Motherhood

(This comes a few days early, because I will be away on silent retreat on Mother's Day.)

I love Mother's Day.

This is a time in my life when many of my friends and my own generation of my family are becoming mothers. My family members are a bit older than me, but many of my friends are just my age, or a few years older, and many are married with children.

Somehow, this didn't hit me last year, probably because I was a student and not thinking about my life very far beyond graduation or JVC. But I look at myself and the way I live my life, and then I think about my girlfriends who have children, I realize how dramatically having a baby changes your life. Most of my daily concerns (often high-maintenance, superfluous concerns that don't mean anything at the end of the day) would never crop up in my mind if I were a mother. Or if they did, they would be quickly shooed away by something that my baby needs!

The other thought that occurred to me, especially as a family member is struggling through a difficult pregnancy (though mom and baby are both still well, thank God!), is how much my own mom went through when she carried me and my brother. Now that I'm actually experiencing the worry and concern that my parents and family went through when Mom's first pregnancy went awry, I am only just now grasping how terrified everyone must have been. More than anyone else's, my mother's anxiety must have been absolutely agonizing. (I am all the more thankful that she did everything she could, especially petitioning our Blessed Mother incessantly, to make sure we were OK, because all disasters were averted and Joe and I are fine!)

Which leads me to realize how much mothers give! If the acts of carrying and delivering a child aren't enough, the acts of parenting, protecting, forming, molding, teaching, nurturing, disciplining, feeding, bathing, educating, rocking, comforting, clothing, nursing, playing with, arguing with, dealing with tantrums of, checking homework for, cooking for, singing lullabies to, attending all recitals and ballgames and pageants and parent-teacher conferences of a child certainly are! Many in the world at large seem to disagree, but I can't think of anyone more important in a person's life than a mother.


I am also coming to see what happens when a mother does not step up to raise her children the way I have just described, especially as I've worked with Camden's youth and disadvantaged adults. So many of the children in my ministry have home lives that are in absolute shambles, and the adults in my ministry wouldn't have half of the problems they have now if their parents had given them the love and care they deserved when they were young. I remain convinced that if the families in this area were to concentrate all of their energy on setting positive examples for their children and doing everything in their power to love and discipline them, this city would be well on its way to complete renewal in ten years. As it is now, this city stands on the brink of hell, which is most apparent in how broken its families are.


So this is my salute to all of the amazing mothers in my life: Athena, Lindsey, Lauren, Meli, Heather, Courtney, Katie, Jessica, Aunt Maryl, Aunt Julie, Aunt Paula, Aunt Steph, Aunt Debbie (my godmother!), Laurie... and all the amazing moms I've missed. I hope God blesses you immensely on this Mother's Day!


But most especially, this is my salute to my mother. She's the best mom a girl could ask for. If I become even half the mother that she is to me, I will consider myself most blessed.

I love you, Mom.