Tomorrow is your son’s seventh birthday. He requested you and your husband take him out for a special lunch, just the three of you, but you misunderstood the plan for when it was happening so you didn’t find childcare for his four younger siblings. You convince your toothless, mop head kindergartener that he actually wants a special lunch with his dad and his uncle, instead of with you, so you can stay home with the little ones and he still gets to have his special afternoon.

Your husband has been deployed for a year and needs a chance to reconnect with his friends and family in a different state. You smile and tell him to take the trip, and you stay home and juggle the repercussions of a house full of kids who just want their dad.

It’s been approximately 7 hours since you last sat down to do anything other than nurse the baby twins and everything aches, but your toddler is hangry again and there will be no clean clothes for tomorrow if you don’t start the laundry.

You miscalculated the amount of dinner the ravenous wolves would inhale and the pasture raised chicken and bone broth stew you made is gone so you guess you’ll just eat soggy four day old leftovers instead.

Your kids need to be driven to summer camp. There will be no afternoon rest times because your kindergartener wants to have friends over after school. Muddy toddlers need bathing, teething babies need comfort, and if you forget to start the sourdough tonight, there will be no lunch for tomorrow.

Everybody has needs, and you are there to facilitate meeting those needs.

I saw a statistic today that if you factor in the cost of childcare, meals, a tutor, etc., mothers would be worth approximately $67,000 a year. I don’t know what world these people are living in when you can get a full time, around the clock tutor, cook, and nanny for $67K annually, plus we’re talking chauffeur, gardener, housekeeper, accountant, night nurse, life coach, personal shopper, handywoman, personal assistant, wet nurse, travel agent. I’d probably spend 2-3x that amount, easily, annually hiring out everything I do. On top of that, the amount of money we save by shopping secondhand and making/doing things ourselves is huge–there’s no way my husband could do this on top of his job.

Then there’s the he works so I can stay home conversation, which I feel like reads much more accurately: I stay home so he can work.

If there was not a mother filling all of these roles on a daily basis, a father would have to step into some or all of them, decreasing his own earning potential.

This money conversation is important because our culture often places values on people based on their earnings. Someone bringing in $250K a year must be more valuable to society than the person making $31K a year, right? Than someone unemployed?

Mothers return to work for many reasons–one of them being that they want to be valued, and so they do what our culture deems valuable, and they go earn money for their family.

Have you ever been asked what you do all day? Or heard a husband tell his wife that it’s actually his money, because she doesn’t earn anything?

It’s no wonder mothers feel they are not valued even though they are planting and growing little souls. What is more valuable than raising the next generation? What is more selfless than doing it around the clock at the expense of one’s time, body, energy, and, sometimes, sanity?

Jesus died the most painful death imaginable for me–and you. Whether or not we want to accept it, He did that so we can be redeemed. That puts my own daily sacrifice into perspective.

Before becoming a mother, I could only guess how it felt for God to sacrifice His only son for people who would turn their backs on Him again and again and again. After becoming a mother, I can still only imagine. Would I ever be willing to make that sacrifice? No.

Wow, I did not realize how whiny it would feel after that to go back to my post about lil’ old underappreciated me.

But the fact of the matter is that there are many seasons in our time as mothers where we feel like nothing but facilitators.

We facilitate friends, spiritual development, play dates, life skills, sports, meals for our kids. We facilitate our husbands being able to focus on providing. We give and give and give and give until we’re empty and then we give some more. But Emma, you can’t pour from an empty cup! There’s good sentiment behind this; it is a valuable and necessary reminder that we need to take care of ourselves, but try telling this to a mom parenting alone.

I’ve done it alone for half of my marriage and I can tell you: when your cup is empty there is no option not to pour.

You will keep pouring.

You have to.

You can’t not do it. There’s no option to just not do it.

And while you’re busy facilitating a magical childhood (let them play and be kids; this is the best way to make childhood magical!), while you’re busy facilitating a peaceful and restful home for your husband and children, you might just feel like you’re drowning.

Trust me, friend, I’ve spent a great deal of time with my head barely above water. You’re not in the trenches alone.

