The sacrifice a son can't understand...
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I opened the old scrapbook style album that my mum painstakingly put together for me many years ago for the first time in a while today. I think it was a birthday gift and it’s one of the few I still treasure and truthfully remember receiving.
On page two of the book, there is a candid picture of a nurse handing me to my mum, umbilical cord still attached. I thought of sharing the picture, but I didn’t think my mum would appreciate the world seeing her exposed body.
But as I looked at this picture with eyes that better understand and experiences of witnessing my own beautiful wife bringing our five children into this amazing world, it struck me that as a son I can never fully understand or appreciate the great sacrifice a mother makes when they choose to conceive and carry a child.
In order for me to be here, writing this at 22:43 in West Virginia on January 24, 2023. My mother over 33-years ago made a selfless decision to conceive and then sacrifice comfort, her body, her energy, her desires, and so much more so that I could come screaming into this world and enjoy the amazing experience that life is.
Could there be anything more selfless than motherhood? More Godlike?
The sad thing in all of this is that I see mothers, my own, my wife and others, who after selflessly providing the opportunity for their children to experience all the wonders of life, spend too much time lamenting and crucifying themselves because they feel like they are failing their children. It’s true that some mothers do fail their children, but the vast majority of you mothers out there are not failing. Being imperfect is not failing. Making mistakes is not failing. Not being able to fulfill every want and need of a child is not failing. Being too exhausted to read one more book or play one last game is not failing.
Motherhood is hard and underrated by our culture obsessed with career over children. But mothers, especially those willing to sacrifice not only body but also career, are perhaps the most exceptional and worthy of our praise.
Today is not mothers day, but it surely cannot ever be a wrong time to reflect and rejoice that a mother was willing to provide me, and all of us, the opportunity to experience life. The only reason that you and I are here today is because a mother chose, even after calculating the cost, to continue her pregnancy.
God be thanked for the mothers who gave us life.
I want to live a happy, successful and fulfilling life, reach my potential and help others do the same.