A Prayer for Mother

Yesterday, at the little Lutheran church down the street, a young mother made an announcement following the service. She walked slowly and sadly up toward the front, paused, and then turned to face the congregation. Her eyes were red and welled up with emotion. Her voice, small and weak, trembled as did her bottom lip. She looked so small and frightened. Fragile.

She set her jaw and began, "I don't know how to tell you this, so I will just say it..." And with that the tears started to stream down her face as she told us about the skull surgery her infant daughter must endure in a few weeks. The gruesome details brought every mother in the room to the edge of her own world. Not a one of us could hold back the tears.

We unconsciously grabbed our children to feel that they were still near us and physically well. We silently prayed for little Anna Grace's well being while we secretly thanked God it wasn't our child. I personally found myself flashing back to Reilly's first week of life. All the IVs and the needles and the screaming and crying. It all came crashing down on me, twisting my insides and torturing my soul.

For those that don't know, Reilly was hospitalized for a week following her birth due to an incompetent nurse's inability to take an accurate temperature and an overzealous pediatrician willing to sacrifice a new mother and her first born child to teach her students a lesson about infant sepsis. The experience has colored every single moment of my motherhood. It was my initiation into the sisterhood, wholly a baptism by fire. Nothing, absolutely nothing can cut through a mother like the cry of her child.

There is something about motherhood that changes a woman. I've described it before as a shift in your soul. It is that profound. You are never quite prepared for how different you will view the world or how much deeper you will feel. The connection you have to your child is stronger than any connection you have ever made before. It would actually baffle me at times that I couldn't feel her physical pain as they inserted yet another IV. How could I be this connected, but feel nothing? It was the worst anguish I have ever known.

There is a scene in Mel Gibson's movie, The Passion of the Christ, where Mary turned away so she wouldn't see her son stumble by carrying the cross to his death. She turned away because she couldn't bear it. But then she flashed back to a time when he was just a small boy and he fell. The sound of his cries brought her running to his side, to kiss the scraped knee, to make it better, to dry his tears. And so, Mary the mother of Jesus, turned toward her now grown son, to share in his pain as only a mother can. Watching that scene stirred such emotion in me that I let out an audible sob. I know that pain. Every mother knows that pain.

So when this young mother looked into my eyes and asked me to please pray for her daughter, I did. Immediately, I did. And then she asked me to pray for the surgeons and I did also. For the blood bank and for the blood donors and for the nurses and care staff and for her parents... on and on she went. But she never once thought to ask for a prayer for herself. And she is going to need them.

I pray that she finds the strength to smile at her scared infant daughter as they wheel her into surgery. I will pray that she is given comfort while her daughter is away and I pray for her to have patience. I pray that she has the endurance needed to cope with her own pain as she soothes her crying baby with sweet songs and strong arms. And I pray that she lets this experience color her motherhood as it has mine. For I appreciate my children's health and never take it for granted. It is the greatest gift I could ask for.