Simple: Mama

"Hey guys, do y'all want anything from the store?" I asked the kids while they were having breakfast one morning. My husband had texted to say he was coming home from work early and, given the unstocked state of the nearby grocery stores, he was going to check out a few farther away before coming home.

Despite our full pantries I was uneasy about the unusually long time it was taking to stock our normal haunts, so admittedly I was feeling a little bit of hoarder's panic. As I texted him a list of stuff we needed "just in case," I casually threw the question out to the kids to see if there was something they'd like. Popsicles, maybe, or some favorite snack crackers.

"Mamaaaa!" gleefully exclaimed my 2 year old, waving a spoon full of peanut-butter in the air. He grinned at me.

"What?" I laughed, thinking he was teasing me. "C'mon now, is there anything you'd like?"

"Mamaaa!" he crowed again, laughing, but resolute.

I glanced at my daughter who had joined the "Mamaaa" chant.

"Y'all just want me, eh? Nothing from the store?" I giggled, but my heart kind of cracked in two.

"Yes, we just want you to play with us!" my daughter exclaimed.

No grocery list, no hoarder's panic, no "just in case" on their mind. Just Mama. Because they thought Mama was enough.

Some days I wish I was as sure as they are. These days I have often been not-so-sure. Normal mamahood makes me question myself enough, thank you very much. But mamahood in the days of Covid-19? I'm going back to bed.

Some days I think I'm not sure I'm strong enough for this--being home all.the.time, without access to babysitters, without parks and play areas that I depend on so much for my active kiddos' energy outlets, without cute shops to browse through when the day is long, without our friend and family check-ins at church on Sunday, with irregular groceries, with irregular work hours for my husband, with my entitled American attitude. I'm not sure how to do this, or if I think about it too much, how I will do this, however long this lasts.

And yet, even after three weeks of "I'm not sure how to do this" and more pb&j suppers than I want to admit, three weeks of uncertainty and tight emotions, three weeks of my nervous anxiety that resulted in not so graceful outbursts, my kids, God bless them, still say I'm enough.

I thought about this this morning as I reread Proverbs 31. I love that chapter because I love the whole book of Proverbs-- its concise and witty and profound testament to how God works in the world and what His ways look like. The Proverbs 31 woman, though often hailed as "the perfect woman" in evangelical circles, is really this summarized character of wisdom at work in the world-- what good looks like in the universe, and it happens to look an awful lot like a woman puttering around her home--taking care of loved ones and children and the vulnerable and gardens and food and clothes and business and creativity.

Rachel Held Evans wrote in her book A Year of Biblical Womanhood that the "Woman of Valor"--Eshet chayil in Hebrew--is in Jewish circles so much more than a perfectly well-behaved dame, like evangelicals tend to think of her. Instead she's like this fully-realized woman, owning her God-given identity to produce good in the world.

Eshet chayil is, Evans reflects, "at its core a blessing--one that was never meant to be earned, but to be given unconditionally" (Evans 89). "It is not some ideal that exists out there; she is present in each one of us when we do even the small things with valor" (90).

Every woman, every mama, is simply Eshet chayil. A woman of valor, capable of greatness, even when she doubts herself most.

She is enough, even when she thinks she isn't.

I need this reminder.

I've seen enough on social media to see that many of us mamas doubt ourselves these days. And these days are tricky, requiring some adjusted expectations and mindsets, for sure. But for the mama like me who sometimes doubts, remember you are made so strong, so brave, so full of valor, even in these times.

Eschet chayil.

It's who you are.

And you are enough.