Jerri Phillips

One crochets, stitches becoming more consistent, still only in chains, but she is proud of the progress. The other draws with a marker that periodically slips off the edge of the paper and leaves yet another color on the tabletop.

Masterpieces.

The children, not their projects.

Wondrous bundles of joy, sorrow, excitement, disappointment, surprises just waiting to pop out like a jack-in-box, dancing to music no one but them hear, suddenly springing forth with life force that blows me away.

Masterpieces that wring my heart with pain when a friend turns traitor, plans are crushed, a pet dies. Their tears fall. Their hands cling, and somehow I am to find the glue to put their hearts back together when pieces of mine lie on the floor with theirs.

Masterpieces that show the world in ways my forty years have never seen, that live with a wildness that both scares and excites me, that can fill a room with laughter, and speak volumes in the silence of their awe.

Masterpieces that run in the rain, but never lose their colors.

Masterpieces that draw me in, fascinate me, frustrate me, make me want to take a long walk...alone.

Masterpieces that force me to look in the mirror seeing a mom...and a daughter...a keeper of the art of the King...a masterpiece herself...one who is fascinated and fascinating...

The paradox brings tears...a smile...awe.

And my mind dances on the laughter of two children who came from me and are beyond me, that make me look at myself and beyond myself, that are unnerving mirrors of me and so amazingly themselves.

Such masterpieces live in my home.

They do more than fill up bedrooms with toys. They fill my heart with love, my imagination with "what if's", and my life with detours, bumps, and adventure. They are glorious.

And I am the one the Lord chose to be Him in the flesh before them, a sad replica in my opinion, but the one He says is most perfect for the job.

They are masterpieces...made by a perfect Creator...being made daily...by Him in me, through me...through choices this fleshly example makes.

And I fall to my knees...am I doing well? Am I a good keeper of these masterpieces? Oh, Lord, I want to be...

It is then that He reminds me...I am a masterpiece...made by a perfect Creator...being made daily...by Him in me, through me...

And awe envelopes me...

A masterpiece in the making in the process of making masterpieces. Such is the art of being Mom.

Copyright Jerri Phillips 2009