Dream of Motherhood

Dreams… they seem to come and go, they adapt, they change, they inspire, and sometimes they are stolen.  One dream of mine is to be a mother.  God created me as a women to have the desire to be a mother.  I have always had a heart for children, but the feeling that grips me when I think about having my own is the ache of my heart swelling inside of me.  As if the thought itself could cause my heart to grow.  Having Cystic Fibrosis has in a way challenged that dream.  It hasn’t been stolen, but it so often feels unattainable.  The dream of someday, maybe, oh please, one day!

With my personal battle of CF I spend a lot of time questioning the future.  It could be argued that I spend too much time daydreaming.  So much of me longs to know what lies ahead, but there is a part of me that is glad I don’t.  As I look to the future I know that God is the one who is in control so all these thoughts are just what ifs. 

I have lost dreams of mine over the past few years and at times I live in the fear of the reminder that it will happen again.  I used to get so frustrated with God because I felt that these dreams were dreams He had given me.  He inspired them and then He let them fall apart.  Some of those dreams held the purpose of pushing me forward.  They motivated me to fight the battle I have been immersed in.  Some of the dreams at first appeared to be stolen, but were really just adapted.  Some dreams just disappeared and perhaps those were mine and not of God’s will?

As I was thinking about my desire to be a mom someday I worried that dream would be stolen from me as well.  Then I had a thought… Just because I don’t get to be a mom in this life doesn’t mean I wouldn’t get to be a mom at all. 

The hardest deaths to process are the deaths of children.  I couldn’t imagine a worse gut wrenching pain than losing your child.  As a mother it would be so hard to accept that God had any purpose in that.  That any purpose He had could counterbalance the ache in your heart.  I have known heartache, but there are some situations I can’t even begin to understand what people are feeling and this would be one of those.

We are all told that God will bring something good out of the pain, brokenness, despair, and utter darkness.  Even if we know that, even if we believe it, it doesn’t stop the pain, we still break.  The promise brings us hope, but it can take some time wandering in the darkness before we can see the light of that hope.  Sometimes even when God creates something beautiful out of the wreckage, we are still left with the question of why did it happen in the first place.  Though we may never know the why, I like to try and imagine what kind of ends could justify His means to allow such pain. 

So for all of the moms who have lost a child, perhaps this thought will bring some healing.  Maybe this thought will bring you some comfort.  Because for me as someone who hasn’t experienced your loss, we still share a dream and this thought has eased my mind through the wondering of if this dream will be stolen. 

What if those babies that end up in heaven are there for someone like me, someone who didn’t get to be a mother here on earth?  What if my dream is stolen from me, but when I get to Heaven my job would be to care for one of those innocently lost children? I would get to help care for them until you arrived. 

That thought is the one thing that I could see as having enough purpose to ease the heartache of the loss.  It wouldn’t dismiss the heartache, but maybe that would be part of the beauty and the hope one could hold onto?