Invisible Mommies

I read a post by Sally Clarkson found here. I liked the whole post, but one section in particular spoke to me:

"You see, most of our life is invisible–this noble cause we embrace is often fraught with challenge, exhaustion, relentless repetition, emotion draining, spiritual challenge, and yet this is the very place of our worship. This is the place faith is being forged and character is being modeled and love is going deep into the heart and mind of your children. This is why I champion the cause of motherhood. What you are doing matters so much. And most of all, Jesus, who sacrificed his time, emotions, and ultimately body and freedom, sees you and is so very pleased and cheers you on from the heavenly realm.

No one said to me, 'Yeah, Sally, you chose to be patient with one more ear infection and sleepless night! Congratulations, you are the queen of mentally challenged children of which 3 are clinically ocd and 3 are asthmatics and one has some learning issues and all four are sinful and fuss and make messes and want to eat and wear relatively clean clothes every day. Congratulations, you are so very patient with those hormonal teenagers, you just waited for your toddler to get over his tantrum and you handled it patiently–you a hero!'"

We mothers are in the midst of a place of worship and devotion as we parent our children. Yet it's true that we don't often get the encouragement we need. Rarely are people standing on the sidelines cheering you on as you discipline for the umpteenth time and clean vomit out of a car seat for an hour (true story, happened this week). Maybe we get sympathy at times from various sources, but cheering? Wouldn't it be great if we actually cheered each other on? Affirmed that we are living a self-sacrifical life because we love our children and we love Jesus?

I thought of something I am going to call "The Great Mommy Campaign." Dictionary.com defines a campaign as "a systematic course of aggressive activities for some specific purpose." I envision mothers everywhere boldly cheering each other on. I'm going to start this on Facebook, but if you read this, you can also do this verbally or with a card. Today, tell five mommies why they are great mommies. Don't be general, be specific: "You are a great mommy because you maintained self-control when you really just wanted to scream. I saw last week that you remained calm when your child was freaking out in the store." I think it would bless our mommy hearts if we gave each other a shout out and it would encourage us to keep up the good fight!