I want to be a wild mom.

It will probably forever and always be the thing I talk about least on this blog. 
It's the most private and tender part of my life. 
It feels like my biggest weakness and strength all rolled up in one ball. 
Mothering. 

When I think through my greatest fears, the idea of missing treasure sticks out. And motherhood is a day in and day out treasure hunt where you have to constantly refresh and repreach and reprimand yourself about what the treasure is. 

The treasure is not a well run home. 
The treasure is not mini-pharisses who look just like Jesus and never know they need Him. 
The treasure is not quiet. The treasure is not even peace. 
The treasure is not just getting through the next few years. 
It's not even break-through where they finally understand you. 

The treasure is always, always, always Christ. 
Even in motherhood. 
And I get Christ, today in my brokenness, and they can have Christ today, in their kidness. 
The treasure can never be the good picture or the fruit of what we product, but it is always the One who chooses to produce fruit in us. 

And so today after I chased them and cleaned up after them and lost my cool and yelled across the park and washed their uniforms and asked them to be quiet and chased my own messed up treasure, I was putting them to bed. Maybe you know what happened, if you're a mom. I had that wild moment, just before I was walking out of their room, and I saw them for who they really are.

My six year old was looking straight into my eyes, reaching through the rails on his bunk bed, and he said, "maybe we should pray together?". Grace swept over me and all my false-treasure-hunting and I weaved my arms back through his bed rails to grab his face. And the wild freedom was there. This. This. This. Is motherhood. Seeing the fullness of who Christ made them to be, even just for a split second and knowing I will absolutely never be able to steward it right and yet there is grace. 

To me wild motherhood is right where I'm at. 
Going to bed tonight knowing that tomorrow I MUST cluck them around the house in the morning getting them dressed and I must make dinner and I must change diapers, but that none of that is the treasure of motherhood. The treasure, for me, is the split second glimpses where I see them as amazing and hope-filled image bearers of Christ that are absolutely going to be used by Him for His glory. 
And I get to watch. 
And tuck them in at night.