“Just.” (Merriam-Webster: only, simply) “Just” a mom? NO, I want to bellow. No one is ever “just” a mom. No one is ever “only” or “simply” a mom. We moms know this is not true. So why, when someone asks us what we do–the standard American question–do we ever say, “I’m just a mom”?

Yesterday, I spoke at a MOPS group on the topic of keeping your ME while being a mom. The gal who led devotions talked about being “just” a mom. Reminding us, in fact, that we are much more.

Her choice of devotions spoke strongly to my heart. As a nursing instructor on clinical units, I would have students tell me that sometimes they’d tell their patients, “I’m just a nursing student.” The “just” would make my rant mode leap to the surface. “Do you realize what it took you to get to this point?” Of course they did. They’d studied and worried and lost sleep to become “just a nursing student.” They did not dare to use that expression in front of me again.

And isn’t the same true for moms? Don’t we study (all the parenting books), worry (something will happen on our watch), and lose sleep (night terrors, feedings, temperatures) in our process of being a mom? There is NO “just” about it.

Think about it. What “just” comes to mind for you? Fill in the blank: I’m just a __________.

Oops, caught ya. You are not “just” anything! You are you. And you are unique. (I feel the rant coming on…) And I’d tell the students that a woman who once spoke to my women’s group at church said, “God don’t make no junk.”  As a young mom at the time, I needed to hear that.  That God created us in his image. So if we say we are “just” something, what does that imply about God’s creation? That we are just, only, or simply human beings? NO WAY!

So thanks to that devotion yesterday about being “just” a mom and from chats I had after my talk with several of the moms in the audience, I was reminded that each one of us is unique and each one of us has a unique me that we must find and hang on to when being submerged (or drowning) in our roles as wife and mom.

Enough rant for today…