 |
| Photo by Dawid Sobolewski on Unsplash |
Being a mother—this has always terrified me. The discomfort and pain, the lack of sleep, the complete surrender of personal desires... That doesn't sound very appealing. Not to mention, I feel incredibly under-qualified. If motherhood was a job and I had to turn in a resume, there would be no reason for Heavenly Father to hire me.
And yet, he will anyway. Me, an under-qualified candidate who has always dreaded the idea of having children.
Someday, I'll be a mother. Weird.
But this post isn't for me. I write this for all of those young mothers that I know. The mothers that I see trying so hard to raise their children and still stay on their feet. They all look so strong! These new mothers take the pain and the fatigue with such grace. Yet, I know it can't be easy.
If they are anything like I would be, they don't feel qualified for the work they are doing. It must be overwhelming and just plain exhausting.
If I were to send these amazing mothers anywhere, it would be to Elder Jeffrey R. Holland's talk, "Because She Is a Mother." When I become a mother myself, I think I might listen to this every day. It's that powerful and reassuring.
The part that stood out to me this time around was the very end, when Elder Holland compares mothers to the woman in Matthew 9:20-22 who had the faith to be healed, but did not feel worthy enough to approach the Savior directly. I had never thought about it before, but this woman is so similar to the mothers I know: She did everything in her power to find the cure to her disease, hiring doctor after doctor, taking medicine after medicine. I'm sure that she prayed to Heavenly Father for help during those 12 years of sickness. Any mother will do the same, doing everything in her power to raise her children the best she can.
And just like with the woman in the Bible, the answer comes in Christ. He is the healer, both physically and spiritually. If you think about it, mothers really do experience miracles every day—how else would they be able to keep going with little sleep and no time for themselves? That, to me, sounds like a miracle in which the body is literally being healed. So too can mothers, like the woman in the Bible, be spiritually healed as well.
So to all the mothers out there who are feeling a little overworked, "You are doing God's work. You are doing it wonderfully well. He is blessing you and He will bless you even—no, especially—when your days and your nights may be the most challenging. Like the woman who anonymously, meekly, perhaps even with hesitation and some embarrassment, fought her way through the crowd just to touch the hem of the Master's garment, so Christ will say to the women who worry and wonder and sometimes weep over their responsibility as mothers, 'Daughter, be of good comfort; thy faith hath made thee whole'" (Holland).
