All I Can Tell You About Motherhood

I wonder at the power of this love that pulses my heart and pushes through my veins. I lay next to my 7 year old son as he falls into the first moments of sleep. It is 9:20 p.m. We spent the last hour lying in his bed listening to an audiobook together. He is lying on his back. I notice his profile.

Immediately I remember the first time I saw his profile. It was in a sonogram picture. I showed it to my Dad, my belly bulging with my son’s growing life, and we both shed tears. That face. My son’s face. It was a miracle then and it is a miracle now, here in this dark bedroom, glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling and my son breathing next to me…

Here is that face now. That very same profile. In the innocent first moments of sleep. I wonder what he will dream about tonight. I wonder what he worries about, if he has worries. I wonder if God will be in his dreams. Or if he knows how much he is loved.

I think about the life he has lived since he came wailing out of my body. It has been his life. He is his own person. He will grow into a man, and live his very own life, for years and years and years after I have gone.

I think about his tiny beginnings in my womb, his tiny profile, watching his body move on the ultrasound screen, the way he put his toes in his mouth, waves of love overcoming me as he endeared himself to my heart even then, just by being…

And I am gripped with the sudden horrendous awareness that so many tiny lives—loved and perfect and people, just like my own son lying here, breathing and dreaming and living—were torn apart, cut to pieces, expelled, ended, murdered, bagged, and discarded… and are torn apart, cut to pieces, expelled, ended, murdered, bagged, and discarded. Every day.

Children like my son.

It’s a holocaust.

Man’s barbarianism is without limits.

And I weep with God.

The sorrow goes deep, mingled with a mother’s love, a Father’s love for his children. I let the waves of pain flow through my body as I turn to console the Maker of Each and Every One. How does a mother grieve with God? My throat aches with the tears and all I can do is just say thank you thank you thank you. I’m so sorry.

And I hold this gift of motherhood in my hand and look at it, and cannot tell you what it is or the power of it or the sadness of it or the love, all mingled into one with my God who is the Maker of Life, this mysterious, powerful, human life encasing a soul that flies up to Him and is a part of Him and that without Him withers and dies.

It is awe. And desperation. Washed over with sticky, salty tears. It is worship. And pain.

And like God, it really can’t be named or defined or understood.

It is only a glimpse of the kingdom, come.

Here, into this dark bedroom, with fading glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling and one breathing child.

That’s all I can tell you.