Mom Bad

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but I think a few simple words are worth a lot too. My littlest girl child drew me a picture recently. In the picture there is a house with a little girl smiling and waving inside. There are some mushrooms outside and a big sun blazing overhead and lots and lots of “x’s” drawn all around for kisses. There is a car that looks like it is flying and inside that car are her father and me, smiling and waving. Beneath the car are the words: ‘mom bad.’

She has mixed up her b’s and d’s as little children sometimes do (‘mom dad’ was what she meant), but as she passed her handiwork to me and I looked at that scene of love and security, I read the caption quite literally. What I read was: ‘My mom is bad like bad ass like really, really good!’ I enjoyed the moment.

Thing is, I’m not. I fail often. I forget things, I don’t know a lot of the answers and I get impatient. I can be harsh, irritable and even a bit of a nag. I’m not always good at all; but I am the mom. And moms are important. When moms and dads are smiling and waving and going in the same direction, little people are happy in their homes. They don’t have to be state of the art homes or fancy cars, they can be any sort, specially if there is love in the air and things growing in the garden.

Back to the bad mom. Now, badassery can imply that one is tough, uncompromising, intimidating or formidably impressive. When forces come against the well-being, safety, peace and unity of our families and communities, we cannot just be bad, I mean, good. We need to be impressive. Some things have no place in or say over the beautiful thing that we’ve got. We cannot just sit back and let the enemy take whatever he likes.

As many of you know, we have an adoption story that is more like a war zone. You would probably find all of them are because adoption is about lives, it’s about hearts, it’s about family; and those things are worth fighting for. Many times I have thought, “I don’t know what to do.” My own resources are limited. My dad recently told me that when we find ourselves in a situation where we think we cannot do it, the truth is that with Christ it can be done. In Frederick W. Faber’s poem ‘The Right must Win’ there are lines that go:

‘Workmen of God! Lose not heart,

But learn what God is like

And in the darkest battlefield

Thou shalt know where to strike.’

These lines have filled me with courage and determination and stirred up a deep knowing in me that moms are bad and I’m working on being one of the baddest. So help me God.