We Need Each Other
By Hollie Silberhorn

“I just can’t get it together today,” said a mom visiting our church for the first time. She was standing in the nursery, staring at the wall, mentally preparing for battle. With 2-year-old Junior clinging to her leg, she began prying off 6-month-old Johnny from her hip. Both were deposited on the floor, screaming. She abruptly closed the door without even looking back.

“Wow, there is someone who looks like how I feel,” I thought. I dared not say that aloud though. I was still a new enough mommy to be able to put on a façade of perfection (at least temporarily) and do things, like hold an intellectual conversation about all the current political issues for more than five minutes.

I confess, though, I used to hide behind those issues, and still do when I can. It’s easier not to engage people on deeper levels, isn’t it? Do you ever wonder though, in the quietness of the night, if life, real mommy life, is supposed to be easy?

Two years and two additional little ones later, I am finding it harder to slap that million-dollar smile on and tell everyone I’m doing great. It’s getting exhausting trying to hook up my excited, 80-pound lap dog in the back yard quick enough to get back inside so the neighbors won’t see my unwashed, bed-head hair and pink pajama bottoms. After all, I have an image to maintain — I’ve got it all together. I am self-sufficient. I don’t need people.

In reality though, I’m a fake.

We get enough fake from TV. Is "Desperate Housewives" and "The Young and the Restless" truly real? Real life is paying for your $5.00 take-out pizza with change you’ve been saving for a month. Real life is having Johnny-snot all over your sexy, pre-baby dress that you’ve just now been able to fit into.

Communities don’t need fakes. Churches don’t need fakes. Neighbors don’t need fakes. Husbands don’t need fakes. Sons and daughters don’t need fakes.

When it comes down to it, in the dark places of my soul, I see what I need. I need you, genuinely. Yes mommy, you reading this, I need you! Your hardships, embarrassing moments and victories give me courage to keep going. I know I’m not alone, that others have gone before, done stupid things and still made it.

I need you to have broccoli in your teeth sometimes or toilet paper stuck to the sole of your shoe. I need you to have a screaming 6-month-old and not be able to figure out why she is crying. I need you to tell me you caved and did that "bad" mommy thing you said you’d never do. I need you to extend grace and mercy to me when I act like an uptight fool and to lovingly reprove me about it later.

You are so important fellow mommy. Yes, in the quiet places of my soul, I see what I need. I need you, genuinely.