![\"\"](\"https:\/\/carolynhidalgo.com\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/mother.jpg\" "\\"mother\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nIt all began to make sense, the blank stares, the lack of response, the way \u2028one of the kids will walk into the room while I’m on the phone and ask to be\u2028taken to the store. Inside I’m thinking, ‘Can’t you see I’m on the phone?’\u2028\u2028Obviously not; no one can see if I’m on the phone, or cooking, or sweeping \u2028the floor, or even standing on my head in the corner, because no one can see\u2028 me at all. I’m invisible. The invisible Mom. Some days I am only a pair of\u2028 hands, nothing more! Can you fix this? Can you tie this? Can you open this? \u2028\u2028Some days I’m not a pair of hands; I’m not even a human being. I’m a clock \u2028to ask, ‘What time is it?’ I’m a satellite guide to answer, ‘What number is \u2028the Disney Channel?’ I’m a car to order, ‘Right around 5:30, please. ‘\u2028\u2028Some days I’m a crystal ball; ‘Where’s my other sock?, Where’s my phone?,\u2028What’s for dinner?’ \u2028\u2028I was certain that these were the hands that once held books and the eyes \u2028that studied history, music and literature -but now, they had disappeared into the peanut butter, never to be seen again. She’s going, she’s going,\u2028 she’s gone!\u2028\u2028 One night, a group of us were having dinner, celebrating the return of a\u2028 friend from England. She had just gotten back from a fabulous trip, and she\u2028 was going on and on about the hotel she stayed in. I was sitting there,\u2028looking around at the others all put together so well. It was hard not to\u2028compare and feel sorry for myself. I was feeling pretty pathetic, when she\u2028turned to me with a beautifully wrapped package, and said, ‘I brought you \u2028this.’ It was a book on the great cathedrals of Europe. I wasn’t exactly\u2028sure why she’d given it to me until I read her inscription: ‘With admiration\u2028for the greatness of what you are building when no one sees.’<\/p>\n
In the days ahead I would read – no, devour – the book. And I would discover\u2028what would become for me, four life-changing truths, after which I could\u2028pattern my work: 1) No one can say who built the great cathedrals – we have \u2028no record of their names. 2) These builders gave their whole lives for a\u2028work they would never see finished. 3) They made great sacrifices and \u2028expected no credit. 4) The passion of their building was fueled by their \u2028faith that the eyes of God saw everything.\u2028\u2028 A story of legend in the book told of a rich man who came to visit the \u2028cathedral while it was being built, and he saw a workman carving a tiny bird \u2028on the inside of a beam. He was puzzled and asked the man, ‘Why are you \u2028spending so much time carving that bird into a beam that will be covered by\u2028 the roof, No one will ever see it and the workman replied, ‘Because God\u2028 sees. ‘\u2028\u2028I closed the book, feeling the missing piece fall into place. It was almost\u2028 as if I heard God whispering to me, ‘I see you. I see the sacrifices you \u2028make every day, even when no one around you does.\u2028\u2028 No act of kindness you’ve done, no sequin you’ve sewn on, no cupcake you’ve \u2028baked, no Cub Scout meeting, no last minute errand is too small for me to\u2028 notice and smile over. You are building a great cathedral, but you can’t see\u2028 right now what it will become.\u2028\u2028 I keep the right perspective when I see myself as a great builder. As one of\u2028 the people who show up at a job that they will never see finished, to work \u2028on something that their name will never be on. The writer of the book went\u2028 so far as to say that no cathedrals could ever be built in our lifetime\u2028 because there are so few people willing to sacrifice to that degree. \u2028\u2028When I really think about it, I don’t want my son to tell the friend he’s\u2028 bringing home from college for Thanksgiving, ‘My Mom gets up at 4 in the \u2028morning and bakes homemade pies, and then she hand bastes a turkey for 3 \u2028hours and presses all the linens for the table.’ That would mean I’d built a\u2028 monument to myself. I just want him to want to come home. And then, if there \u2028is anything more to say to his friend, he’d say, ‘You’re gonna love it \u2028there…’\u2028\u2028As mothers, we are building great cathedrals. We cannot be seen if we’re \u2028doing it right. And one day, it is very possible that the world will marvel,\u2028 not only at what we have built, but at the beauty that has been added to the \u2028world by the sacrifices of invisible mothers.\u2028\u2028 Thank you to all the Moms who are looking down and smiling at the cathedrals \u2028they helped to build.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sharing one of my favourites… invisible mother…the only word I’d change is ‘sacrifice’ to one of ‘giving’…live from your heart to enjoy this marvellous journey not from duty or obligation, but from love. Happy Mothers Day! It all began to make sense, the blank stares, the lack of response, the way \u2028one of the kids […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[58,59],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith-letting-go","category-freedom-forgiveness"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carolynhidalgo.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carolynhidalgo.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carolynhidalgo.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carolynhidalgo.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carolynhidalgo.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/carolynhidalgo.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9441,"href":"https:\/\/carolynhidalgo.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148\/revisions\/9441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carolynhidalgo.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carolynhidalgo.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carolynhidalgo.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}