#24 A Prayer for a Childless Mother's Day

Lord, let me give birth to beauty

Sunny and 75 is pretty close to perfection…

And that’s what we had in Maryland along the Chesapeake Bay this weekend.

I know this weekend can conjure up a whole host of feelings — so I pray that whatever you needed, you received.

It is a wonderful and special moment to celebrate moms and their role in society and our lives. I am incredibly thankful for mine and how she has loved me and supported me through so much! My love for nature was inspired by her and my grandmothers, and I’m so grateful for that, and that I was able to spend quality time with her this weekend. I know that’s a gift that I’m privileged to have and I don’t take that lightly.

Since this year-long series is supposed to be about my real-life, live journaling from the “front” of turning 40 later this year, I thought I’d share just a few words from my weekend.

This isn’t much of a poem, but a prayer, scribbled in my poetry notebook I take on my nature travels while I sat by the water, basking in sunlight, on Saturday.

As I toss a stone | smoothed over from the constancy of the bay’s waves | into the blue depths | sunshine sparkles on the water | mesmerizing me | making me intermittently close my eyes to the brightness | too much for me to take in | and I whisper through tears a prayer | Lord I give you this ache because I can’t bear it on my own | I don’t know why motherhood has only been a memory in my imagination | but let me give birth to beauty | let my words sow a harvest of hope | let my life me a nurturing presence | keep me pilgriming like a child | trusting you so that one day I’ll stand at the shore of heaven | smoothed over like a stone by your sanctifying embrace | blinded by your glory | alive, loved beyond compare, and life-giving forevermore |

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I celebrate every mother and am so incredibly grateful for every one of my friends and readers who has been given the gift of children. You are amazing and I pray for you! And… for me, childlessness is a grief I feel deeply.

And now for another both/and… along with that grief, the Lord has been doing the redeeming work He does in my life, and allowing me to move through grief to see the beauty and gifts I do have within the strangely wrapped gift of suffering.

Thank you, God! It was a peaceful weekend — much less tearful than years in the past (you can read about one of my past Mother’s Days in my essay “Empty Arms and How to Keep Going with Grief” in The Way Back to Ourselves.) There was so much and gratitude for the goodness and flourishing in my life. I even dusted off my tennis racket and felt like a teenager again out on the tennis court!

It’s actually kind of funny how this timing worked out, but with having a quiet weekend, and thanks to slow and steady progress I’ve been making the past few months — I was able to get a lot of work done on my book proposal this weekend. The gift of creating is one I treasure. I truly do pray my words — however they come into the world, nurture hope.

And ultimately, grief is grief. You probably have your own too, just not exactly like mine. For that, I pray for softness. I pray for the solicitude to wrestle with, though uncomfortable, the quietness and the pain. I pray for your heart to be open to God’s gentle whisper of love in those moments.

You may find a place for your own tears to be comforted and encouraged that beauty still exists, that the sun will still shine, in a poem of mine recently published on the Austur Literary Magazine blog: The Softness of Spring Rain. Below is an excerpt and you can read the full poem HERE.

Thanks for reading and following along friends. May you have a beautiful week filled with sunshine — on your skin and in your soul.

“You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.” - Psalm 16:11