A mother to a child

I wallowed in self-pity. It gradually became more intense. Once my maternal clock started ticking, with no apparent resolution in sight, I felt hopeless and stuck. Something so seemingly easy, so abundant, why couldn’t it happen to me?

Mother’s Day was hard. Hard because I didn’t want to rain on anyone’s parade, but I wanted to be allowed to feel sadness on such a joyous day. I could be and was grateful to my own mother. But gratitude can coexist 100% along with my longing and silent ache to be someone’s mom.

I read in a pamphlet that was promoting adoption, or maybe it was something wise a child said, that there are as many women wanting to be mothers in the world, as there are children in need of mothers. 

If I could feel such sadness wanting to be a mother and call a child my own, how much more painful it must be for a child who can’t call on a mother as his own, to protect him, to tuck him in, to read him bedtime stories, to tickle him, to feed him nourishing food, to love him whole. 

I believe God put in us this instinct. It is Him in us, calling us to come alive, by giving our life. All of us who became parents answered that call, but some of us had to be keenly aware and awake, intentionally acting. Outside the norm, against many odds.

The thought crossed my mind, that maybe God decided to not give us kids the natural [biological] way, because we may not turn out to be good enough parents. Or He wants to use us in a different way, unattached, childless. As we sat and pondered, I realized and admitted to myself that I wanted to be a mother, to pull my sleeves up and let life be messy and unpredictable. To let motherhood open my mind and my heart in ways I could only intuitively guess.

Every chapter has its purpose. The loss, the disappointment, the rockbottom. And then there is the meadow. The incredible journey. The abundant life.

If you feel the nudge to nurture, to be a mother, to be a father, what if out there, closer than you thought, a child is longing for you. Needing you.

Give adoption a second thought.