I vividly remember preparing for our oldest child's birth. My husband never missed a doctor's appointment. We went to breastfeeding class, childbirth class, new parents class, and every class in between. The one class that wasn't offered was the A Baby Changes Every Aspect of Your Life, Including Your Spirit, the Very Core of Who You Are class. I didn't see that one in the brochure of all things baby. As I was laying in my hospital bed, signing all the paperwork with the nurse stating that I have fully read and understood what was about to happen to us, I remember thinking that I wish I had a midwife for my new self. Not only had I given birth to a new baby girl, but that baby was a sign and symbol of the new me that just arrived into the world. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to make the old me fit into my new role as a mother. I cried a lot of tears and held on for dear life as I finally allowed God to fashion me into a new creation as well. I left the safety and comfort of my familiar "womb-world" and went head first into the light and unchartered space of motherhood.
Motherhood is one of God's greatest ways for molding our soul-life and maturing our spiritual character. If we're open to being the clay in the Great Potter's hands, motherhood will draw us closer to the one who Created both ourselves and the new son or daughter we now hold in our arms. Motherhood softens our hardened spaces and fashions us into someone even greater than what we were before we had our babies. The hardened, and even tough clay of our hearts, warms up when touched by the Potter's hands, and through the gift of motherhood, we are stretched so thin that we are left with gaping holes and an unrecognizable shape, eventually being formed into something beautiful, a true work of art. By the careful design of the Great Potter, we are both the woman we once knew and the woman we will grow to love.
Motherhood is an awakening of the spirit. We are awakened to the parts of ourselves we never knew existed. Our mother-souls are like sleeping beauty awaiting her prince's perfect kiss. The birth of our children are that perfect kiss, and our prince, the Divine One. Awakening from our spiritual slumber requires a plan for spiritual growth, a desire to pray, and a commitment to the love God has in store for us. All over the world, mothers are craving the love and presence of God in their lives. Join mothers from all over the world who are striving to live awakened and authentic lives,thereby creating a world of peace for their children to live, thrive, and grow in. As mothers everywhere watch their babies slumber and marvel at how many hours a newborn will sleep, they are discovering that like their newborn babies, we are slumbering away many hours, days, and years, and now is the time to awaken and become alert to the spiritual nature of ourselves. Mothers everywhere are discovering that there is more to life than slumbering through the routine of our days without giving a second thought to God's design and plan that every event in our day is moving us toward a deeper peace and true happiness. Through having children, we have a newly discovered curiosity and thirst for a God who found us worthy to place in our hands the miracle of life.
Embrace your mother-soul's thirst for God. It is real. It is powerful. It is where every need is met. It is where you never have to do anything alone. It is where you will feel the love of God and it is that feeling that casts away any desperation and fear. It is that thirst that teaches you that there is nothing that you have experienced, or will experience, as a mother, that God cannot overcome, heal, or transform. You are the holy priestess of both your inner temple and the temple that is your home. Motherhood doesn't have to be an obstacle to that inner temple. Caring for children does not have to stand in our way of prayer, spiritual growth, and loving service. In fact, our children are the doorway, the key, and the path to the kingdom. Their innocent, spiritual nature, and their mystical essence, is leading us to God, not away from God.
I think the most important class a new mother could take, would be the class that instructs us on how our children are the gift that is helping us arise from our sleeping, spiritual selves. It is the class that God has designed to help us learn how to love ourselves so we can better love and understand how to love our children. It is the class that has at the core of its curriculum, our true happiness and perfect health, so that we might guide and love our children into their true happiness and perfect health. It is the class that has as its overall objective, forgiveness, especially forgiving ourselves. It is the class based on the textbook with the title, Guess What? You're Not Going to Be the Perfect Mother for Your Children, and that is Okay. You Will All Be Fine. It is the class that is devoted to developing a prayer life while in the trenches of mothering, the necessity of cultivating Silence, and the importance of praying with, and for your children. It is the class fully focused on the ABCs of mothering - Asking for what you need Believing in your worth and dignity as a woman and Connecting with God, and those who love you for who you are. It is the class entitled Transformation 101 - its description reading something like this - Where did I go? What happened to this body? Will I Ever Sleep Again? and Sex? Are You Kidding Me? Yes, God Can Be Found In All of This Too!
Every part of motherhood is teaching us that we are one with God, and we are one with the minds and hearts of everyone in our homes, our communities, and even globally. Our children have come into our lives as expressions of God and extensions of our spiritual selves. Yes, we are their parent in this physical reality, but we all originated from God, and our children, our spouse, and all family members are equally part of a spiritual tribe, and each of our spirits is teaching the other something about us that needs healing. We are all revealing to the other how we can lead happier, more fulfilling, peaceful lives. This should be part of the packet of papers that we sign before we take our bundles of joy home. Our roles as mothers and children are roles that we have taken on in order to help repair our separation from God, and to remember what real love feels like. There is an instruction booklet for every child born to a mother or adopted by a mother. It is inside of us, and we have access to every page of it whenever we pray. Our own awareness of our inner journey as a woman and mother is where God instructs us as to how to care for, provide for, and love our children into haapy, healthy, productive adults. The greatest gift God could bestow on you this Mother's Day is your willingness to open that instruction booklet, touch its pages, take in every word, and read it over and over again. Write notes in its margins, highlight everything that captures your attention. Share your favorite passages and phrases with someone else, smell its newness and its oldness. Never want to put it down or let it gather dust on the bookshelf of your mind. Give up a whole night's sleep so you can get to the best part and find out what happens. It is truly a very happy mother's day when the book she has always wanted to hold in her hands has always been inside of her waiting to pour its contents in to her life and into her heart.
