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The Pain of Mother's Day

Growing up Mother's Day was a day to make cards, go out to lunch and give special hugs to my Mom and Grandma. It was a day to call my other Grandma. We tried to make it special, the way kids do when we think that every day is Mother's day.

Then, I went to college and on February 2, 2002 in the early morning hours two men raped me and one of them made me a mother myself. By that Mother's Day I was a mom without even a baby in my womb. God called Angela, my angel baby home. She skipped this life for an eternity with her Savior and mine. A life exploring Heaven where one day she will give her Mom a tour and I will finally get to meet her. It will be a meeting a life time in the making. A day of joy. A day to see her precious, Jesus designed face for the first time. To hug the child that made me a Mom! It will be a day only topped by seeing our Savior face to face. The Savior she is probably right now singing to with a sweet voice.

10 years later I was finally a Mom with a living child to hold. My heart was full to bursting. My first Mother's Day to celebrate as a mom and not just as a child. A day to look down at the baby and know that this is my gift. This is my child. I'm her mother, no one else. A day full of wonder and joy. A day of smiles.

I know the pain of Mother's Day knowing you are a mom but with no children in your womb, arms or home. I know the pain of praying and praying for a child to raise, only to hear God seemingly say "No". The pain of watching others be given this most precious blessing while your home remains empty. It is a pain that visits year round, but is starkly out there on Mother's Day. It is a pain that can't be describe.

Mother's Day is fun if you have a Mom to celebrate with and children to make your day special. It can also be a day to tough it out and just survive. You walk to the room set aside (even if just in your mind) and picture a crib or a twin bed there. You see the toys strewn about, the cartoon posters that should decorate the walls, the child like curtains fluttering in the Spring breeze and you imagine laughter and sitting on the floor coloring with the child you long for.



You gather the courage to go to church and as all the moms are recognized you stay in your seat, determined not to cry. You may have miscarried or had a still birth, so you are a mom, but you don't stand up because how do you explain with dry eyes how you are truly a mom when it is just adults in your home? So you stay seated, only God knowing how hard this day is.

You sit on your couch and you pour your heart out once more to God, asking that He blesses you and your husband with a child, even after 8 years of infertility. You have the medical answers, but still you wonder why YOU are infertile, why it is so easy for the thousands of moms that get pregnant every day and just toss their child away to the murderers of Planned Parenthood. They don't value to gift that you so long for.

You are on multiple adoption lists, yet know woman has chosen you. You wait, your chances at parenthood totally out of your hands, your control. On the whim of some girl that you may not even know. Years pass, Mother's Days come and go and still you wait to be chosen with this most precious gift.

Or, maybe you are the mom that has had the grief of burying a child. It doesn't matter if they lived 2 minutes, or 32 years, parents are not supposed to out live their children. It just isn't right. For you Mother's Day is a day to spend at the gravestone, wishing you could call them up, receive one more hug, wait up late at night praying they make it home before curfew. You'd give anything for hand prints on the glass at home. Anything to replace the unbearable pain of this, sitting in the grass talking to your dead child.

You could be one of the many who no longer has a Mom to call up. This woman you've loved with all your heart from your earliest days. This woman who held your hands as you toddled to Dad. This woman that stayed with you when you were sick, that hugged the hurting heart, that prayed with you, that listened to childhood pain, that read with you, colored with you, taught you about life and helped shaped you. This woman that is more than Mom, but is your biggest support, your first call, your ally in all things. She isn't here anymore and today you remember that once more. You long for your Mom but can't reach her anymore. Your heart breaks a bit.

Mother's Day is not always easy or fun. It is to these women that my heart yearns to comfort, not just this week, but all week. These women need our caring, our support, our understanding. If you are one who dreads Mother's Day, may you know that you are in my prayers and your tears are counted by your Heavenly Father. May you seek the comforting life of giving your sorrow to our Savior. He is quite acquainted with grief and will take your sorrow and give you a peace that exceeds understanding.

May the Lord of all comfort wrap you up in His loving embrace as you once more trudge through the pain of a child-less or Mom-less Mother's Day.



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