Motherhood- (another previous post)

“I shall now have one mouth the more to fill, and two feet the more to shoe; more disturbed nights, more laborious days, and less leisure for visiting, reading, music and drawing. This is one side of the story to be sure, but I look at the other. Here is a sweet, fragrant mouth to kiss; here are two more feet to make music with their pattering about my nursery. Here is a soul to train for God, and the body in which it dwells is worthy of all it will cost, since it is the abode of a kingly tenant. I may see less of friends, but I have gained one dearer than them all, to whom, while I minister in Christ’s name, I make a willing sacrifice of what little leisure for my own recreation, my other darlings had left me. Yes, my precious baby, you are welcome to your mother’s heart, welcome to her time, her strength, her health, her tenderest cares, to her life-long prayers! Oh, how rich I am, how truly, how wondrously blest!”
- Elizabeth Prentiss in Stepping Heavenward

Motherhood: what a joy, a wonder, and a little bit of fear it does to us who have been privileged enough to bear the title. What mother has not been handed a tiny body to care for and feared she might not care for then properly. The day I had Laura was the day life changed forever. I only knew it was great to not be pregnant anymore, and just hold her tiny body! Then the unthinkable happened, she cried. She did not stop crying for 3 months it seemed. There were times I thought I was going to loose it completely.
I still feel sorry for my Mother-in- law who unselfishly drove over at any time of the day just to be of some help to me. She would calm me and let me know things would be okay- that I was going to make it. I just hoped she wasn’t being nice and telling me those things because she was afraid her son had married a crazy woman.
And then, two years passed and I was pregnant again! Unfortunately, I was not a happy woman. I was dreading the pregnancy, the burden of taking care of one more when I was barely able to focus on one. I can still remember the day I laid on the doctor’s table, the vision of her face still haunts me as she listened carefully for the sounds which verifies life: the heartbeat. I froze and began to tremble when I saw the look that passed over the doctor’s face. She was seriously concerned. She could not hear the heartbeat. The ultrasound confirmed what she did not come out and say right away. The baby (or “fetus”; what the technician coldly stated) was dead. I was heartbroken. For months I grieved that baby. Mostly, I grieved my hard heart towards the child while I had the short time of carrying. Never again would I treat a blessing with such scorn. Ever since, the Lord had used that time to show me my role as a mother and wife; it should be God fearing and done with an attitude of joy.
Mother’s and wives who might be reading this, I urge you to seek the Lord in your role. We have a unique place within our families: to further the gospel through our homes. What person can say that your mother (if they had the opportunity to have one) did not influence their lives in a powerful way- good or bad? Let’s make certain that our influence is life changing in a way that is only good. It can only be done through God’s Grace and his Tender Mercy.
There is only one window of opportunity we each have to reach our children. Once that window is closed, so is our opportunity. Let’s not waste our time by becoming absorbed with ourselves and with the things of this world. Let’s impact our children and woo their hearts for the gospels sake so that the world might see Christ in our homes.