Wrap this, if you can

What do I really want for mother's day?

It's a tough list, really. I'll tell you, and see if you can grab it at Walmart and wrap it up. I doubt it.

I want to not feel lonely in the midst of a bunch of people.

I want to hear my husband's heart and have his full attention.

I want to enjoy the company of my children without fighting, hormonal outbursts, and ugly words. (and it would be nice if they would also behave)

I want to feel like what I'm doing matters, like I am having some success and not just spinning my tires and spitting in the wind.

I want to look at the future without anxiety and fear, to believe that I am preparing them adequately for what is ahead.

I want to go to bed at night and sleep until I'm not tired anymore.

I want the dog to stop crapping on the floor when we leave him at home alone.

I want to believe that my husband likes the look of me, the smell of me, the feel of me, the sound of me, the thought of me, and that he's not just putting up with a choice he made 20 some years ago.

I want to be beautiful and strong and healthy.

No flowers can do this. No gifts, no chocolates, no cookies, no breakfast in bed can make these things happen. No one day, no holiday can make a woman feel loved and appreciated. Either she does, and the gifts and cards supplement and affirm the feeling, or she doesn't, and what does or doesn't happen on that day remind her.

I am a talker. A writer. A verbal processor. I think too much and say or write most of it. Journaling and blogging serve as an outlet because I have too many words, more than anyone really wants to hear or read.

My husband works with people, many of them women, who (because it is their job to do so) talk all day. He listens to and talks to people all day, every day. When he comes home, he wants silence. Or at least, white noise. He doesn't want/need to hear my bajillion thoughts about everything from the kids trip to Grandma's to how much the cloth diapers are holding to labor and delivery to how I felt about what somebody said on the radio yesterday.

Usually by about Saturday afternoon he begins to recover from the verbal assault that is his life, and starts to be in a place where he doesn't mind if I say a thing or two.

The point is, I'm needy and he's needy and often times our needs are not friends. I'm glad for my friends and children and journal and blog, so I don't have to tell him everything. But the point here is, my husband cannot meet all my needs (no man could), and some women have husbands who are far less able or no husbands at all, and where does that leave us on 'special' days like Mother's Day except empty?

It leaves us at the cross.

I can feel beautiful because the One Who made me calls me beautiful. I can feel like I'm doing well because He says, 'well done'. I can have a wonderful mother's day because I can enjoy the gifts God has lavished on me, gifts I don't deserve and am not worthy of. I can have joy because of His love that fills me and heals me and makes me a daughter of the King.

And, well, I'll just keep cleaning up the dog doo until he figures out that we come back every time.