Not by your own choice
You are here not by your own choice, but through the miracle of procreation, a man and a woman coming together with another person resulting. Now, that's you. It's not a matter of reproduction, as if we were made in some factory, but instead a matter of creation.
The miracle that is you began at the very moment of conception. And then, in a mysterious way, you began to grow, a little heart beating, fingers and toes and all the rest. But it was you all along, protected, nourished at thoroughly at home in the womb of your mother. There is nothing like the mother/child bond. As I understand it, a little bit of a child's DNA remains always in her mother. Thus there is a bond that can never be broken, an entanglement. This is true even with those children who are never born, whether through miscarriage or abortion. A mother carries with her that child forever.
As we think about our mothers, we may take still more comfort and awe in the fact that Son of God, through whom the world was created, came into this world through a conception by the Holy Spirit, so that He, like you, has a mother. That is to say, our Lord God is entangled into fabric of our humanity, even as we are attached to Him through baptismal waters and through a chalice blood that runs deep.
Now, there's no doubt that Satan has done his best to do away with motherhood. The shocking sin of a mother taking the life of her own child is too great a sorrow to think on, and yet we must. And it's so sad that motherhood is so often rejected, traded in for careers, money, and silly bucket lists.
If you are reading this, you have a mom, and that fact is reason enough to offer God thanks. If your mom cared for you and loved you, then your thanks multiply a thousandfold. And if your mom remained with your father, well, then, another thousandfold. But if things did not work out for you, at least as you would have liked, then let's work together to strengthen marriage, natural marriage, against all imposters. It's not about making motherhood and marriage great again, but simply recognizing the value and fighting for it.
Thanks be to God for motherhood. And thank you, Mom.
The Rev. Dr. Peter Scaer is chairman and professor of Exegetical Theology and director of the M.A. program at Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Ind.
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