Are You My Mother?

I have a Mother’s Day story for you, just in time. There was a man named Elkanah who had two wives, (again with the polygamy), Penninah and Hannah. Penninah was able to bear many children for her husband; not so, Hannah. “Because the Lord had closed her womb, her rival kept provoking her in order to irritate her.” Geeze! This went on year after year until Hannah could not eat. Her husband asked her, “Why are you downhearted, weeping? Don’t I mean more to you than ten sons?”

This prompts two very different reactions in me. I admire that Elkanah does not value sons over his wife. That he cares about her grief and wishes to mitigate it. That he values their relationship even more than children.

And yet, I also see a man who, like many, has no idea how deep the need for childbearing can be for women. That some women see their supreme contribution in this role and, no, hon, you are not enough.

Year after year, Hannah begged her God for a son, promising to devote his life to the Lord if she were so blessed. Finally the Lord hears her. She gives birth to a son and names him Samuel.

True to her word, as soon as he is weaned, she takes him to the Lord to spend his life in devotion to Him.

Wow.

What a major sacrifice. I admire her remembering her promise. I am in awe of her strength of unselfishness. In these ancient biblical times, she knew what philosopher, Kahlil Gibran said centuries later…

On Children
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts, 
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, 
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, 
but seek not to make them like you.
 For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
 The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, 
and He bends you with His might 
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let our bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, 
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

To all mothers out there: Happy Mother’s Day! Bless your little ones, whether young or grown, near or far.

Confession #80: I admire women choosing not to become mothers if they feel that choice is right for them.

Confession #81: I hope those who yearn to be mothers, who are not, do not “give up.”

Confession #82: My first child was born in June of 1977 because I wanted to have the first grandchild in my husband’s family. There, I’ve said it.