Invisible Mother

I received this email yesterday,and it left me a weeping, thankful mess. I hope you will take the time to read it. I was very blessed by it. I could not find who to accredit it to.


It all began to make sense, the blank stares, the lack of response, the
way one of the kids will walk into the room while I'm on the phone and ask
to be taken to the store. Inside I'm thinking, 'Can't you see I'm on the
phone?' Obviously not; no one can see if I'm on the phone, or cooking, or sweeping
the floor, or even standing on my head in the corner, because no one can
see me at all. I'm invisible. The invisible Mom. Some days I am only a pair
of hands, nothing more: Can you fix this? Can you tie this? Can you open
this??

Some days I'm not a pair of hands; I'm not even a human being. I'm a
clock to ask, 'What time is it?' I'm a satellite guide to answer, 'What number is
the Disney Channel?' I'm a car to order, 'Right around 5:30, please.'

I was certain that these were the hands that once held books and the
eyes that studied history and the mind that graduated summa cum laude - but

now they had disappeared into the peanut butter, never to be seen again.
She's going, she's going, she's gone!?

One night, a group of us were having dinner, celebrating the return of a
friend from England. Janice had just gotten back from a fabulous trip,
and she was going on and on about the hotel she stayed in. I was sitting
there, looking around at the others all put together so well. It was hard not
to compare and feel sorry for myself .I was feeling pretty pathetic, when
Janice turned to me with a beautifully wrapped package, and said, 'I
brought you this.' It was a book on the great cathedrals of Europe. I wasn't
exactly sure why she'd given it to me until I read her inscription:

'To Charlotte, with admiration for the greatness of what you are
building when no one sees.'

In the days ahead I would read - no, devour - the book. And I would
discover what would become for me, four life-changing truths, after which I could
pattern my work: No one can say who built the great cathedrals - we
have no record of their names. These builders gave their whole lives for a work
they would never see finished. They made great sacrifices and expected
no credit. The passion of their building was fueled by their faith that
the
eyes of God saw everything.


A legendary story in the book told of a rich man who came to visit the
cathedral while it was being built, and he saw workman carving a tiny
bird on the inside of a beam. He was puzzled and asked the man, 'Why are you
spending so much time carving that bird into a beam that will be covered
by the roof, No one will ever see it. And the workman replied, 'Because God
sees.'

I closed the book, feeling the missing piece fall into place. It was
almost as if I heard God whispering to me, 'I see you, Charlotte. I
see
the sacrifices you make every day, even when no one around you does. Noact
of kindness you've done, no sequin you've sewn on, no cupcake you've
baked, is too small for me to notice and smile over. You are building a great
cathedral, but you can't see right now what it will become.

At times, my invisibility feels like an affliction. But it is not a
disease that is erasing my life. It is the cure for the disease of my own
self-centeredness. It is the antidote to my strong, stubborn pride. I keep
the right perspective when I see myself as a great builder. As one of the
people who show up at a job that they will never see finished, to work
on something that their name will never be on. The writer of the book went
so far as to say that no cathedrals could ever be built in our lifetime
because there are so few people willing to sacrifice to that degree. When I
really think about it, I don't want my son to tell the friend he's bringing
home from college for Thanksgiving, 'My Mom gets up at 4 in the morning and
bakes homemade pies, and then she hand bastes a turkey for three hours and
presses all the linens for the table.' That would mean I'd built a shrine or a
monument to myself. I just want him to want to come home. And then, if
there is anything more to say to his friend, to add, 'You're gonna love
it there.'

As mothers, we are building great cathedrals. We cannot be seen if
we're doing it right. And one day, it is very possible that the world will
marvel, not only at what we have built, but at the beauty that has been
added to the world by the sacrifices of invisible women.

****************************************************************************

Now for the bit of trivia I promised you: I was desperate for reading material while I was sick and started in on my kid's book shelves. I get a lot of enjoyment out of reading good children's literature. I was reading some of Hans Christian Andersen's Classic Tales and found a little chicken with a name that I just got a kick out of: Chickabiddy Shortshanks. Does anyone know what famous story this chicken plays a very minor part in? I told my sister all about this fabulously named chicken when she came in to check on me during one of my worst days of the flu. It might have been at that point that she offered to stay longer to help serve the kids dinner...