when mother's day hurts.....

so many articles and blogs on mother's day and motherhood this week and so many great thoughts and truths to ponder, i am truly thankful and refreshed by many of them...and they target groups of moms that need encouragement and breathe life into the tired ones while the ones who guilt and shame themselves into feeling a failure, these posts and words champion the mom back to the calling and encourage her to refocus or relax and chill a bit or to remember that our true identity isn't motherhood at all, it's our royal heritage as a child of God....all such good sweet stuff.

but there is yet another group of women that always seem to get overlooked at mother's day....

the ones fighting like hell just TO BE mothers. 

the ones who's arms are empty from death or who's insurance is maxed trying to conceive or the ones who've miscarried too many times to count, the ones who's adoptions have fallen through and were never meant to be.... they walk office and house halls and fill pews and restaurants with others and sit silently usually in their grief and they wait for the day to be over or wonder constantly where they are headed and what the future holds....i know because i've been one of them.

my first mother's day without sydney was excruciating. i am not sure my arms ever felt so tangibly empty, in comparison to the massive amounts of celebration around me...missing that newborn cradle arms in church that sunday, on mother's day as women carried little ones in their bellies and arms around me. yes, we had our sweet boy in his classroom at church and i swelled thanks to be his mom. yet, there was a stinging absence, a weight that somehow was hugely missing in my motherhood title. i was a mother to TWO, but one was missing. i felt half a mom. and my arms were noticeably empty with a little Grace girl missing from them that sunday...it's a day to celebrate the very thing that you feel robbed of? how do you survive mother's day when you're a mom to a child already Home? you endure.

the following year, after our miscarriage, mother's day was yet another biting sting. sitting there in church again and seeing more newborns and full arms, still thanks for our wonderful little man but he was away in sunday school once again and so i sat there empty armed as i pain-smiled at all the new mommies and growing families. and begged the Lord to help me not bolt the room in anger and despair and panic. "twice i'd failed at being a mom, had the chance taken from me," i heard in my head. "my body sucks and won't work. and we will never have the big family that we want. what kind of mother is that that keeps losing her children?" i thought to myself over and over....the enemy began to smear lies all over my heart... shame, guilt, sadness, despair....and once again, i simply endured.

mother's day was such a painful reminder for me. instead of feeling honored and splashed (which i don't even like by the way, give me simple homemade treasures and breakfast in bed and i am awed!) with commercial hallmark glory or Kay's jewelry like on TV, i was hiding and harboring deep resentment and bitterness, aching grief and a hollow hole in the mom shaped heart that had been born when we had our first child and lost two following after him. i was suffocating each mother's day and treading water the best i could to put on a happy face and just get through the day....endure.

mother's day AND baby dedication at church, on the same day about did me in a few years back. i began talking with other women who felt the same aching way. some who struggled painfully with infertility and mother's day was just another horrid day to just get through. and they feel left out of in a stinging way that no one really knew but them. some who struggled with multiple miscarriages and others who had buried infants or their newborns like us. all such a hard day. such great expectations and honor lavished on so many and yet so many sit silent and shaking in pews and churches and quiet in restaurants that day vibrating pain through their bones as they wonder when it will be their turn.....

my heart began to ache for this newly aware-to-me-community of women before me, one that i had never known of before my own losses....one that made me want to start a breakfast tailgate in the parking lot for us so that we didn't have to face the group with our hurting hearts and ugly feelings.....every story and heart is different, each canvas looks different but all these hurting hearts, i just can't be ok with the silence and ignoring this elephant in the room and it's just been something near to my heart.

mother's day each year has been easier to bear and endure and i am so thankful for the chance to remember not only the calling that is motherhood and am grateful for the title but mostly remember Who i belong to as a child and go there for rest and comfort. but i still always have that soft hurting spot in my heart for the ladies who painfully endure it like i have done in the past and still fight today myself each year...this sweet tree we planted for her birthday is syndey's tree...and behind it sit her brothers in this picture. that's my three together. in that form. takes your breath away doesn't it? empty but full.

and so again this year, i say, sweet sisters of pain, i get it. the scab on my heart is off and i am with you, you are not alone. i have already been praying for people by name and asking God to fill my heart with others i don't even know that might feel what i am talking about..."i will pray for them Lord, i don't want them to feel alone. i don't want them to feel like i do and i worry they will think they are alone in the hard...and they are NOT alone...." and so i pray. for all those faces and hearts. and yes.  i pray for my own.

we are facing the same sunday again coming up in a few days just like in one's past.

mother's day. and baby dedication. and loss. all together.

because i will sit in those seats once again this sunday....and pray to endure.

