Every Mother’s Day I think I’m not going to blog about being a Mother, or not being one. Yet deep down the words start forming, and there you are. There’s a knock on my soul and I have to write the words and you my fine friends get to be the recipient. I write because I know there’s other women out there that as Mother’s Day approaches feel that longing that never was never fulfilled.

I spend a lot of time with women in their 20s and I hear their dreams. I don’t even know if I would call it expectations because for them it’s just fact. Fact that they will have children and that that will be a major part of their life, their identity and eventually their legacy.

I dated my first boyfriend when I was 16. I spent five years with him, high school and college, and knew that we would get married, have careers, have children. Why wouldn’t we? It was “preordained.” Funny to look back now. He dumped me for someone else and went on to get married, have a career and have children. I stayed single with a career, which I don’t have any regrets about. That part of life has been very successful.

At 34, I married and figured that was the beginning – marriage, children, happiness. It didn’t happen. You would think that by now any emptiness would be long gone. But it never fades.

I don’t really know what would be different if I had become a mother. Hopes and dreams were tied to it but would I have found Mick? Would I have found God? Would I have been in a position to take care of my mom? Take over her business? Do ministry in the same way?

Nevertheless a loss is a loss. It’s a part of life never to be experienced. For me it was infertility, or circumstance or somehow preordained. I know many women who have had miscarriages. I suspect it’s a very different loss. Does one make you feel less? Or is it all just extreme emptiness?

So this Mother’s Day, I wish all the amazing mother’s I know a very special day. To those amazing moms and their sleepless nights, hospital stays, ER runs. To soccer games, piano recitals and dance classes. To snuggles, art projects and homework. To sacrificial love known only by a mother – agape love.

• To Shelley – the most amazing mom with her sacrificial, all-in motherhood. For the relationship with her daughters that shines so bright.
• To Annie – the fierce mama, lioness, forever fighting for her son’s life and daughters well-being.
• To Sarah – who has the most amazing friendship with her three boys, who is a star mama even though she does look the same age as them.
• To Amy – no idea what to say other than many kudos for seeing life through humor and for raising bright and inquisitive little humans.
• To Marie – In the midst of the chaos of three babies, providing support to other moms and keeping it real.

… and to so many more – you rock, that simple, you rock!

And, to all the mothers in my life to know the anguish of lost motherhood. To have carried a child for a week, a month or into life, only to… lose that child. I firmly believe there is no greater heartbreak in this life than the loss of a child; whether the loss came before your child took their first breath, or as you stood helplessly by as your child took their last breath.

And, to all the mothers who never carried, raised or brought a child into this world, who know what it is to try, and try again, yet experience the “not meant to be” heartbreak.

To the women who hear the words Happy Mother’s Day and feel the stab of pain, that lessens over the years, but never completely goes away. But at the same time have been there to love and support other mothers as they raise their children. To stand in the gap in prayer and in place when called upon. To be the designated mother to many, if and when, God sees fit.

To all women who have the eternal flame of nurturing, this is a day about who you are. To your very core, as God uniquely designed you. Designed you to care for, encourage and guide others to adultness, to wholeness and to Godliness. To all mothers, in actuality or in deed, shine bright and celebrate who you are.

And, to my mother … your light stills shines bright, never extinguished and never forgotten.

So there you have it, another Mother’s Day blog!

Share on Facebook

Tweet

Follow us