A few weeks ago, someone mentioned to me that their church didn't recognize Mother's Day, being that it is a "secular" holiday. While I get that it's not in the church calendar, I also realized that I would never call it secular, because it has been the most refining, spiritual practice of my life...every moment.
This weekend was full-full...with a service Thursday night honoring a long-time member of the WBS family, a powerful alumni banquet on Friday night (right against a beautiful wedding Friday night as well), and with graduation first thing Saturday morning.
Matt's been fighting a cold all week and has been going and going, with board meetings mixed in all between those major events, and a lot of people to see and connect with along the way.
It has been mentioned to us by several now that this doesn't seem like a very convenient time in our lives to have bonus children, and there has never been said something truer, except that perhaps it is also a very inconvenient time in the middle of their young lives to be in the heart-wrenching situation they are in, as well.
Yesterday seemed to carry some hope of conclusion, we all helped them pack last night, praying peace over them and clinging to hope...Not because we are weary, but because we are so anxious for His very best. We had a special day at church planned, Matt had thoughtfully reserved a spot for us all at a Mother's Day Lunch, and then we were sending off His kiddos He had entrusted to us for this short season, and having family dinner with our beloved neighbors, two of whom have been very much good Mother's to us.
Last night, I fell into bed after so many events and so much happening at home and Matt feeling worse and wiped, and not an hour later I woke up violently ill. I have never been in my life sick like I was last night. I spent the whole night on the bathroom floor, sick again and again and again, and by this morning was quite shook up over concern for a 34 week old baby, too, when I couldn't stop being sick and couldn't take one sip of water.
So we started the day instead on hold with the hospital, trying to determine what we should do due to baby on board...In the end, I took an urgently called in prescription, Lily and Sofie oversaw the finishing of the packing, two sweet friends brought lysol and sprite and an extra car to haul everyone in, and I sent everyone off to church with suitcases and delirium, not prayers and peace, as I had hoped.
Matt took everyone to church, and to the Mother's Day lunch and I slept HARD the 4 hours they were gone.
But while everything within me had been crumbling, so had all the good and hopeful plans. Fell apart hard and harsh and violent, and as I sat on the porch in the sun all afternoon, watching my four play, desperately trying to keep down sips of water and desperately praying for children not my own. After a horrible day no children should have to experience, I propped myself up in a chair this evening and welcomed everyone back home, suitcases back upstairs, dinner on paper plates, braiding hair and hard, teary bedtime conversations....no dinner with neighbors, no special lunch, no Mother's Day at all, except.
Except.
Mothering, truly , there is nothing secular about it, nothing brunchy or facebooky or flowers. We attempt each May to celebrate what is always more than we can handle alone, what is always at the least convenient time, what is always too much, what is always burning the candle at both ends. Mothering is the most sacred, hair-braiding, paper-plated, tear-wiping space on earth, because the world we send them to and sometimes get them from is so, so broken.
Mothering is making sacred the shattered cracks in the middle, it is clamy and from the bathroom floor, it IS sacred served on paper plates while someone always somehow falls out of their chair and someone else doesn't like what we're having.
Mothering is all about the wringing out, and the only way to survive all the inconvenience, all the 24/7, all the hurting and healing and hopeful and heartbreak, is to be drawn so darn close to Him that He is in every drop of our mothering.
Mothering is sending out, and bringing back home again, knowing with every fiber that all these children are HIS, dearly loved by Him, and gifted to us in seasons to be poured out vessels of His love.
I am so thankful for the mothers who have shown me and given me Jesus, for it is the ONLY gift I just cannot possibly do without in my own mothering. I am thankful for the many who have shown me inconvenience and sacrifice, wrapped in grace and with a hug. I am thankful for the moms who have loved me unmerited (and sometimes, when I've been awful!), who have burned at both ends for me, who have taken me on in ways I'm sure they received criticism for, and was at their own expense.
Mother's Day is sacred because my mother is with Jesus, and the rest of them are with Jesus so much that I glow in their unmerited and sacrificial love.
I don't know what else could be more sacred than all that, even on crumbled up Mother's Day.
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