A Different Kind of Mother’s Day.
I think motherhood is a good thing.
But it doesn’t always happen.
And there seems to be a thought swirling about, that for a woman, motherhood is the Whole Meaning of Life.
It’s a rather frightening thought.
Fancy something as important as ‘The Whole Meaning of Life’ being so uncertain.
What if I never meet someone?
What if I meet someone but I’m too old to conceive children?
What if I meet someone on time and have a miscarriage?
What if I meet someone on time, have the baby and something horrible happens to the baby?
I’m a great admirer of Beatrix Potter. She met someone, but she met him late.
She produced some of the best-selling children’s books ever.
She saved the Lake district of the UK for future generations.
But she didn’t have children.
Did she miss out on The Whole Meaning of Life?
I sort of doubt it.
I can’t imagine that God, so full of love and kindness, would be miserly with something as important as The Whole Meaning of Life.
I got to pondering all this while listening to Marian Grudko’s reading of The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck by Beatrix Potter.
A children’s book might seem a funny place to spark philosophizing, but you’ll understand if you listen to the reading yourself. I’ll put a link below.
Motherhood is important.
If it comes into my life, I hope I do it well.
But as far as The Whole Meaning of Life is concerned, I think I’ll manage to find that with or without kids.
Because our job as humans isn’t primarily to get married and have children.
It’s to find God.
And I guess once we’ve done that, The Whole Meaning of Life will sort itself out.
We live in a broken world.
It’s a world that needs a lot of mothering.
Mothering is telling people that they matter. It’s convincing them not to give up. It’s sitting with the broken and not making a big deal out of it. It’s feeding people when they’re feeling wobbly and knowing that a full tummy with an empty soul is the worst starvation of all.
It’s understanding you can’t feed a soul with physical food, and you may have to give up some of your own soul to satisfy the hungry.
Mothering is keeping quiet when you already know the answer, because you don’t want to rob people of their moment of discovery.
Mothering is that almost invisible, utterly spiritual, quiet transferral of inner strength from one person to another.
It doesn’t raise its voice in the street. It doesn’t shout. And yet, where there is mothering, bruised reeds become strong and spluttering wicks burst into light.
To the women who nurture, to the women who listen, to the women who approach the heart quietly with wisdom and tact and to the women who look after people merely because they are people and need it, thank you.
Whether you have given birth or not, you are the women who give life every day.
In fact, maybe the prophet Isaiah was thinking of you when he wrote,
“Sing, barren woman, you who never bore a child; burst into song, shout for joy, you who were never in labour; because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband,” says the LORD.”
To such women I say,
Happy Mother’s Day.
