Being Mother! (Happy Mother’s Day Friends!)

I believe each woman has the meaning of mother written in her heart.  It comes with her at birth, lasts through life, and if she answers well to that call is her glory as she passes on to eternity!

I have seen this ‘mother’ nature come with my girls at birth.  My twins Emily and Anna would care for at least 7 or more baby dolls in their play: dressing them, feeding them, loading them up in doll strollers, along with all their bitty baby bags each day. At night I would find a line-up of baby dolls somewhere in the house long after their 2 year old mommas had gone to sleep. All my girls have followed in their demonstrations and desires to ‘mother’ early on.  At 9 months old, Clara became a mother when she beheld, for the first time, her brand new baby cousin, Camden.  From that moment on she held a baby doll under her arm, on her hip, for the rest of her childhood! And my little neice, Brielle, came to see my twins with her mommy and went home to play with not one baby doll, but 2, from that point on.  I am sure each of you have had the chance to witness the tender beginnings, the very first glimmers of everlasting motherhood.  The urge, the need, the desire to care and nurture is so perfectly powerful within us as women. We can obscure it, downplay it, even dim it, but I believe as we courageously answer that call our hearts are truly filled with our greatest joy and fulfillment!

There are many ways to mother! I can attest! For there were those who mothered me as I grew up! My own mother and grandmother of course were always there for me, but aunts, family friends, neighbors, teachers at school and church, even well-known faces of motherhood that softened my heart and made me GLAD to be a woman shaped and grew me with their loving influence.  I know all of you can think of women who have done the same for you. Now I have others who have helped ‘mother’ my own children, those who have mattered so much in their making, their becoming the best they can be.  I am SO deeply grateful for these women who make such a great difference for me, for the world!

I have been a mother to my own children—born one or two at a time—these 18 years now. I really can’t describe to you what its meant to me to be a mother.   Mothering has been the HARDEST and happiest thing I’ve EVER done in my LIFE! My joy grows with each year of my children’s growth.  Sometimes, many times, I feel my heart may burst from the very joy of it!! Other times I am kept awake at night with the worry and work of it. Then in the morning I bask in the sheer WONDER and reward of it! My heart is always praying, even quaking, for the sake of my children and their futures, hoping I can help them reach their best.  How I hope for them, would give my life, everything I can of it, for their good. I know each true mother, with or without her own children, will do the same.

I am deeply grateful for my husband who has always encouraged me to put mothering first in my own priority list. He has always supported me as a mother giving me the time and means, as much as possible, that I need to do the best I can at it. He jumps right in to help me with whatever he can to help me with whatever I need to keep mothering the best I can.  Whether it’s a nap, a break, a clean-up crew, some fun with him or the kids (or even without them for a minute!) to refresh me, or simply a kind word or encouraging perspective that I need, he has been there to strengthen me as a mother. 

There’s no way to tally the good that this has done for me and our children. My heart wishes urgently for every woman to have that!! And to those that do not have that right now for whatever reason, our sincere prayers and greatest hopes go out to you.  

I am endlessly grateful for the tradition of dedication to mothering in my family.  If it has not been so in yours be the beginning of it today. Just as my friend did. She was born to an alcoholic and absent mother and father . She did not know what a happy, well-functioning family looked like, but she read, studied, dreamed but most importantly worked her way through the rearing of a healthy, happy family.  She knew the amazing feeling of success the day she saw her daughter hold her own new born baby in her arms.  She knew then, she had succeeded, she had been the beginning of a legacy of lasting dedication to healthy home and family that would continue on with the next generation, and the next, and the next, even grow!  Now that’s a great reward. My husband and I both come from families of women who care deeply and actively for their children and have put their marriage and mothering as first priority in their lives. If this has been your blessed beginnings KEEP the tradition! Be true to all that blessed you in your beginnings. I hope my own daughters remember as they choose their career and life paths to choose their children first, for it IS the very essence of future, for them and all of mankind.

I hope our society remembers to value motherhood for it is the reason we have ‘society’—life itself. Mothers and fathers, GOOD mothers and fathers, are the MOST needed commodity on earth!

There are times I could have turned my responsibility to mother my children over to someone else for much, or most of the time – easier that way it seems perhaps.  But in the end, NO ONE will LOVE my children as much as I do. And I have learned you turn away the challenge you lose out on the reward.  And truly there is no reward greater than that which comes of putting your very best effort and time into parenting.  Investing our BEST in our children will yield the greatest and MOST lasting rewards for ourselves and our future, even our WORLD!

I always knew I wanted to be a mother, but I never knew—could not even have imagined—the joy and fulfillment that would be mine as I strive to meet the challenge of motherhood today.

I am so endlessly grateful to be a woman. I hope you women out there, friends I know and friends I have not met yet, embrace who you are, a WOMAN!- with a ‘mother’nature! Nurture your natural inclinations to nurture others! God ingrained these desires in us for our benefit, the benefit of the future, the benefit of all mankind!  And would we be truly, deeply, lastingly happy doing any less?

To all you who want to be mothers, to all those supporting and strengthening mothers, to you who are mothers,
and grandmothers today… happy, HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!!!

Celebrate Mothering in your family today!!!

Please write down your thoughts on mothering today, share them with your family – maybe even share them with us.

Happiest day to you, Dear, NEEDED mothers!

Love, CaMarie (a Mom) and Crew

[Thank you to my sister Kristi Law for her beautiful photography!]