Recently, as I was pouring out my heart to God over the exquisite joy and pain the depth of my soul’s commitment to motherhood has brought me, He reminded me in sacred testimony that my soul’s commitment to motherhood was one and the same as my commitment to Him throughout all my life—back to the earliest years of my knowing of Him.
He took me back and revealed to me the sincerity of that young woman’s heart and how significant motherhood—childbearing—was to her (to me.) He reminded me how in every hour I was trying to offer my whole soul to Him in response to His words, “As ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” (Matthew 25:40) That was how I perceived what I was doing. How I interpreted it. How I defined it. What it meant to me. How I experienced it. How I tried with all my heart to live it.
In other words, when I gave myself to my children’s father in our temple marriage, I pictured it in the light of those words. And when I gave myself to the potential (and certainty) of becoming with child, again and again, I did it in the light of those words from my beloved Jesus.
And with every conception, with every nine months of gestation, every hour of labor, and every hour of caring for each child, I did it with the intent of administering to one of His sons or daughters as I would unto Him—believing, trusting in His purposes in my life in giving me each precious baby.
I defined what I did as giving my life for Him, to Him; putting my life in mortal danger each time in order to bring another child of God, another beloved loved one safely through the veil into this life.
And to give them what I thought was a gift I had always longed for but never had—brothers and sisters to play with, to grow up with, to grow old with. My own lonely little inner child rejoiced to think my boys and girls would never be alone, that they would never play alone or go to bed in a bedroom alone.
That was the intent of my heart, the reason for my choices. I know God knows what I intended and has compassion and grace to bring all things right someday. I will not be ashamed of His testimony to me—either then or now.
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