I have a white ceramic pitcher full of flowers that sits in my kitchen window. In the last year or so, I started col­lecting them (white pitchers, not windows). There is just some­ thing so dear and quaint and a little bit country about them. Also, I realized that most of the photos I pin to my "Dream Kitchen" board on Pinterest have a pitcher of flowers some­ where in the room. If you''ve ever shopped for white pitchers, you know how hard they are to find. Well, they''re hard to find until you find one, and then suddenly you find five, and the fact that you couldn''t find any for so long makes you want to buy all five because Pinterest said you could put one in the window, and one on the kitchen table, and one on the bookshelf And so I bought all of them-hence the collection. But my favorite is the small, simple pitcher that sits right in front of where I spend (what feels like) most of my day washing out sippy cups and scrubbing out bottles. I use it as a vase to hold my favorite flowers .

and before you start picturing a well-arranged bouquet sitting in a well-organized kitchen, you need to know that by "favorite flowers" I mean cut flowers that I buy at the grocery store for $2.88. Until last Mother''s Day . To Have and to Hold My sweet husband, Jared, is always early for everything -- unless he is planning for my birthday or Mother''s Day or our anniversary. At this point, Jared''s favorite line is "I''m sorry that I didn''t get you a card. I just ran out of time." I never say anything about it. I wouldn''t say something to hurt him on purpose when I do know that he loves me and his time really is taken with all of his other obligations ( like being a volunteer firefighter and our town may∨ serving at our church; or working his full-time, often-out-of-town job).

If anyone could use the excuse that they just didn''t have any time, it would be my Jared. Hypothetically, if I were to say something, I might say, "Really? You ran out of time? Because it''s not like Mother''s Day was a surprise. As a matter of fact, you said the same thing last year, and that means you had exactly 365 days to buy a card or candy or a balloon. Don''t tell me you ran out of time." I may or may not have thought of that comeback years ago. But I haven''t said it because, really, I''m not that type of lady (unless I''m hungry or tired, in which case I cannot be held responsible for the things I say when I''m "hangry" or sleep deprived). Anyway, two days before Mother''s Day this past year, Jared arrived home early from work and brought with him a small plant covered in tiny pink flowers. "Here! These are for you! They are supposed to keep blooming!" I wasn''t expecting them.

I wasn''t really expecting anything at all. ( Hoping? Yes. Expecting? No.) As a mom of three little ones, ages five, four, and one, I am resigned to the fact that I will likely never get what I think I really want for Mother''s Day. Don''t get me wrong -- cards and breakfast are great. Still, every year I fantasize that my husband is planning an elaborate celebration of my day in, day-out dedication to our family and children. ( A girl can dream, can''t she?) Each year, I imagine him arranging to gift me with a day off from all of my responsibilities. On this day off, everyone else would do all of the work that I usually do, then comment on how they didn''t realize just how hard a mom''s job really is.

The day might include a trip to the salon or spa, after which I would return, feeling pampered and refreshed, to find a clean house with bathed children who have already been tucked into bed for the night. Glory. I was mid-daydream, cucumbers over my eyes and tranquil music playing softly in my ears . when my husband jolted me back to reality, holding out the flowers and spilling a little bit of potting soil onto the carpet. "It''s not just an arrangement. It''s a plant! It keeps blooming!" He was so proud of himself, and I really was grateful that he had thought of me. So I thanked him as Kolton, my five- year-old, shouted, "Happy Momma''s Day!" His little sister, Ka- dence, sang it out about a beat behind him. They ran and hugged me, squishing their baby brother, Jaxton, whom I was holding on my lap.

And so I held all of them -- my sweet babies and my new plant that, while beautiful, felt like one more thing that I had to take care of. I sat there in the middle of my living room, with full hands and a full heart, so thankful for the gift of children who make me Momma, while silently fighting back tears of stress. Sometimes the weight of adding one more thing to what we are required to hold makes us feel like we''re going to drop everything. Have you ever felt that way? Have you ever felt as if you cannot find a steady balance between being a wife and a momma? Have you ever felt overwhelmed by not only your motherhood but also by the reality of being a momma, while also trying to do everything else at the same time? Friend, you''re not the only one. Sometimes, we don''t even realize that we need hope until someone offers it. We don''t even realize that we are desperate for someone to understand how we feel until we hear another woman say, "I have been there too." I think that far too often we find hope in things that will fade away. We find hope in articles that tell us to get a better night''s sleep or clean our kitchen before we go to bed or recite five proven prayers to find peace, balance, and a calm heart.

But the truth is we need Jesus. We need an encounter with the only One who knows and understands and wants to meet us right where we are. And when we encounter that hope? When we reach out to the only One who can give us the authentic life- sustaining grace that we so desperately crave? We experience the difference between being buried in chaos and planted in His love. I am not a gardener. In spite of that, my husband and I have begun a garden in front of our house multiple times. Obviously, one only gets to experience the joy of beginning a garden mul- tiple times if something happens to the previous garden. I will let you infer what you would like, but let''s just say we kill all the plants. This is not on purpose.

We aren''t purposeful plant killers. I read the labels. I buy plants that are hardy for our planting zone. ( You should know that I feel fancy even knowing what planting zone means.) But despite my best efforts, until re- cently most of our plants didn''t make it through the harsh Oklahoma winter. Which makes me think of Little House on the Prairie . and covered wagons and salt-cured pork. In case you haven''t been to Oklahoma in a while (or ever), I feel like I should mention that we have come a long way.

But back to the plants. I kill all of them. Every time. So, when Jared handed me that sweet little plant with the tiny pink blooms on Mother''s Day, I felt like I should apologize to it. It had surely lived a healthy and happy plant life before it arrived at my house. It wasn''t the plant''s fault that it had been gifted to me. But instead of writing its eulogy, I decided to do my best to take care of it. I moved it from one window to the next, setting it in different sunny places around my house.

Once I even took it out onto the back porch for some morning light. I watered it. I cared for it. But before long, despite all of my best efforts, the tiny pink flowers withered and fell off, one after the other, until there were no blooms left. I wondered what I had done wrong. It felt like proof of my failure, and for some reason -- probably because it was a Mother''s Day gift -- I related the health of this small plant to my success as a momma. The baby had skipped his morning nap, my older two kids were fighting, the house was in a general state of chaos, and I couldn''t even keep this small plant alive for two weeks. I needed a win.

That''s when I decided to let my plant live the last of its days in my favorite pitcher in my window. The pitcher had been empty for a while. Even though I did my best to always have flowers of some kind in it, it had sat empty in my window for over a month. I pulled the makeshift vase off the window ledge and ran some hot water inside, swishing it around and then pouring the dirty water into the kitchen sink. I wiped down its warm ce- ramic sides and dried off the last of the droplets. I reached over and gently rocked the small plant from its container, being careful not to break the delicate stem as bits of dirt fell, leaving the roots exposed. I scooped up some of the soil left in the pot, using my hand as a shovel. I poured it into the pitcher and then carefully lowered the plant in on top of it, packing dirt around the base.

It''s still green, so maybe it still has a shot, I thought. Maybe it''s not hopeless after all. Honestly, each morning, I was surprised when I would go into the kitchen to start breakfast and find that the plant was still alive. Life has a way of surprising us like that sometimes, doesn''t it? So as long as the plant wasn''t giving up, I decided that I wasn''t either. I watered it every few days and enjoyed hav- ing something in the pitcher again. And the plant kept living. One day after another, with just a little bit of water and a little bit of sunlight, the plant just kept living, and eventually tiny pink blooms covered it again. I guess that is the difference betwee.