Purpose

I'm sitting here in a quiet house after a busy day. Luke is out visiting some family and Marleigh is sound asleep in her big girl bed. My heating pad is keeping me company on the couch and I'm tired, but not tired enough to go to bed just yet. 

While wasting time on Facebook, I decided to look back through my pictures of Marleigh as a newborn. Our days together in the hospital, our first days home, those first few weeks when everything is new and exciting and exhausting and overwhelming and terrifying and so, so wonderful all at once. Those chubby baby cheeks and squishy baby lips and big blue eyes that captured my heart from the second I laid eyes on her. 

Blame it on the pregnancy hormones or the fact that I literally feel like someone has their finger firmly pressed on life's fast forward button, but I can't help but look back on those days and cry. I feel like it was so long ago, yet just yesterday at the same time. 

The second they placed my 7lb. 11oz. baby girl on my chest, at 4:23 AM, my entire life changed. I discovered my true purpose. A hole in my heart that I didn't even know existed was instantly filled. I became a mother, and because of that, I became a better version of me. 

Mother's Day is a wonderful day to celebrate the moms in our lives and all of the wonderful women who have played a special part in helping to raise us. But this Mother's Day, I'm realizing that it's an even better time to celebrate the little life that makes my life so much brighter every day.

Thank you for making me a mommy, Marleigh Jo. I will never be able to find the words to explain how much I love you!