THE GROANINGS OF MOTHERHOOD

Yesterday I posted thoughts on mothering from Debbie Erickson. Today I would like to share with you a Mother’s Day post from another dear friend, Peggy Fitzpatrick. She is also a mother and grandmother. Peggy writes on a different theme, but one which so many of us mothers relate to—the deepest longings and yearnings for our children. I know you will be blessed by her sharing also:

“My heart was awakened at daybreak on this Mother’s Day as I do many days, with the awareness of deepest longings for my children, for their well-being and happiness, for the fulfillment of their destinies, and their absolute good.

Almost simultaneously I became aware that this mother-longing exists in an inexplicable conjunction with the deep groaning of all creation spoken of in Romans chapter 8. I am in awe once again of the sharing we enter into as mothers with this profoundest, indescribably, instinctive identification with the very heart of the Creator of all humanity, an identification that is felt and echoed throughout all creation, and more deeply felt within us than even our own heartbeat.

I know this is not only a mother instinct, it is a life instinct, deeply joined to our Father’s own deep longing. However, we as mothers are given a gigantic dose of this connection with our children that determines our joy and sorrow, pain and concern, righteous anger or deep peace for as long as we live.

Rabbi Shaul wrote (with a motherly longing) in Galatians 4:19, “My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you.” Again, in a very motherly description he wrote: “Who is weak without my being weak? Who is led into sin without my intense concern?” (2 Corinthians 11:29 NASB). And in 1 Thessalonians 2:19 (NASB) he says: “For who is our hope or joy or crown of exultation? Is it not even you, in the presence of our Lord Jesus at His coming?”

Romans 8:22, 23, 19, 25 (NASB): “For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now, and not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for adoption as sons . . . For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God . . . If we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we eagerly await for it.”

Therefore, to all of us who are mothers, whether through giving birth or through loving deeply, may we know the honor and the privilege today of bearing in our hearts the very heart of our God who longs for us with a longing too deep for words.

And may we draw near to our Lord Jesus who went before us in laying His life down to bring us all into the fulfillment of our destinies. Let us lean into this calling of ours, with faith and hope, with joy and an eager expectation of good. May all the good we desire for our children find its ABUNDANT, more than we can ask or imagine fulfillment in Him.

~ Peggy Fitzpatrick, Nashville, Tennessee.