All I Want for Christmas is Mom

            “I miss Mama Kate,” sighs one of the girls after a volunteer had asked a group of them what they thought about this year.

            “What do you mean?” asks the volunteer. “She’s here, though.”

            “I mean, like, I miss mom,” she clarifies, and the others nod in agreement. “I miss the way she used to kiss us goodnight and the way she would wake us up with her guitar in the morning.

            “I miss the way she’d sometimes leave flowers for us or other small surprises,” another adds in.

            “I miss the way we’d just sit on the porch all afternoon and chat or laugh with everyone and we’d do her hair.”

            “Or play ball in the driveway.”

            “Yeah,” another sighs with hopelessness. “It’s like she’s only running the organization and she’s no longer our mom.”

 (Trying to reason that we don't live in the same house anymore so some of those things don't happen wasn't a satisfying answer.)

            I can’t begin to describe the piercing pain in my soul when the girl who said the last statement shared all this with me. “I see how much you do for me, for us,” she added. “But sometimes, we just want you, Mom.”

             The pain came for many reasons. One, because how do you explain that running a non-profit organization comes at a cost, and often it’s the cost of time. How do you explain that the beds they sleep in are a result of spending hours, days, weeks driving around and finding the right size beds to fit in the rooms? How do you explain that the room they sleep in was carefully designed after 100s of hours, weeks, and even months of taking out my measuring tape, drawing, marking, doing calculations, hand writing the architectural layouts for the homes before submitting to the paid architect to professionally design? How do you explain the meetings with the lawyers, the land owner, the contractor, the workers, the fence guy, the security guy, the bankers, etc. How do you explain the hours in my office calculating, marketing, recording, planning, modifying, hiring, letting go, waiting… How do you explain that spending my time and heart doing my very best to run the non-profit is for them?

            But then I remember my desires for my own mom. I remember when us kids would be all set to watch a movie and mom would be doing dishes but we wanted her to watch the movie with us instead. Or when we’d be playing games before dinner while she’d be cooking but we still begged her to play with us instead. We’d complain that she didn’t spend time with us, not understanding that if she did, there would be no dinner on the table when we were hungry. And who would be upset then? Us, of course.

And so I understand their longing to just spend time with me, not understanding that time spent with them may mean losing something else they would need later.

The second reason the pain came, is because I consciously did try to step away to make room in their hearts for the house moms we hired. I knew that if I always filled that space, they would never let the house moms in to fill it, too, no matter how much I wanted to keep filling it myself. I loved being their mom. They were and are the why behind what I do.  But again, how do you explain stepping back was a self-sacrificial act of love? Because to them it probably felt more like a piece of abandonment.

And thirdly, it’s because most of my time is now spent in my car traveling to and from the girls home to my home and back again. The travel time really adds up, and especially in the summer, it really makes me tired. I ache and ache to get my house built on the land so I can finally live with them. But we had to build the multipurpose center first because that became a greater need for space for temporary home school until our future school building is up. So my house got pushed for last stage of phase one, and by this time… I think we’ve exhausted all our funders who have faithfully supported us financially through this entire expansion process. Now that’s it’s my house that needs funding, it becomes a lot harder to ask for financial support.

But after the girl shared her heart about how they miss Mom, I started reflecting and seeing things with a whole new view. For the second half of the year, after the move to the land, the girls have lost so much joy and life at the home. It’s been hard to see the joyful ones become stagnant and like they are only going through the motions of life. I figured it was due to the transition of moving and grieving the old house and living in town with running water and electricity. But what I noticed is the grieving was for something deeper, and things like their acting out against the aunties (house mothers) was for more than teenage hormones. They were grieving the loss of mom, and I had no idea. Until now.

I still don’t know how to marry the two roles: mom and director. I don’t know how to let them keep me as mom without fearing they will deny the real house mothers. I don’t know how to give them more time when I am exhausted from the other tasks. I don’t know how to explain to them that my days aren’t filled with me going off and having fun without them, that my lack of presence is because I’m working very hard for them and the future girls coming. But I do know one thing: something has to change! And with certain changes, I can still do the things I used to once do that made them feel loved and special.

I can name two things: one you can help fix, the other is up to me and God –

1)    My house being built will finally bring Mom home! 

“A home without Mom is still chaos,” one of the elder girls told me plainly, asking me to hurry up and move to the land. I told her it depends on God’s timing and his provision. But I ache like her. There is so much more of myself that I can give once I’m finally living alongside them again.  I'll have more time for playing and being, I can kiss them goodnight before I head to my house, and I'll be able to sneak over to the houses in the morning and wake them up with my guitar again.So, if you have extra Christmas money you’re wanting to spend for a good purpose, please know that if it goes to building my house, you’re investing not just in a building but reviving motherhood itself!

2) My heart needs some revival.

I also realized this year that I got so tired of getting hurt that I put my heart away. I mean like I started becoming numb unconsciously to protect myself after two girls had run away in September. My heart gets ripped out every time something like that happens, and I was so tired of that kind of betrayal and heartache. But in trying to protect my heart, it meant I became unfeeling. You see, you can’t just block the pain, you block all the emotions, including love and joy. The only emotion that seemed to be consistent was my anger. So after having a personal retreat time with Jesus, I rediscovered all of this and am in the processing of learning to have a hard shell while maintaining a soft heart.

So, in essence, all we want for Christmas is a new home and renewed heart, so I can be Mom again.