Hoda Kotb has opened up about the profound conversation she had with the Lord that completely shifted her perspective on the gift of motherhood.
It happened when the “Today” show anchor was having one of those days where everything seems to be going wrong. Her little baby, Haley Joy, was screaming her head off, her partner Joel was out of town and the dog was going crazy, knocking picture frames off the wall and sending shattered glass across the room.
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“You’re just, like, sitting there and the world’s exploding,” Kotb explained. Stressed out and exhausted, Hoda turned to the Lord in prayer.
But with just a few words, her entire perspective shifted.
“I remember having a short conversation with God,” she said. “And I remember saying, ‘I would have begged you for this day.'”
Before she became a mother by adopting Haley Joy in 2017, Kotb would have given absolutely anything to be a mom, and would have endured the worst of chaotic days, as long as she was doing it with a little one of her own.
“Like, this terrible day, I would have begged on my knees for,” Hoda explained to “Today” co-anchor Savannah Guthrie in a candid conversation. “So I remember I just literally took one breath, put her in the playpen, cleaned up … but I remembered, for a second, having that awareness.”
Of course, as any parent will know, tough days will still come. But Kotb revealed how that frank conversation with God has given her a fresh take on the wonderful, God-given blessing of parenthood.
“I try to check myself on those rough days and say, ‘Remember when you were on your knees asking and begging for this moment? Take it,'” she explained.
Guthrie, who had her first baby at age 42, said she is familiar with that feeling of overwhelming gratitude for being gifted a precious little one.
“I’m overwhelmed. I have two kids,” Guthrie said she often thinks to herself. “Wait, what?! I have two kids. Are you kidding? Oh, my gosh, when did that dream come true? In my forties and I’m so lucky.”
Kotb then recalled the wonderful moment that her baby Haley was first snuggled up in her arms.
“I remember she fit,” she said. “That’s all I remember. I remember thinking, ‘I can’t believe this fits like this.’ It’s like a puzzle piece that snapped in and now I’m me.”
Even though she is barely a year old, Kotb insists that Haley has bestowed some powerful life lessons upon her mom.
“I think Haley taught me a couple of things,” she explained. “Number one, it’s not too late … If you believe in something, it may actually come true.”
“She’s taught me that no dream’s too big.”
(H/T: “Today”)