On the days I wish were more rare -- when I'm unraveling a bit and the beauty of this call to shaping little hearts eludes me -- 7am can feel like an assault to my introvert senses. At 7am an alarm of little, needing voices raises and I wonder, on this particular morning, if it will always feel this jarring. One woke up with hormones spilling over into tears and another with a runny nose. One babe crying and another feeling especially sensitive to the looks of her siblings.

They need me and, yet, I am needy. I'm raising them and my heart can feel so young at times.

This is my motherhood.

Seven am turns into 7pm and somewhere between then and now I've wiped noses and bottoms and held hearts that now need weeks (not just hours) to process what life has in front of them. I've refereed squabbles and walked stubborn flesh through repentance and did more laundry than I thought we owned. I got interrupted -- dozens of times -- and started about six things I never finished. I muttered help, Jesus less than I needed to and fought off my age-old question will they really grow up to love You, God? again.

All in one day. One unseen-by-any-human day.

When I was seventeen, my parents attended every sporting event of mine. They took pictures before the homecoming dance and helped to plan the honors banquet. My dad logged long hours with me in the car when I learned to drive and they unpacked every single box in my dorm room.

Decades later, I live a twelve-hour day in which I've swallowed tears over my children's sin and sweat over scrubbing floorboards and celebrated the fact that she read a whole sentence -- and every minute of this was unwitnessed by man.

This is my motherhood.

These minutes lived in a silo threaten to do me in. They make me want to believe that "alone and unseen" is lonely and that motherhood will be the death of me -- the me who craves a life-witness.

But those twelve unseen-by-man hours do have a witness.

It's Him.

He sees me in my silo. He's hidden these moments from all eyes but His.

His tender eyes watch me apply another bandaid and change soiled sheets and scratch a back when I really want to be scratching off my check list.

This day wasn't the "wash" I'm tempted to call it. He saved it. These twelve hours were His -- hidden by all eyes but the Ones that mattered.

Motherhood is holy, hidden -- the place where minutes were meant to have only One witness -- because if we find His eyes when no one else is looking we might just fasten ourselves to Him forever.

We've put together a video -- a perspective-break to your twelve hours of hiddenness. This may just be the best four minutes of your day.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLIcDlpHoro?rel=0]

If you're reading in an email -- click here to watch.

Those Eyes turn the dark, hidden place, into a dark room where mere woman is made to be a companion of God.