My Meditation During Mother’s Day Mass
Life felt complete as I walked into Mass this morning, my husband at my side and our teens beside us. Sunshine and blue skies were a welcome relief from flooding. After I sat down with my family, I felt doubly blessed. We would get to worship together on Mother’s Day.
Then they were short a server, and my son went to help. My teens are nearly grown, and we’re on countdown till they leave home to venture their own paths. In those silent, still moments on my knees before God, before the service began, He spoke to me.
I loved you and your family so much I gave MY Son to save the world. Are you willing to give?
During the Psalm response (Psalm 16), my parenting life flashed before my eyes, and I better understood his question.
Lord, you will show us the path of life. Keep me, O God, for in you I take refuge; I say to the LORD, “My Lord are you.”O LORD, my allotted portion and my cup, you it is who hold fast my lot.
Eighteen years ago, we didn’t know if we could have children who would survive. Like Hannah, there was a time I prayed and cried to the Lord to give and save my children.
Lord, you will show us the path of life. I bless the LORD who counsels me; even in the night my heart exhorts me.
I set the LORD ever before me;with him at my right hand I shall not be disturbed.
During my pregnancy with my son, I spent a month on bedrest hospitalized 100 miles from home and family. It took Paul 3 days of blindness to convert, and it took me 4 weeks on bedrest to change my life. In those nights alone, He exhorted me and changed my world forever.
Lord, you will show us the path of life. Therefore my heart is glad and my soul rejoices, my body, too, abides in confidence; because you will not abandon my soul to the netherworld, nor will you suffer your faithful one to undergo corruption.
It’s only through the hand of God and angelic intervention that my children and I survived their births. He answered my prayers. And now He’s preparing to work in my children’s lives. Like Hannah, I had given my children to God, for Him to guide and direct their paths. When Samuel was weaned, Hannah left him on the church steps to continue his own path in service to the Lord. My teens are older, but I need to study and learn from Hannah so I too can step back from my children for them to discern their own paths. God will show them the path of their lives. God called Samuel while he was in the temple.
Lord, you will show us the path of life. You will show me the path to life, abounding joy in your presence, the delights at your right hand forever.
When Hannah left Samuel in the temple, she still returned each year with a cloak for him.
The Lord showed me this morning the new path of my life is to step back as my teens step forward on their own paths. My prayer is they will answer His call and know Mom and Dad are on the cheering section in the God Squad bleachers, covering them with prayer and urging them to go for the paths to which they are called, wherever they lead.
When they do, I will be singing “My soul doth magnify the Lord….Holy is His Name.”
