Mothering With Mary
I married my college sweetheart one week after graduation. Being so young and fresh-faced, my sweet husband and I were confident and so very excited to take on the world as a new couple. I remember such enthusiasm during each step of this ‘adulting’ jxourney: arriving at our first apartment in a new city with literally just the clothes on our back; our first hand-me-down furniture pieces cobbled together with Goodwill and discounted big box store finds, our first little house with its crooked walls and crumbling brick walkway, our first puppy snuggled up with us in our first big investment (a new mattress!)… I can still recall the joy and thrill of living a life that was thoroughly and completely our own.
We felt pride as we experienced each of these memories and milestones. And in what felt like the right order of this big new life together, within a couple years of marriage we found ourselves expecting a baby. How absolutely perfect, I remember thinking. That old song from my elementary school playground days played in my mind, “First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes ME with a baby carriage…”
I so clearly remember those expectant days as my belly swelled and new life stirred within me. I was so excited to be a mother, and way too naive to be anxious about what was to come. Long walks in the North Carolina sunshine soaking in the quiet mornings, lazy summer days floating in the community pool, and regular doctor visits where I was happily poked, prodded and monitored filled my days with joyful expectation as the baby boy growing inside of me consumed my every thought. I could not wait to meet him, hold him, mother him. Before I met him, I had but an inkling of how much and how fiercely I would love him.
A Posture of Service
When my son was born, the concept of love that I held in my heart burst into a million tiny flames that consumed me with fierce emotions I certainly could not have predicted. Love did not seem an adequate word to describe what I felt for this tiny creature, this little human who came from me and somehow wrecked my heart in the most stunning and beautiful way.
Every breath I took in those first few days and months was centered on him. Was he cold? Hot? Hungry? Tired? So many cries to discern, so much love to give, so little sleep to be had, for sure. Amidst the bone-tired exhaustion, tears of joy and overwhelm, and learning curve of mothering, I found myself so often in a posture on my knees.
In those days, it was less a posture of prayer for me than one of service. I was changing diapers, snapping tiny buttons on onesies, folding laundry, and hovering near my baby as he lay on a blanket, the rhythm of work and love so evident even as my knees, and my soul, were so weary from this transition.
The Blessed Mother Beside Me
As my son grew, and his sister joined our family, this posture of surrender on my knees continued to be a theme. Our amazing little people began crawling and toddling around the house, and I found myself more often on my knees at their level: stacking blocks, zooming little trains around a track, reading board books until they frayed at the edges, wiping little faces and noses, changing even more diapers, and still working so hard to love these glorious gifts from God.
I cannot and would not say that I did this perfectly. I was exhausted and overwhelmed so much of the time. Many, many evenings I would sit or lay on the floor with my babies in a state of complete exhaustion, anxiously waiting for the relief that would come when my husband arrived home and bedtime would finally commence so that my weary mind and body could rest.
I experienced deep moments of depression and anxiety that threatened to pull me under, and laying on the floor snuggling these babies was the most I could give on so many of these full but frazzled days.
I can look back and see the tender presence of our Blessed Mother in these fragile, early moments of my own mothering. As I learned, loved, tried, failed, and cried with exhaustion, Mary was there. She was right there with me on my knees, covering me with her sweet mantle of grace and peace. She was the gentle, imperceptible voice that whispered to my heart when I thought I had nothing left, “You can do this. You are made for this. You will get through this.”
In true Marian fashion, she was guiding me to her Son, to the cross, to the realization that love means to will the good of another, and that sometimes in that willing there is difficulty and suffering.
From Service to Prayer
As my young children grew, and more babies came, the time I spent on my knees multiplied. Yes, I was still doing all the physical caretaking that mamas do, but I was also being drawn into a posture of surrendered prayer.
I was learning an important lesson: I was not the self-sufficient, confident and fresh-faced young bride anymore. I needed help. I needed grace. I needed sleep!
And God began to draw me into a beautiful relationship where I recognized my littleness and His greatness. Motherhood humbled me, friends. There it is.
I was receiving the great blessing of knowing who I was, and that I was not capable of handling this big, beautiful life on my own. Prayer became a lifeline for my mother’s heart.
I prayed that my children would know Him, and that I would know how to lead them. I prayed when they were hurting, physically or emotionally. I prayed when it seemed I had nothing left to give them, and that in my frailty and humanity I was just messing it all up.
Oh, how I prayed, prayed, prayed.
And as those prayers sustained me and strengthened me, I saw the Lord weaving His goodness and glory into the fabric of our imperfect lives. He was a constant presence, steady and strong, and I found my heart leaning into the peace that only He could provide, always with the gentle, sweet love of Mary coming alongside and mothering my own mother’s heart.
On My Knees Still
My children are no longer crawling or toddling or in need of a lot of physical caretaking. They are teenagers and young adults with a new set of important and magnificent needs.
They need boundaries, and guidance, and patience, and modeling of what it means to give and receive love like Jesus. They need a mother who loves them fiercely and protects them at all costs, and who also knows when the right thing for them is the precise thing they do not want, and has the courage to disappoint them in that time and space in order to form them on their journey toward wholeness as a beloved son or daughter of God.
In this space of my motherhood, I am still on my knees. I am begging God for more humility, wisdom, and strength. I am asking Him to lead my children to Him and to make a way for His presence to be felt in their hearts that are inundated each day in society with so much noise, relativism and chaos.
I am digging deep, past spaces of fear and worry and anxiety to a place of trust and surrender, where He reassures me that these are indeed HIS precious children, and that He will never forsake or abandon them.
And I am also resting with Him and allowing Him to show me the way, a seemingly ever evolving path that is paved with the gifting and grit of motherhood.
And here in this tender place of need on my knees, I imagine Mary right there with me. She is praying with me and for me, and she has her hand on me as she looks up at Jesus and says, “My Son, your precious daughter needs your love and grace and reassurance. Please come close to her.”
And there I sit, with my Jesus and His beautiful Blessed Mother.
In this still small place of solace, I am held and known and loved in all my brokenness, just as I am. And here I will return, each and every day, to gaze upon my Savior and be held by the mother who was brave enough to say Yes without counting the cost or questioning the difficulty.
O Jesus, make me brave like your mother. May I, and all mothers, imitate her example daily as we are drawn to our knees in humble gratitude for the miraculous gifts we have been given.