Reflections on the Gift of Motherhood

Today I am very thankful to be a mother, a Mami.

I am thankful for my beloved children who have taught me so much.

I am thankful for a Husband who loves me and who joins me in a team effort to parent our children. He has taught me much as well and has been so patient with me through the tremendous adjustment as we entered parenthood together and as I continue to grow in this role.

I am especially thankful to Our Loving Heavenly Father who has entrusted me (and Karl) with this blessed identity and important task. I remember a time when I did not know if I would ever be a mother. I am thankful that God in His infinite wisdom put biological parenthood aside so that our hearts would be open to receive God's gracious plan for our life - adoptive motherhood/parenthood. God had not only a plan for Karl and me but a significant plan for Anji, Claudia and Andres.

Seeing and hearing about other mothers that bring forth children from the womb, the children will ask me when and if I will have a baby. I tell the children that God has different plans for our family - that God has shown us that He wants to us to add children to our family that otherwise would not have a safe, loving family. Children who would otherwise have no one to care for them or teach them about Our God. That although they and future children do not come from my womb, I eagerly pour my life into them and have a fervent love for them just as if they had always been mine, as if they had come from my flesh.

These conversations reminds me of the intense and unmerited love God has for me. I did not seek Him out or request to be adopted. I did not even know I needed to enter into a new family.

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment — to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ. In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession — to the praise of his glory."

Ephesians 1: 3 - 14

I am so thankful for a wonderful, loving, generous, incredible Father. He loves me to an incomprehensible degree. I was not born into His Kingdom, I was adopted.

Thank you, Mighty Father, for all of the work you had to do to make me yours. Please teach me how to love lavishly like you do and follow your example by adopting many children and introducing them to you, the ultimate life-giving Father.