Celebrating Mother's Day. Three words that encourage a chuckle, yet a sarcastic one. I have so much to celebrate yet there are many times when this "holiday" comes around that I am the poster child for the cliche 'practice makes perfect.'
So much time has passed though it has also stood still. My arms ache to hold what I haven't held for so very long yet my heart remembers every hair on your head as if I've seen it every day. I can close my eyes, inhale and smell your sweet baby scent. Are you smiling as you watch me do that at this very moment? Eyes closed, typing these words, all the while breathing in deeply what once was so sweet and near. Who knew that precious time would be so fleeting? My Father did and now you sit at the feet of His Son. Before I was born, He knew that I would be sitting here at 12:38 am on Mother's Day writing. He knew that just a few minutes before I started writing, that the tears would come, each one with a purpose. He knew that when He took you home, I would die a slow death, but that one day, that death would give way to new Life; an everlasting life through the death and resurrection of His Son, that my heart could only be open to after the death of my own.
So here I am in the pitch of black, listening to the rustling and whispers of peaceful sleep coming from the brother and sisters that you've never met. It is still so strange to me that I can love you and them so much yet you have never shared the same air. Is it strange? No. It's a blessing. Is it strange that those four babies have never met you yet they miss you? No. It's love. It's Love. See He does that. He makes what isn't as though it is and what is as though it isn't. Our Father has so bound those children in love, that they can love deeply someone they have never laid their eyes on, just because their mother does. Is it not incredible that when the day comes for them to meet you that you will not be strangers? That's Love. That is a Love that I pray that I glorify the Lord in seeking to share every day of my life, until I am able to finally hold you again. What a day of rejoicing that will be!
The chest that holds all my treasures that were yours beckoned me, but I said no. Though I would love to lay your things at my feet in remembrance, it would be in weakness not in joyful strength, if I did so tonight. How many times have I told grieving mommies to look up and smile? Look up and smile, Mommy, for your blessed baby boy is walking on streets of gold and one day, in the blink of an eye....at the sound of a trumpet.....you will experience the most incredible reunion.
Thank you, Jesus for dying for me. Thank you for forgiving me. Thank you for staying on that cross and claiming not your will, but your Father's. Thank you, Father, for sending your son. Thank you for sparing my life until I found you. Thank you for the 2 1/2 months you gave me with my son before taking him home. Thank you for using him to bring me to you. Lord, thank you for allowing me this testimony of grief and despair as a way to lead others to You. I pray that my heart always aches for those who do not yet know you. Thank you for allowing me to feel the pain of searing loss in order to find Life everlasting. I beg you to remind me of that pain at the moment my heart becomes complacent for the lost world that I was once apart. Thank you for the day when I will hold my child again. Thank you for your loving yet very forceful nudge to write as you move.
Celebrating Mother's Day.......Yes, I will.
