Motherhood: "You are the closest thing to the Savior your child will ever know in this life."

Read this tonight as I was nursing Lila.  I've been reading interviews on www.mormonwomen.com and it's been very inspiring.  This has been the best thing I've read yet.  I love being a mother and I feel the Spirit testify to me that I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing right now.  I just feel drawn to Lila and to being there for her, to sacrificing things for her, and I want to be a good mother... close to the Lord, relying on Him for guidance, mercy, and help as I raise my children.  This was written by a woman named Emily Spencer.



When we moved to Wisconsin for my husband’s medical schooling, we were hit with about every possible major life change imaginable: a move from where both our families lived to halfway across the country where we had no family or any friends at all, a brand new (and our first) baby, the simultaneous drop of two full-time incomes to zero income, my husband returning to full-time schooling, me going from full-time work to constantly being at home, and then feeling trapped there, because we had also dropped from two vehicles to one, which my husband then took to school, etc. Besides all these major life-changes hitting at once, my precious new baby also happened to be extremely colicky; thus it is sufficient to say my induction into the world of motherhood was not the rosy picture I’d always envisioned. Adding to this was the postponement of my educational goals and dreams, which I desired greatly, while I watched my husband go off to school each day to learn all kinds of fascinating things, throwing his heart and soul into a field he loved, and got to choose, whereas mothering seemed to be my predetermined and singular path, regardless of my talents or interests.

This was a very hard time for me. I felt a great sense of pain and failure at not feeling the peace, joy, and contentment that I’d always been taught I would I feel in this new role—a role I’d always thought I would embrace. Finally it had arrived, and not only did I not enjoy being a mother—I hated it. Of course I loved my child, but the passing hours felt so menial and mundane. They inspired no sense of accomplishment, no intellectual stimulation, no intrigue. Where was all the profound joy I was supposed to be feeling that I’d heard about all my life? And what were my gifts and talents, my ambitions and goals—the righteous desires of my heart—given to me for, if I was now to shut them off (as the culture seemed to indicate was the “right” thing to do)? Lastly, if I was forsaking these things for a higher calling, why didn’t the intrinsic joys of the higher calling not only replace but transcend the joy I’d felt before? If I was faithfully and dutifully doing what I was supposed to be doing, why wasn’t I happy?

We happened to be visiting my parents right at the height of my bitterness. I remember pulling my dad aside and sobbing to him as I related my misery. His answer to me was that I must pray—pray for peace, pray for help, pray for understanding—that I would be able to discover the divinity of motherhood, and find peace and joy in this calling. Though I knew he was right, feelings of bitterness and cynicism persisted. That night, emotionally drained, I crawled into bed and mustered enough energy to mumble only half-heartedly into my pillow, “Please help me. I really, really need help.” Then, emotionally exhausted, I fell asleep.

Two days later, we were back home in Wisconsin, and we were getting ready to turn in for the night. As my husband began to pray, I suddenly felt an impression begin to enter my mind, which then spread to my heart and subsequently consumed my whole being. It was clearly coming from a source outside of myself, a power greater and higher than I was. It was quiet and still, and yet it consumed my whole soul. It felt as though time had stopped and my consciousness hovered in a state of suspension between two different realms. I don’t remember hearing the rest of my husband’s prayer, though it was still going on. I could fill volumes detailing the piercing and powerful message that was conveyed, and yet it came to me fully in only a matter of seconds, and it came in perfect stillness and gentleness, and was imparted tenderly, lovingly, and totally void of any judgment. To describe all that I received and felt is beyond the scope of discussion here, but the crux of the message was this: You are the closest thing to the Savior your child will ever know in this life.

After this moment passed, I sat on the edge of the bed for a long time. The anger and bitterness that had raged in my heart was quiet. I had heard all my life that “motherhood is next to godhood” and “motherhood is divine” and so forth, but I had never felt the depth or literal nature of this truth. It had always seemed to me just something nice to say—cliché expressions at best. Now, for the first time ever in my life, I sat and thought, motherhood is divine. Motherhood is the noblest thing a woman can consecrate her life to.

A mother is Christ’s sacred stand-in. She is a type and shadow. As I cling to Jesus to save my soul, so does a child cling to its mother for all sense of salvation that it knows. Jesus, Mother—these are the names that are called out when we need protection, guidance, wisdom, love, comfort, sustenance, rescue. Whether we know God or not, whether we have loving relationships with our biological mothers or not, we all crave the nurture of some higher power, of some loving guardian. Since that life-changing experience, I have discovered this metaphor to have boundless applications. To me, the fact that women have generally been regarded as lowly and lesser throughout the ages is just another symbolism between women and Christ. People mock and spit in the face of motherhood—the most exquisite and godlike of all her capabilities, that of being able to beget, nurture, and guide life—the same way they mocked and spit in the face of Him who saved us. Just as there was “no form nor comeliness; ….no beauty that we should desire him” (Isaiah 53:2), there is nothing on the surface level that is overtly triumphant or exalting about motherhood; indeed, in the flow of day-to-day rhythms, it can seem rather common and mundane, like “a root out of a dry ground” (vs. 2). As “he is despised and rejected of men” (vs. 3), so is motherhood. As we “hid as it were our faces from him” and “esteemed him not” (vs. 3), so does society hide its face from mothers, so does it not esteem them.  Just as “surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows” (vs. 4), so does a mother weep with her child that weeps. Just as “with his stripes we are healed” (vs. 5), so does any benefit to the child represent some sacrifice of the mother—time, money, education, employment, leisure, sleep, etc. Anything the child gains is something, in some form, that she cannot have for herself.

One brief verse of Isaiah that is very poignant to me is where the Lord plainly and succinctly states how He succors His children: “As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you” (Isaiah 66:13).  To me, this verse perfectly encapsulates the metaphor between the mission of mothers and the mission of the Savior.  It embodies the very heart of both motherhood and womanhood, and why we do what we do: it is to emulate Him who is the greatest nurturer of us all.