Painful Joy

A dear friend recently forwarded an e-mail to me about a woman talking with a friend pondering the possibility of becoming a mother. It was all very touching, but one line in particular struck me:

I want her to taste the joy that is so real that it hurts.

What a great way to describe it! Many times have I said of Eliana, "I love her so much it hurts!"

Eliana will be turning two on Sunday, which is also Mother's Day this year. For all the effort I took to cherish every part of these last two years and never rush her growth and development she has still managed to grow up too quickly and is continuing to do so! I remember the exhausting nights when I was up every two hours to nurse my little newborn. I would tell myself, "Do not become cranky. Thank God for this special time and enjoy it because it will be gone before you know it, and the day will come, all too soon, that you would make great sacrifices for the chance to be woken up from a deep sleep so that you could hold her like this just once more."

Maybe I thought that if I could just appreciate it enough, that time would move a little more slowly.

I still say similar things to myself. When Eliana is being demanding or I have to get up in my awkward, uncomfortable state to help her with something for the upteenth time that morning I think, "Do not feel troubled. Thank God that she still needs you, still loves and desires no one more than you, and that she looks to you for guidance. What a joy it is to feel needed and loved! What a privilege it is to be a servant! One day she will be more easy to reason with and will rely upon me less, but on that day, part of me will miss the little girl who looked to me for everything and needed her mommy to kiss all the "hurts" away. A toddler can be taxing, but what can compare with those sweet little kisses and bear hugs from tiny arms? What can compare with the wonder found in every little thing through a toddler's eyes? O, how I will miss my precious little, little girl!"

I may have more children, but I will never get back these special times with Eliana. Once passed, they are gone forever. How valuable and cherished are these times! I wish I could so tightly hold onto the memories that none of them would ever leave me. But how do you perfectly capture forever that small, helpless cry of a newborn or the contagious laugh of a toddler? What about a touch or a smell?

O the privilege it is to be a witness to and participant of such beautiful experiences! What a great and awesome blessing it is to be a mother! Words just cannot adequately express how grateful I am that The Most High has entrusted this little one to me, even if for just a short time! The joy is so great that it hurts.

How can you adequately explain to a woman without children how such immense pain can give such immeasurable joy? How do you adequately express to her what a great privilege and honor it is to be a mother? How do you get her to understand that no matter how she thinks motherhood will change her, that, in reality, it will be so much more than what she imagines and probably not in the way she thinks? How do you get a woman who fears losing "her life as she knows it" to really wrap her mind around the truth that though her life as a mother will, indeed, be different, that it will also be so much more enriched and sweet?


To my Heavenly Father -
Thank You for so graciously bestowing such blessings upon me.

To all mothers everywhere -
I wish you such a joyful Mother's Day that it hurts.