When I tell people I have three strong-willed boys I often hear "O, I have one of those too... My little Ashley knows exactly what she wants and will pout until she gets it."

Uh...

What I mean, however, is that I have three sons that wake up each morning ready for a fight; a testosterone induced, muscle-bound, argumentative, full-on fight!  There's love and kisses for a blissful instant, but before the sleep has been wiped from their eyes they are looking for mountains to climb and kingdoms to conquer.  If no such adventures can be found they turn on one another, trying for conquests within our home.

Their sweat is sweatier, their jaws are a bit more set, and their wills unshakeable.

It's been a while since I mentioned that I'm not a fighter.  I'm a lover.  Being a good lover got me into this predicament (if I might say so myself)!  I was made for quiet mornings, marveling at the golden light that finds it's way through the morning glory outside my bedroom window.  I was made for tea and scones and walks along the beach at sunset.  Goodness, this is starting to sound like a singles ad.  

I cannot imagine how someone so meek and mild can be expected to manage and train such strong-willed men!  But I am expected to do this job.  And if I think I can or can't isn't important. God thought I could (by His grace and strength, His love and might) when He gave them to me in quick succession.  

Each time I think of the one who decided to endow me with them, I'm reminded that at the same moment he gifted me with them... he gifted them with me!  As boyish as they are;  as feminine and mild as I am.  

What a picture of God and His people.  A loving, gracious, long-suffering God with a house full of unruly, stiff-necked children.  And yet the analogy is crumbling even as I write it...  Because I am not always loving, gracious, long-suffering, yada-yada-yada.... I am often from the stiff-necked camp!

Am I the only Mama who wakes up most days choosing her own way?  Looking for my own mountain to climb and figurative lands to conquer?  Before the sleep is gone from my eyes I'm fighting for my own agenda and flexing my own will.  Maybe not in the masculine way my boys do it... but I am no less rebellious and wayward at times toward my Heavenly Father than my little strong-willed charges are towards me.  

This knowledge doesn't necessarily subdue my young men as the sun comes up, but it does fill me with new mercies toward them each morning as I remember my own strong-will.

I'm going to bookend this short post with my child's dirty hands because while those dirty, grimy, stained hands concern me... it's their hearts I want to get at most of all.

I recently read in Dr. Kevin Leman's new book, What a Difference a Mom Makes:  The indelible Imprint a Mom Leaves on Her Son's Life, that all boys innately desire to please their mom.  I didn't immediate believe it when I read the black on white.  But the longer I sat (with the sounds of another new argument rising up from the next room) the more I saw into my little guys' tender hearts.  I know there is healthy, fertile soil in those three hearts, and I know they want to please me as I tend to their little gardens.  It's just a battle every day.  Even when I battle with tenderness and they battle with all their strength. 

I really shouldn't elevate my difficulties above "Ashley's" mom.  We're all in the trenches fighting for our children's hearts.  We're all in the gardens, conditioning their soil and planting seeds.  

All our hards are getting dirty.  All our hands.

A very special hello to all of the ladies joinging us from GraceLaced Mondays, The Better Mom, and A Holy Experience.  If the rest of you have never hoped over to other blogs from here, I've linked you back to some of my favorite posts of theirs.