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As I sit here as a married missionary with no natural children on mother's day, I am reminded by the Lord what a blessing it is to be a mother- what a powerful thing.. mother's show an aspect of God's character and nature that is so precious and unexplainable.
When we say, "a mother's heart", everyone has an image that comes to mind on just what that means. Most people have a better inclination when they hear "mother's heart" then when they consider God as "father".
I know that when I think of God's qualities that He chose to display through mothers, I understand a side of Him that makes me feel safe, a side that makes me giggle, and a part that lets me know I am dearly loved.
However, this mother's day is different for me. Although I am apart from my own mom- and do not have my own 'children'- nor would I ever claim to have any idea of what a mother feels for her own child- I do have children in my life that to the extent to which I am able, I feel like they are partially my own.
I think of a little girl who I work with who is brutally beaten by her own mother. She has no father- and the mother that is supposed to offer her a loving home sells her to be raped. I think of this little girl just a few weeks ago laying on my lap giggling and I can't even imagine how she finds the ability to laugh.
It breaks my heart in half to see how generations of sin and hate of God's ways has literally destroyed the very thing that God graciously placed inside of mothers.
I think of the young girls who I work with who were kicked out of their house when they were 6 because their mother preferred alcohol over feeding her own children. I have the face of a 7 year old young boy I see throughout the week who roams the streets high on drugs because his own mother, the only person he had left, decided that he was not worth her time. I think of the little girl who cries in my arms weekly because her mother hates her... and this little girl is rotting on the insider, desperate to earn her mother's affections.
It breaks my heart to be the only person who remembers a child's birthday when their mother lives in the same town.... or to see a child sold by her mother for sex just to earn some extra cash...
I think of my beloved Izzy, who died this year from AIDS which he contracted while being sold as a prostitute- who ended up on the streets as a prostitute at 6 years old because his mother turned her back to him... because her mother chose sin over her own child. I can't understand how anyone could 'not' chose him.... Carlos and I loved him like he was our own son, at least to the furthest extent that we (who have never born natural children) can understand or conceive. My heart longs for this boy on mother's day... and my heart longs for the millions of kids who have no one else longing for them this day, this day that we set aside to celebrate the very gift of children, called "mother's day".
Often I question this burdened "mother's heart" that the Lord has blessed me with.... most times it is painfully debilitating... as I watch children desperate to feel a mother's embrace..... my heart breaks within me.... I want to take them all.
I know that the more we know the Lord, and the more than He begins to fill and heal every area of our own lives, the more we begin to see His mother's heart. The qualities of His own nature that He has manifested within mother's, trying to show the world how desperately He loves them, desires to take care of them, and how faithful he is to His children. The Lord has a father's heart indeed, but He also has a mother's heart.... if fact, I believe that His heart is so big that He had to make to genders in order to even begin to give us a little glimpse of who He was. My prayer is that children in this world can know God's mother heart.... that this parentless generation can see God's heart manifested through us, the church. God, heal this broken world.
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