Cheryl Mendoza

And so my children, listen to me, for all who follow my ways are joyful.  Proverbs 8:32

So I enjoy being a mom.   I am not one of the mom’s that laments the fact that her

children have grown.  I loved them when they were little, but as they grew, each age brought its own joy and pain.  I wouldn’t say that I have enjoyed all the stages of their growth, some stages were better than others, but each new screw up brings wisdom.  Or so one hopes.

So one of my oldest son was stressing at work the other day, and had sent me a text to pray.  It was great, because not only did I pray for him, but I was able to give him some encouragement from a blog I had just written. I love when God gives the answer, even before you knew there was a question.  During the conversation, I told him that he should think long and hard about pursuing something that he loved.  That he should spend some time dreaming or imagining what it would look like to make that dream a reality.

So the next day I texted him to check out his stress level and he let me know that he was good.  Me though, I was a different story.  It was a bad day for me, and so by the time I was talking to him, I was finally getting some writing done.  It was then that he said he had been thinking about my writing.  Since he was contemplating his own dreams, he started thinking about my own pursuit.  He asked what kind of writing I wanted to do?  He then proceeded to tell me how Prince wrote two songs a day, even though some were never published.  He then pointed out how very left-brain my writing seemed to be, and that maybe I needed to use the right side for some short fictional stories.  When I told him that I was not sure what I wanted to write, he brought up JK Rowling and how he doubted that she knew exactly what she was writing that first day in the coffee shop.

Our texts finally tapered off and I felt good.  He had given me a different perspective, and that seemed to give me some energy.  I was able to finish a blog post and it was a little different than others I had posted, so I felt good.  Accomplished.

It wasn’t till today that I went back to revisit the texts from my son.  I am so used to being the encouraging one, that to be on the receiving end is a different angle for me.  It was funny, I don’t think he meant to encourage me, I just think he was asking questions.  It gives me hope.  Not only for myself and the path that I am taking, but for him and his path of growing and learning who God made him to be.
No, I don’t miss those little boys at all.  They were adorable and I loved them very much, but it is the men that they are growing into that is so much more exciting.   While they still make a lot of mistakes and are not perfect, I can see growth as they continue to learn and gain wisdom.  That above all else brings me joy and gives me hope.