Mother’s Day is a beautiful time of celebrating incredible mothers and their innumerable sacrifices on behalf of their families and I’m so thankful for my mother’s indescribable impact on my life! Yet, it is also a day of quiet pain and heartfelt longing for all those women who desire to be mothers yet due to the struggles of infertility, losses through miscarriage, or unwanted singleness, their prayers and desires have not been answered. God in His infinite goodness and love sovereignly charts a different path for these women as His Word makes it explicitly clear in many passages how He is in absolute control of each womb. (Gen. 18:14, 29:31, 1 Sam. 1, etc) As I’ve written before, these are the challenges that are a goad for us to recognize our finiteness (Eccl. 3:13-14) and turn in humble dependence to our God who loves us more than we can ever truly understand. Though His ways are often inscrutable, His character is not! (Eph. 1)
Sarah never got to meet our 3 children this side of eternity and so in that way, this day was fraught with a mixture of emotions in our marriage – confident hope to see them one day in heaven yet tinged with the sorrow of our loss. While I can barely imagine what Sarah’s entrance into heaven was like, I take great joy in thinking about the moment she got to meet our children!
To the women who long with expectant hope on this Mother’s Day, while I do not know your exact pain, I do know what deep pain, sorrow, and loss are like. But even more than that, I know the God who has met me in that agony with all the grace and peace I would ever need. (2 Cor. 12:9-10) Cry out to the Lord with the inexpressible groanings, prayers, and tears (Rom. 8:26) of your heart, and then seek to make Him the supreme treasure of your heart. In your trial and struggle, you can now go forth to minister to and comfort others (2 Cor. 1:4) with the comfort God gives you and in so doing to help bear one another burdens and show the love of Christ!