ARMS now full of our two precious boys, praise God, missing our sweet girl with aches i can't express...but yes indeed thankful for motherhood to two young men that make me someone i wasn't before them.

but this sunday, i will wonder once again how i will make it through a baby dedication on mother's day. as i fight tears and pain at the baby that was going to be ours for months, due any day now, through adoption...but now won't. adoption is messy and it has to be because it comes from broken places and broken people and sad circumstances. we knew that going in. yet we still dreamed up names, went to the ultrasound at the start of the New Year and kept the crib up and started on the nursery. a few little things were bought and a journal was started by me and liam to write letters of prayer and longing for this upcoming birth of a little one that would join our family. and then the messiness that is adoption broke through the cisterns two months ago and bled out into painful hurt and lies and a mind changed and we were left with lies, hurtful lies and no answers. and a big change of plans. ones that we submitted to in our walk with the Lord and knew He was sovereign in. but also plans that included taking down another crib and putting away name lists and pink hair bows once again. while we have chosen forgiveness and love, mercy and grace and fully understood and know the risks with adoption loss, it's still really hard to convince my heart not to hurt this mother's day. on baby dedication day. another stinging day.....another empty arm day with roses handed out to moms with new babies and i will sit and pray and pray for all those women in that room with me, as i pray for myself. to just get through it....there is such pain with such loss...

BUT God, rich in His mercy and Love.... has constantly reminded me and us of one simple thing in the last few painful months.

Who you ARE and Who you belong to, Who you serve...determines EVERYTHING.

and if you are HIS, you aren't alone or despaired without hope.....

how you can respond to the hurt and how you choose to endure and go forward can take a drastic trusting MERCY u-turn for the Cross and pull you back to surrender. and His grace can alter your pain walk.....it can, it truly can.

we are HIS and we belong TO Him, His children and we serve Him and allow Him to rule our lives and write our stories and determine our steps and our days. and yes, even the landscape that is our family.

yes i am a mother. BUT more importantly first, i am a child of God. i am HIS, He made me His painfully so by death overcoming death and when i close my eyes and picture myself at the foot of the cross watching him bleed for me....letting him alter my soul's future, i have to allow Him to direct the rest of it too, even when i don't understand it or want to cry out NO. He's 'given us everything we need need for life and godliness' Peter writes in 2 Peter 1:3...and i know and trust that He is in all things and has really good purposes for the life He ransomed in me.

He wouldn't die for me so radically and then abandon me or throw that freed life away. He will use it. hurt and all. He will.

my title of motherhood IS a sweet blessing to me, i am beyond grateful for the blessing of being a mom to two boys here on earth....it's beautifully sweet and humbling and hard and messy and wonderful. there is also pain that is in another title i have....a mother to missing children, that i don't get to parent or know here. and it's an every day reality i face and i endure and fight for Joy and give thanks...but something about mother's day just seems to throw the pain back in your face....like a silly simple question to a titled antique dealer of how money antique cars do you collect or a titled art collector when you ask him how many paintings they might own......ah, mother's day, yes how many kids do you have? when will ya'll start trying for kids? how long, how many, why not?........ah, the hurt those questions can bring to so many women...i talk to friends who struggle daily with this, not just on mother's day, but every day that their infertility or losses single them out in crowds..

...so many will hurt this mother's day. some in silence and others will wipe wet cheeks in song. will you see them? will you notice them? puddled eyes hiding behind sunglasses or jetting out quick from a church service to avoid the awkward conversation or painful looks or many pregnant ladies in the line in the bathroom or a table across the way full of kids at lunch....will you know how to look for that hurting woman? do you know one personally? a friend or family member? the one that hurts so much inside but is ashamed to talk about it or feels odd man out, or doesn't even know where to begin with all her emotions? can we pray and find these women and love on them? can we pray for them and hug them and just say i love you? that the LORD loves you so much? can we not step over their feelings with platitudes or verses on that day and just love instead? can we just ask HIM to bring peace to a hard day and a hurting heart?

how does this silent hurting woman endure?

many hold bitterness and anger, many grow cancer roots of bitter rage and fight depression and anxiety and envy and jealousy and hide in their pain, because so many don't understand loss. they might wear the 'fine' masks and function quite well around you or they might just weep at every turn. i've been that combination before. it's such an isolating place to live, that world. it's dark and suffocating and no light can seem to break in......but listen to some Hope i can show in some other encouraging examples....

a young lady who struggles to be a mom for so long, is a teacher. everyday she is 'mom' to those 10 kiddos in her room and wipes tears, bandaids playground ouies, opens applesauce lids and wipes noses, cuddles during reading time and answers their 359 questions about why the sky was blue, feeds them all daily with knowledge and unconditional love...when they are hurt or afraid or happy or sad, SHE is the one they run to and rely on for 7 hours a day and she is their 'momma' while they are away from home..she is a mom without even knowing so. she endures...she uses her nurturing gifts God gave her and puts them to use and she endures. she hurts but she's useful. and she endures.

