Motherhood is a full-contact sport. I don’t care what anybody says.

Some moms are out here making laminated snack schedules and matching monogrammed devotionals. Meanwhile, I’m over here whispering, “Lord, multiply my minutes,” while frantically digging through my purse like a raccoon trying to find a permission slip.

Let’s just say I love Jesus wholeheartedly…but I’ve never really felt like I fit into the traditional “Christian mom” mold. Maybe it’s because I didn’t grow up with the kind of belonging other people take for granted. Maybe it’s because the first half of my life was survival, not soccer practice.

Whatever the reason, motherhood has been a constant mix of trying, failing, getting back up, and laughing at myself so I don’t cry too hard in public.

And THIS week? This week was a Hall of Fame moment.

My girls had a school event where they had to build a whole business from scratch:
• Product
• Business plan
• Branding
• Materials
• Pricing

Honestly, they put together more detailed presentations than some adults running actual companies.

Personally I’m proud of my girls, THEY did amazing and somehow pulled off a great pop up shop.
Focused.
Creative.
Leaders.

Me?
I was multitasking like a well-meaning working woman who is doing her absolute best while also trying to answer emails, cook dinner, and remember if anyone has clean socks for tomorrow.

Then… two things happened.

FIRST: I Forgot to Sign My 10 year old Daughter Up for her big day… the 13 year old was good because she had a plan when sign ups began weeks ago.

Look. In my defense… my 10 year daughter didn’t finalize her business details until the biblical equivalent of Mary’s water breaking.

In a very 10 year old fashion she waited. waited.
WAAAAAITED… to figure out the name, theme, or anything remotely classified as a “business plan.”

The forms required all of that.

We didn’t have it and I didn’t think to write TBD like some of the other genius moms!

My husband mentioned to the teacher that she’d be doing it…
which somehow translated to everyone thinking it was handled… except nothing was actually handled.

We showed up ready.

Except she had no table.
No assigned space.
No setup.

Cue the internal collapse.

But thank God for grace-filled teachers who felt the frustration of my lack of having it all together but showed us grace anyway. Because a “natural consequence” that day? That would’ve crushed my girl after all her hard work.

SECOND: (cue the gasp of the proper women) The Sticker Situation (AKA: The SmuTHING Scandal)

Now this is where motherhood reminded me that humility is my spiritual gift.

My daughter needed stickers for her business. So I (loving, supportive, distracted mother) ordered some.

They were neutral colors.
Book-themed.
Aesthetic.
Very “Pinterest Christian mom.” (So i thought)

I read three of them when they arrived. They were wholesome. Encouraging. (Reading and relaxing, finding my kindle, reading keeps me sane) I was proud of myself and my girls for picking (inspiring) book stickers.

Fast forward to the event.

Halfway through, our 21-year-old daughter shows up to support her sister. She spins the prize wheel. She wins a sticker.

She looks at it.
Pauses.
The she bursts into uncontrollable laughter.

I assume she’s just excited. Nope.

She whispers, “Mom… why is she selling smut stickers at a kids’ business fair?” I blinked so hard my eyelashes almost filed for a restraining order.

Denial echoed through…“WHAT? No. They’re inspirational reading stickers.”

She shows me the sticker, sure enough. I, a woman who reads devotionals and self-help books… a woman who has never once wandered into the spice aisle of fiction… had purchased a whole pack of reading stickers with smut stickers sprinked in for my child’s reading themed business project. WARNING (Not all amazon inspirational reading stickers are created equally)!

I didn’t even know “smut stickers” existed until I accidentally hosted an outreach program.

Honestly?
My laughter in that moment was pure denial. The kind where you laugh because your brain simply cannot compute what your eyes are seeing.

I stood there thinking, “This is how I go down. This is how my spiritual reputation ends. Not with a bang… but with a sticker.”

The Part Where I Cried in the Car! After the red faced chaos… after the laughter… after the realization that I had scanned Sam’s style by reading 3 instead of proof reading through 1000 stickers…

I went to the car and cried.
Not the “call a friend” cry.
Not the “thunderstorm movie scene” cry. Just a quiet, overwhelmed, “I really am doing my best and sometimes my best is a whole circus”
kind of cry.

It wasn’t about the stickers, or the sign-up, or even the confusion. It was the weight of showing up for my kids in ways I never had growing up.
It was the pressure. It was the tenderness. It was wanting so badly to do right by them.
It was trying to break cycles while also breaking down a little myself.

After I let those tears fall, I took a breath, wiped my face, and whispered:

“Okay, Jesus… I need You to parent WITH me today”, and He did.

Because this is motherhood:
Trying. Missing the mark. Laughing through disbelief. Crying from the weight of love.
Standing back up because your kids are watching. Finding grace big enough to hold the messy and the holy in the same story.

Even the chapters covered in smut stickers.

P.S. Thank you Abby Ellison for digging through the sticker packs and saving the last half of the children from learning about smut!

When asked later about it, Willow thought smut was another name for a dog (like, it’s a mutt!)🫢😬 does that count as vocabulary lessons? 

Thank you to my therapist for squeezing me in! 😂