Empty Arms on Mother's Day

[Trina]

A friend of mine wrote this for those who have lost pregnancies, or babies, or who never could get pregnant at all -

I know it was hard to sit in church and hear the praise for all the moms. I know it hurt when they called up the youngest and oldest moms, or handed out flowers to them, and you were dying in your pew. Or perhaps you didn't even go today, knowing what you would hear, how it would pierce your very soul.

Or you went to dinner somewhere and the restaurant handed out flowers to moms. Or your best friend got Mother's Day cards and shared them with you because it gave her such joy.

I know how the sound of a newborn tears at your heart. How you sometimes decline invitations to a friend's house because you can't bear to look at another child when your empty arms ache. How you see a child that is the age and coloring of the child you lost - or how old they would have been - and in that second, you hurt so badly you can't even breathe.

I know you feel so alone today, that no one understands, that this pain in your heart seems so large you feel like your heart will explode trying to contain it.

I know these things, and I ache to touch your pain, to bring you something that would blur the edges of your pain and ease the tight, tight band around your heart that never goes away, but I can't. I can only tell you that I see you, I ache with you, and I carry you in my heart.

But I also know there is One Who knows how deep the pain goes, how He weeps with you at the result of that first sin when death and illness were set loose among us, how His arms ache to hold you and comfort you. And I urge you to go to Him with your hurt, your anger, your desperation and hopelessness, and pour it all out before Him.

Because I know that time in His presence heals, that only He can make you feel not alone, and that He can fill those empty spaces with His peace.

Father, touch the broken-hearted among us today. Pour Your peace into those whose arms are empty and aching. Give them courage and strength to carry on. Help them to heal. Let Your presence surround them, quiet them, ease their burdens, and give them hope.

I ask this in the Name of the One Whose back was torn with stripes to buy us healing, Whose head was pierced with thorns to ransom us from the kingdom of evil, Whose heart was broken by the thrust of a spear so ours could be whole, Jesus. Amen.