Mothering

Hebrews 6:13-15 says, “God made a promise to Abraham.  And there is no one greater than God, so he made the promise with an oath in his own name – an oath that He would do what he promised.  He said, “I will surely bless you.  I will give you many descendants.”  Abraham waited patiently for this to happen, and later he received what God had promised.

I have read so many Bible passages about families and babies, and promises that God made to His people that I can’t remember them all.  But I remember Susan Fish.  She was a woman of great faith.  The first woman I knew personally who battled great health issues and died.  Susan sat “quietly” in our Bible study, and listened as I talked about my fearless faith.  How I was unafraid to follow God, to the ends of the Earth, without my husband, if necessary.  She listened to how I was ready to obey, whatever His calling, ready to move.  She listened to me teach that Women of Faith study each week.  And she knew that as willing as I was to go and move and obey, I was afraid of being forgotten.  We talked about babies.  We talked about infertility and things that I was trying, and ways that I was praying.  I believed.  I believed big time for my friend Donna, whom I promised, as we women gathered around, laying hands on her, that God would give her double for her trouble.  I knew he would.  I believed it for her.  And God did deliver two beautiful twin girls to Donna.  Double for her trouble.  But my faith didn’t allow me to believe for me.  I had been too wild, too rebellious, too evil as a child.  I had disobeyed and thus, did not honor my father and mother, as The Commandments ordered.  I had premarital sex and lived in sin.  I smoked and drank, and I cussed and skipped four years of church.  Yes, I did.  So in my mind, God would not have any reason to bless me.  He had no good reason to give me children.  Because I was a stinky, rotten, dirty sinner.  No good to the bone.
Susan was a good woman.  Fun and happy, she was loved by all who knew her.  I remember her as a peaceful presence.  She didn’t have to say or do anything, just being around her brought me great peace.  She shared her journey of illness with unabashed truth.  She held nothing back, not even the fact that she was going to die.  No sense making light of it.  There was no cure now, just meds to prolong her life of suffering.  But suffer she would, so that she could spend more time with her beloved family.  Susan thought so much about her family that she left a legacy for them, of love.  She sewed and stitched a future for others less fortunate or more traumatized, and she put love in each gift she gave the shelter and the charities she supported, without fanfare.  Susan was a good friend, and a blessing, a sister in Christ, to me, the sinner.

Never once accusatory, she just told me all kinds of things about God’s promises.  She told me about how God’s promises weren’t just for the Bible people.  She told me how they were promises for me too.  She told me how God knew about all the poor choices was going to make before I made them, and how He wanted me to have the desires of my heart.  It took a huge leap of faith for me to walk with Susan on that walk.  I did everything I knew to do, and still, no babies.  I kept on wondering, believing, doubting, wrestling with reality and faith.  It’s a difficult dance, at best, the not knowing whether a person is believing for something that is really meant for them.  Susan knew.  She told me to hold on, that better days were coming.  She prayed with me, she spoke Scripture over me, she believed when I didn’t.  And then I moved away.  But I never forgot Susan.  And shortly after I moved, she did too.  Only she moved up into the beautiful paradise that she was waiting for.  And I kept on doing that dance another six years.  What a painful, drawn out dance that was.  I will never forget it.  It is part of my tapestry, just like the disease that took Susan was part of hers.  It doesn’t create our faith, it draws it up and out of us, calling us to share our miracles with others.

That’s what I have recently realized.  That the miracles which were given to me aren’t just the living children that I get to hold.  The miracles I received were also the faith that was revealed in me, the ability to “push” (pray until something happens), the gift of believing when every rational thing says to quit believing.  The duty to lay myself down and not get tangled up in my own personal desires, but to take up the cause of the cross and to tell you that miracles happen.  That God answers prayer, and that God wants to give you the desires of your heart.  He does.  He has given me that and more.  Because He had desires for me, and as a father gives good gifts to his children, my Abba has given me so much more!

So as you are wondering, this Mother’s day, why drug addicts and prostitutes who have no stability in their lives can have children, but you can’t.  If you question why an unmarried teenager with no finished education, parental support and plans for her future can have children, but you can’t.  Why your sisters and friends and strangers you meet in your daily path can have children, but you can’t; I say to you, “Whatever you ask for, ask in the name of the Lord, and it shall be given to you.”  Believe Sister, because God is calling you to be a mother.  Perhaps that is not a mother in the sense that you are thinking, perhaps it is a mother to sixteen youth group children.  Maybe it’s a mother to the children that you take care of during the day.  It might be mothering another mother, sharing in their concerns and joys, and just listening to the struggles they have.  Sometimes, that is the joy in the journey, to realize that God’s gift to us, our true miracles, are not the prize at the end of the waiting, but the transformation that takes place in the midst of it.