIS ability was all I needed.

And so we did. And both girls immediately stopped crying as we reached the top.

And i can say without a doubt that it was NOT because we were off the stairs.