The “flour” wasn’t going to cook itself. The girls were happily playing in the living room together and apart, so I decided it was the perfect time to get the tortillas going. Ray calls them flour because they are, well, flour, and we have yet to correct her.

I hardly ever keep the baby gate leading from the living room into the hallway next to the kitchen locked, so before I knew it Ray had clamored up on Willa’s high chair to get a better view of the flour proceedings and Willa was around my feet. She wasn’t asking for anything from me, so I didn’t pause to interact with her beyond a “hello.” I heard her running from the far end of the kitchen to the wall of the hallway, back and forth, back and forth as hard as her almost 19 month old legs could pump. Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw her not stopping. Before I had time to react I heard a loud crash followed by a solid thump, all the result of her running at the wall as if she could run through the wall. Alas, she can’t. Instead her roly-poly little body bounced off and she landed square on her back, looking confused. I looked at her, then at Ray, then at her again, totally puzzled. I heard Ray squeak, “Why did she do that?!?!” and I was speechless. I didn’t know why she did that. Why would she run smack into a wall she’s been running towards and stopping at for the past ten minutes? I still have no idea.

We laughed pretty hard once we figured out all was well. Willa’s a block of cement. The kid just barrels through life ignoring most bumps, bruises, and scrapes. She also takes correction with a grimace that defies me to be serious as a parent. She’s hilarious. But she’s also been a living representation of an inward me. I was never the kid that ignored physical bumps, bruises, scrapes, and thought about walls as negotiable objects, but I do it ALL the time when life walls arise that I feel shouldn’t be there. I want to get from here to there, it’s in my way. Surely if I run fast enough, have a hard enough head, and ignore the pain I can get through it. I may stay confused at Willa’s decision to test the solidity of the wall, but I could question my own motives at striving for things that aren’t God’s will for my life. Striving, bouncing off His well-placed boundary, striving, bouncing again, and then crying at the bumps I’m receiving.

I love being a mother. My children are my delight. They are joyful and joy-bringing. Their laughter, random thoughts, and creativity are a constant source of entertainment. But they’re also my flint. I see myself in them, little mirrors that they are, my own failings and bad habits. I’m constantly fighting the sin in me when I’m around them. The heart that is unloving, impatient, and cranky when mothering is just a day of refereeing. When they are hilarious, when they are frustrating, when they are just weird, at all times I can see God using them to teach and guide me into becoming a better child of His.