What a Mother Can Do

There are four daughters at my knee, clinging to my pant leg, reaching to my hand, seeking my attention. They long to know, to daily know, that they are mine. They long to feel that they are accepted, loved, tended to ~ absolutely.

I am their mother and they have been given to me. A gift, undeserved, but much desired.

I used to think that the mother helped the child to grow, to learn and to become. And this is true, for certain. But how much more does the child help the mother to grow in patience and understanding, to learn lessons that only a child can teach, to become more like Him through daily laying down.

Four girls gather around me. We join hands and speak child-like words of grace and thanks. They scatter to do those busy things childhood holds for them. And I wait still. Girls gazing over books on bellies, feet in air, and girls pulling out tea sets for late morning delights.

I whisper well-practiced words of grace and thanks, prayed with desperate affection that comes from the depths of a mother's being. A place that was nonexistent until the first swaddled babe was placed into my nervous arms ~ the day a mother was born. A place that wrestles with the wills of the world, but longs to just rest in His will. A place that cares deeply, unbelievably deep, for the well-being of her children ~ the saving of their souls, the rising of their spirits, the laying down of themselves.

And so I choose to pray. Intentionally pray. Speaking words over their lives. Words that I like to call, Mother Prayers.