My First Mother's Day Reflections

This time a year ago, Lawrance and I had just completed an application to adopt here in Taiwan.  We were just taking the first steps of a long journey.  Perhaps that made Mother's Day a little easier on me last year.  I wasn't a mother yet, but  I did know that someday, even if years away, I'd be a mom.

Oh, but our merciful Heavenly Father, had different plans for us!  So true is the verse that says "The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps" (Proverbs 16:9, ESV).  In fact, going back and checking my charts, the day I ovulated was the same day we mailed in our application.  I have no doubt that we were obeying the Lord by filling out that application and submitting it.  And, I have hope that adoption is still a future option for us. But those are posts for another day.

It was right after Mother's Day last year that we found out we were expecting!  I've been thinking all week about how much has changed in a year.  To think that this time a year ago our sweet little Eden was "tiny ball consisting of several hundred cells that were multiplying madly" (babycenter) and today she's a 13lb bundle of joy who loves sucking on her fingers and playing with her toes.  It is simply mind blowing how much she has grown in the last year.

We are blessed beyond measure.

Each Mother's Day for the past five years was progressively more difficult.  It was so hard to sit there in church while little kids passed out carnations to all the mothers.  It was hard to feel the physical ache of my empty arms and the emotional ache of a deep longing left unfilled.

So, I am grateful to be able to celebrate Mother's Day this year.  Not because I want to be recognized for the sacrifices I've made or because of the quality of mothering I'm doing, but simply because I am able to and because the Lord has blessed us with a little one, entrusted us with her to help her grow and develop, to train her in the way she should go.  This Mother's Day and all that follow, I don't want it to be about me; it never is nor should it be about me.  It will always be for me a day to rejoice in the blessing of being able to be a mom.

Sure there have been sacrifices and adjustments, but the joy of being Eden's mommy far surpasses any of the discomforts of pregnancy, the hard work of labor, and the exhaustion of taking care of a newborn.