“As the Father has loved Me, so have I loved you.  Continue in My love.” John 15:9

“Motherhood is a woman’s one chance to assist God with a miracle.”  Erma Bombeck

In 1997 Mr. Rogers received a lifetime achievement Grammy award.  In his acceptance speech he thanked those who had loved him, and then he asked those watching to take ten seconds to think of someone who had loved them into being.  Who do you think of?

For many that person would be their mother.  Motherhood is indeed an opportunity to assist God with a miracle, as Erma Bombeck wrote. The most obvious is the miracle of giving life.  A mother sacrificially gives of her life to give another life.  Sometimes this is literally true! In the mid 1800’s almost 40% of women died due to childbirth, many as the result of puerperal fever.  In 2016 over 300,000 women died worldwide.  But giving of one’s life is figurative as well as literal, as many mothers place the overall health and well-being of their children ahead of their own. They forsake their own dreams for their children.

There is another miracle that a mother has the opportunity to assist God in, and that is the Miracle of Love.  The love that a mother gives to her children is an example of the love of God poured out upon all of His children.  This love begins in the heart.

The first sound an infant hears is the sound of its mother’s heart. Some have postulated that this is why people resonate so strongly with a drumbeat—as it reminds them of that first repetitive beat of the heart.  It is a mother’s heart that pumps life into the fetus, and that continues to give love throughout the child’s life. 

Another is the Love of giving a child a home.  Home is where the heart is. First the womb.  And then the warm embrace of the mother’s arms.  And always the emotional connection to the maternal source of life and love.  When a parent dies it leaves one feeling like an orphan, as though one is homeless without that person.

And then there is the love of holding a child’s hand.  When a child is born one of the first things a mother does is count the fingers and toes.  Think of the photos of the infant’s hand in the mothers.  The mother continues to hold the child’s hand until the child learns to walk, run and one day leave all together.  But the mother will always hold the child’s heart. 

All of this is ideal, of course.  Mothers aren’t perfect.  Some never want or love a child in the first place.  Others are simply incapable of providing what the child needs.  And that’s why there are so many children in foster care and needing adoption.  Not only from earthly parents, but a heavenly one.  And that’s what God does.

God gives us the miracle of life and birth.  Psalm 139 speaks of how God knits us together in our mother’s wombs and how we are fearfully and wonderfully made.  How precious each of us is to God!

And God gives us the miracle of Love.  Divine Love.  Jesus speaks of it in John 15. The love of the Father, poured out through the Love of a mother, in the love of The Son.  The Son who loves us with His whole heart.  A heart so big that He embraces everyone.  A love so big that He gives His life for everyone.  Divine childbirth so to speak.  And then prepares a heavenly home for us.

Carrie Underwood has a song entitled “Temporary Home.”  It speaks of a little boy bopping from foster home to foster home.  And a young mother who has no home for her infant daughter.  And the last verse, which goes like this:

“Old man, hospital bed.  The room is filled with people he loves.

And he whispers don’t cry for me, I’ll see you all someday.

He looks up and says, “I can see God’s face”.

This is my temporary Home, it’s not where I belong.

Windows in rooms that I’m passing through.

This was just a stop, on the way to where I’m going.

I’m not afraid because I know this was my temporary home.”

And until we reach our permanent home, our loving God holds us by the hand.  Always!  The Scriptures are replete with references to God doing so.  Psalm 139 is one.  “If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.”  One of my other favorites is Psalm 73 which says, “Nevertheless, I am continually with Thee.  You hold me by the right hand and afterwards receive me into glory.”  What a beautiful thought.  God holding us by the right hand throughout our lives.

So who has loved you into being?  A mother, perhaps.  Someone else who had a significant impact on your life.  And certainly God!  Who has poured out his heart, held your hand, and prepared your home.