Linda K. Smith

Celebrating Mother's Day. I would like to describe what pregnancy feels like to someone who has never experienced it. Pregnancy feels like you are walking around with precious cargo. It is an immediate, intimate feeling in knowing that there is another life growing inside of you. It is a feeling of fullness (unlike when you have eaten a meal). You feel your unborn child's amazing development at every stage of its growth.

The first time this magnificent, unborn child kicks its little legs inside of you feels like butterflies fluttering around inside your body. If you are wondering why butterflies, it is because these mythical creatures are rich in history, in mythology and folklore. They represent the soul, transformation, and rebirth. In many cultures, the butterfly symbolizes the journey of the soul after death or the transition into the afterlife.

There is not a word in the English vocabulary that chronicles, justifies, or aptly describes God. God and our being one with our Creator are the golden nuggets of wisdom when explaining the miracle the feeling of pregnancy brings. It is more than a physical feeling. It is highly spiritual in knowing that you have another life growing inside of you. Being a part of you. Feeding from you. But once the child is born, it is apart from you, yet always a part of you. Amen.

When I became a mother, I discerned the true meaning of love. It was far beyond my keenness of what love meant to me prior. It is a love so big and full of wonderment. It is so miraculous that it leads me to marvel how the human heart can ever contain it. Children are created in the image of God. God is not containable.

While resting my eyes on this amazingly tiny yet fully grown human being, smelling of baby powder and sweet milk breath, it occurs to me that I had never experienced an emotion of such overwhelming and immeasurable capacity! This feeling of motherhood is comparable to such extraordinary works of art by Michelangelo, Raphael, and others, including Morgan Wrestling, who captured the image and phrase "kissing the face of God." This is one such example of the miraculous painting of Mother Mary holding the Christ child. This work of art is a total expression of motherhood. This is a depiction of what holding your newborn child and witnessing the magnitude of this amazing human life, that you now hold in your hands, feels like. This is the face of God!

This gift received from Divinity felt softer than the softest cashmere blanket: warm, cuddly, full of life. If he or she were to have a taste it would be that of the ripest, sweetest fruit, a sweet, plump strawberry.

But what really comes to mind is God. Our Creator. God and his unlimited love for all his creations know no boundaries. God cannot be contained. This gift of a newborn child and a mother's love holds no boundaries. It will never be small enough to contain.

As a new mother it felt like seeing the ocean for the first time. Its waves are gently breaking against the coastline. You navigate it by gradually stepping into the quiet waves that are resting against the shore. You adjust your instincts and trust in the current that is navigating you farther out into the ocean. You balance and calculate the strength of the amalgamated white caps collapsing on you, around you, and in and along the seaboard. The sea and all its glory spraying the light salty air transported by its power, while the gentle breeze is transporting you to the very depths of your soul.

When God is communicating to us, and through us, it is to reveal to us His presence. When despaired over our child, he is ever present to comfort us, reassuring us that he knows you are trying or have tried everything in your human capacity, and as His Watchman, to guide your offspring into the path of His light. I had such a dream vision:

Untitled Dream

The waves began crashing onto the shoreline.

I watched my child disappear into the distant shore. The waves roll in sequences, in sets of three, spanning ten-foot intervals, and more. The one farthest from shore was eight to ten feet, then ten feet. The sea was dark. Angry. Angry melancholy, black foamy eight-foot to ten-foot waves.

I watched my child disappear into the distant shore. This kept occurring. I sat on the cold, gray beach watching the waves roll back, revealing my child to me, then crest high again losing sight of my child. This pattern of waves, their heights increasing, then decreasing, until once again, I see my child treading the waves that kept rolling in, and out, the cycle repeating itself.

The beach was empty on this gloomy, pale day, but for the two of us. Its darkness weighing heavy on my soul, like the fate of an unborn or newborn infant. The ocean. God. The sea representing the spread of God's word and the fullness of His knowledge, Isaiah 11:9, the challenges and struggles people face in life. God's interception when the Watchman is desperately trying to walk their child into God's light, to no avail, as in Isaiah 43:2 where the waters are a test of fate, and God's power and authority.  Amen.

Part Two

I have come to witness how certain individuals are covetous of youth. The same person who envies and yearns for yesteryear begs the question: Is it because they refuse to take the time, pain and sacrifice in their own life to grow into and fully develop their human potential, to grow in their knowledge of the Lord? Are they uncomfortable about their mortality for lack of trust in the Lord or because they are estranged from Him? Or is it because they fail to embrace or recognize life as everlasting? Please don't let that kind of individual be a role model for our youth.

I used to look at my beloved mother with adoring eyes, and wondering how she felt as she approached her later years in life. Now I know.  For me, she always remained the same intelligent, beautiful, vibrant woman I knew as a child. I was in awe of her beauty, aesthetically and spiritually. I did not see the elasticity in her face break down. I did not see her flesh begin to fall away from her lovely bones. I did not hear anything less than the eloquent wisdom that poured from her lips like a top-shelf vintage wine. I miss you, mother. Happy Mother's Day. Until we meet again! Amen.

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