Mother’s Day is one of those emotional holidays. It pulls at our hearts as we honor mothers. However, for some women, Mother’s Day is another reminder that they are not a mother, that they have not been blessed with a child. Though their heart yearns for a baby more than anything else in the world their arms are empty. Their childlessness may be due to infertility, miscarriage, stillbirth or SIDS (Sudden infant death syndrome), but the reason doesn’t matter, the ache and longing is there regardless of why.

Because I have had a stillbirth (you can read my story here on my blog https://refreshher.com/2008/12/09/my-flesh-faileth/), I can understand what Mother’s Day evokes in a woman’s heart when she’s longing for the baby she never had, or one that’s died. What can a woman do at this time to avoid the pain that this holiday brings? Here are some suggestions not just for Mother’s Day itself, but all through the year:

• Don’t focus on your loss – Instead focus on your mother and the blessing she has been. If your mom wasn’t a part of your life, then remember another woman who acted as your mother.
• Do something for someone else – Make your mom’s day special, or ask an elderly woman over who doesn’t have children or doesn’t live near her children. Spend time being a blessing to someone else.
• Reach out to a younger person who could use someone’s special attention, perhaps a child in a family of several children who would flourish with some individual attention from you. Mentor that young person, pray with them and for them. Spend time doing things with them.
• Remember that God is a good God. See your suffering of childlessness as a way to share in Christ’s suffering.

If you are reading this and you are a parent, look around and find a childless woman who could act as a second mom to your child(ren), or a woman who could fill the roll of grandmother in absence of your mother. What a blessing they could be to your family and what a blessing your family would be to her!

To all of you with empty arms, can I just remind you of God’s great love for you? He knows the longing in your heart. I heard a quote years ago that said, “When you get to the place where there’s nothing left but God, you find that He is enough.” It’s true. He is enough for your salvation, and He is enough for your childlessness. He cares and I do too.

About a block from my house sits a garden plot. It is on the corner of two prominent streets that I pass all the time. It draws much attention to passersby because it is immaculate. I never see a weed growing between the rows of vegetables, each row is as straight as a road in Indiana, and the vegetables are beautiful and flourishing. It also gets attention because they have a scarecrow family that has grown over the years. It started out just as a human family with a man, then a wife was added, now they have three children! The gardener dresses the family according to the holiday – it’s so cute!

• You always reap what you sow.

• You always reap more than you sow.

• You always reap in a different season than you sow.

Those things are certainly all true of that garden plot, but they also apply to the sowing we do in our children’s lives. My inclination is to want results of the sowing right now. When the girls were little I wanted to reap from teaching them of salvation; praise the Lord we did – they were both saved at young ages. I also wanted to reap gratitude, appreciation, and responsibility. Those are seeds that take long a time sprouting.

There are many other seeds that take patience, but we as moms have to just keep planting the seeds, keep watering; keep teaching. Because the soil of each child’s heart is different, they will each respond differently and at different times than another child – even a sibling.

Galatians 6:9 And let us not be weary in well doing:
for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.

The reaping is not up to us – that is up to God. Look for the harvest in your children’s lives as you look for the harvest in your garden, and know that it will come in another season.

Lovingly,

Grandma, on a winter’s day, milked the cows and fed them hay, hitched the mule, drove kids to school…did a washing, mopped the floors, washed the windows and did some chores…Cooked a dish of home-dried fruit, pressed her husband’s Sunday suit…swept the parlor, made the bed, baked a dozen loaves of bread…split some firewood and lugged it in, enough to fill the kitchen bin…Cleaned the lamps and put in oil, stewed some apples before they spoiled…churned the butter, baked a cake, then exclaimed, “For goodness sake!” when the calves ran from the pen, and chased them all back in again…Gathered eggs and locked the stable, back to the house and set the table…cooked a supper that was delicious, then washed and dried all dirty dishes…fed the cat and sprinkled clothes, mended a basketful of hose…then opened the organ and began to play: “When You Come to the End of a Perfect Day…”
Reminisce, premiere issue, 1991,

Does the previous paragraph sound like a day in your life? Okay, maybe we didn’t have to split firewood, hitch a mule and put oil in the lamps, but don’t you find that you move from one task to another from morning ’til night? But do we reflect the attitude that is represented in that poem? It’s an attitude of joy; how else could she sing, “When you come to the end of a perfect day” after all that back-breaking work?

Do we look at all we do as mothers as contributing to a perfect day, or do all those tasks rob us of what we would consider perfection? Is perfection being taken care of or taking care? Is it being served or serving? Is it having creativity surround us, or being creative? Each of us need to answer those questions honestly, but the reality is, whatever our attitude is, our children will pick up on it. They know whether or not we love being their mommy. They know if we’re happy in what we do. Remember the quote, “If Momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy”? It’s really true, isn’t it? We women set the tone for our home, so if we have a bad attitude home is not a fun place to be! We all have days in which we’d like to turn in our mommy badge, but those days shouldn’t be the norm. Perhaps we need to ask the Lord to help us to be like the mother mentioned in Psalm 113:9 “He maketh the barren woman to keep house, and to be a joyful mother of children.”

Have a good attitude about all that you find yourself doing today…make it a perfect day!

In this past week I had the blessing of holding two precious new babies that were born into two of our church families. They were less than twenty-four hours old when I saw each of them. Their eyes squinted to see what was going on around them. Swaddled in hospital blankets, their little arms would stretch out and either settle in for another nap, or they would begin to flail, whimper, then cry.

When I walk into the Christian Bookstore I am overwhelmed at all they have to offer. How many books are stocked on their shelves? There are way more than I could ever read, but the truth is, if you ‘re looking for a particular topic they will have it. Books on marriage, mothering, prayer, devotions, dieting, finances, dating, prophecy, faith, God’s will and much more can all be found with varying opinions on each subject! How does a person know which opinion is correct? Which author is going to lead me right?