another young woman waiting to be a mommy has a very interesting job in healthcare and it brings her in contact daily with really hurting kids who need special care, some abused and neglected and others in severe trauma, afraid and hurting. she gets to calm fears and wipe tears and make laughter happen with stories about silly animals that distract fearful kids, she gets to hold heads and pour unconditional love on her tiny patients in ways some mom's either ignore or are distracted in their own ways from doing at times. she serves as 'mom' in that role many days and uses her heart gifts and serving in a nurturing way to love little ones and she endures. she bravely puts on the 'nurse' cape and endures with courageous love.

yet another woman can't adopt to be a mom that way but helps in so many ways serving in the community with those in need, fundraising for adoption, helping orphans in tangible monetary ways and praying, praying for so many hurting. she helps out at schools and volunteers and channels her want-to-love on so many...not being able to adopt right now? that hasn't stopped her from loving NOW and serving. she serves and loves unconditionally with that mom-shaped heart God gave her and she endures. she touches lives and endures with courage.

and then yet another lady, struggling to have kids....serves like crazy with young kids and pours her time and emotions and energy into ministering to them and loves on them in a motherly way that some can't even get from their own moms maybe at home. she serves them with love and respect and spends time with them and listens. she nurses hurt feelings and curious minds and wandering spirits and she is mother to so many without even knowing it. she uses her beautiful mom-shaped heart that sacrificially loves others daily in so many arenas and doesn't give up, she endures. she shows up with courage and loves for His others and endures.

another waiting momma tends to her elderly neighbor with errand running or meal taking or listening on the front porch to her hurts or needs or just old stories from way back when. this woman uses her mom-shaped heart to say yes to God to use that nurturing however she can. she blesses others with it and He brings great peace to the neighbor she can love like that. she serves with courage and endures with a fighting for others kind of love....

these are the stories that inspire me. to not give in and think i am broken and can't be used. i know i am in both categories....and i think that confuses people. you ARE a mother so stop whining.....yes, i am. but my other title of bereaved parent and adoption loss now lumps me into another complicated category with the first title. it's a weird mix. one i still don't get really myself. and one that tempts me to think i am broken or something is wrong with me....and it's a big fat lie.

if you are breathing and have a heart, He can use you. did you hear that? it's truth. we can love and serve and help and give and work for His children and His people all over and love love love till we feel there possibly be can't be more love to give and He gives more. we can volunteer and we research and pray about fostering and adopting, we can sign up for big brother/big sister and we can help in our local youth groups, we can use the nurturing mom-shaped heart He created in us as women in ways that DEFY the enemy's lies that we aren't worth anything if we can't mother our own. we can fight back and endure a Yes. a yes to using our heart gifts in news ways....ones that don't waste one single ounce of that sweet love you have to give and lavish on others....

BUT oh friend who might have glassy eyes by now at this end....hear me, we can hurt too. we are allowed to hurt and to grieve and to feel sadness over such losses. when we allow the hurt to be real and share it, He can work with us and do work in us. our hearts weren't meant for this world, we weren't meant to fight death and separation and sadness and lost dreams and aching.....His Shalom garden never would have never given that lot to us, ever. but sin and the curse did. and so we fall. we fall hard. BUT it is HE that breaks our fall and rescues us and tells us HE is enough for every hurt and every breath-taking-away baby dedication endured and mother's day rose not taken. He has come that we could fall deep into Him and cry out to Him and He saves us back. Not just once on that beautiful cross with Blood. but every day with His Spirit Help. every hour. every dedication and painful holiday. we endure for the Joy set before us and to help others and to grow closer to Him and to fall more in love with Him so that He can be our enough. and when we will allow Him to be the enough, peace comes and fills those hurting spots with a balm only He can bring. it may not always make things better but oh mercy how it does make it more bearable. let us give thanks for a God-man who knows pain and knows just how to comfort because of it.....

AND then, let us come together as women and solider on with those who hurt this sunday, who hurt everyday....let us ASK God to put them on our hearts, in our pews, at our tables and serve and love them. and with kindness and gentleness, freedom to hurt or grieve, let us usher in community for these hurting sweet souls and tell them we are not moving forward forgetting them or leaving them behind. let us hold out hands to them, and hearts that listen and try to understand. let us open the circle wider and fill in the gaps that hurt can cause and let us love this sunday with His eyes. because He sees all and knows all and is pointing our generation of women to help each other endure hard truths like painful mother's days for empty armed ladies. our churches and neighborhoods and schools hold these growing-in-numbers- numerous brave souls. hold fast, friend who hurts. this heart, that is glassy eyed now writing this end, knows what that means now too. and i am for you and love you. and bend on knees for Jesus peace and Cross heart life that covers over any hurt we carry. and pray that HE would fill our lives and hearts and hurt and losses with Himself as we endure hand-in-hand together in His grace.....