It hurts to be a facilitator. To wave goodbye to your firstborn son, on the way to his special birthday lunch, after you convinced him he’d rather take someone else than you so you could stay home because it’s really hard to find childcare for four young kids. Did anybody consider me on his birthday? Is it also the day a mother was born.

And you know what? It doesn’t really matter, because his birthday isn’t about me. What a special boy he is, and he absolutely deserves a day to celebrate him!

Isn’t all of motherhood like this?

The push of being a human with needs, with feelings, and the pull of being in a role of sacrifice.

It’s not about me, but what about me?

I’ve been asked a lot recently when my break is coming. It’s my best friends and church family and people who are recognizing and valuing my feelings after an incredibly challenging and tumultuous year.

But the fact of the matter is that there is no break coming. There are no sick days. Vacations are not restful. Even Mother’s Day, the one day a year dedicated to valuing the mothers, us moms spend the day putting out proverbial fires set by the sweetest families who just want to make the day special.

So what do we do when we get sucked under by our role as facilitators? The truth is that mothers are facilitators. It can feel negative when our entire lives are spent facilitating other people’s needs being met and we are overspent and running on empty, but being a facilitator is not a bad thing–it’s a role of sacrifice which, while sometimes overwhelming and exhausting, is joyful and fulfilling.

This is the part where usually I say something meaningful and insightful.

It’s funny, because I started this blog with the intention of encouraging other young moms.

And then I discovered that actually, God was using it to encourage me.

I look back at words written when I was 20 and had no idea what I was doing and I can see that the Holy Spirit uses this space to speak through me. I look back at posts written when I was 22 and know that the insight I’ve shared didn’t come from my own brain. Typically, I start writing a post with no idea where it will go, and by the end God has changed my heart, revealed truth.

I don’t have anything deep and insightful to share today.

I’m in the trenches, wading through the slog of dirty diapers, mountains of laundry, and kids who empty out the fridge every 37 minutes. Seriously, how do they eat so much food?

I feel so alone, but simultaneously so loved. As I drown in life, my community surrounds me and watches all five of my kids for four hours so I can focus on hosting a baby shower, a friend (with four young kids of her own already!!) shows up without notice to take my older kids for the day so I can have some quiet, and my neighbors bring hugs and fellowship.

I, I, I, I. All my paragraphs start the same. Sorry, Mom–I know you taught me to write better than this.

But this is where I am in life. Struggling, trying to keep myself together as everyone needs everything from me at every moment. My feelings are stormy and they are fierce and I am trying not to drown in them, drown in life. I’m trying to remember myself, because I can’t pour from an empty cup.

It doesn’t matter. My cup is empty, but I’ll continue to pour.

Maybe this is my truth for today.

Even as my cup is empty, even as I am pouring out from what can feel like a broken shell of myself, God is there, making sure my jar of flour is not used up and my jug of oil will not run dry.

He is there, pouring for me, when I have nothing left to pour.

And it’s enough to get me through.

I’ll wipe the tears away, close this computer and go get my fussing twin toddlers up from their naps. I’ll cook dinner with the kids and hurtle though dishes and stories and bedtime routines. I’ll keep pouring from my empty cup because God is there, filling me up, pouring Himself out when I have nothing left.

Motherhood is a calling. There’s no other way to get up every single day, starting your morning moving at 120mph, and living a life that is so mundane yet so stressful.

Amidst the mundane and amidst the stress, it is a life that is most beautiful. Raising young souls who will one day change the world. What a precious, valuable calling.

So to you, the struggling mother that feels like nothing but a facilitator, I’m right there with you, wading through the trenches.

What if, 30 years from now, you had the chance to come back and spend one more day with your children while they are young?

One more day with their blonde curly heads resting on your cheek, one more day feeling their chubby baby hands run along the side of your face (or slap you over and over again) while you nurse them, one more day hearing their laughter as they splash in the puddles on the driveway, one more day listening to their tiny voice tell you that they love you so so so so much, Mom!

That would be a really special day, wouldn’t it?

Today is a special day too. Another day facilitating little souls to grow up loved and valued. Your role is of unfathomable value, dear mother.

You are of unfathomable value.

You are facilitating the next generation.

You are facilitating the changing of the world.

And by doing so, you are changing the world.