Mother’s Day and the Single Woman

So today is Mother’s Day. I have never been married, but how would the man in the Info Booth at church know that when he smiled and said, “Happy Mother’s Day” to me as I walked by.

Really? You think I’m a mother.

I suppose he was just being friendly, but it gave me pause to think. While my friends have been getting married and having babies, I’ve been “birthing” books. I’ve never known the joy of holding a newborn infant of my own in my arms, but I have known the thrill of opening the box of books from my publisher when my first book came out in 2007.

Power Prayers for Women (Barbour Publishing) is my firstborn. She’s grown and out of the house now. Oh, she’s doing great! In fact, more than 200,000 readers worldwide are finding help, hope and healing through the power of prayers.

My second was delivered in 2010, a helpful book on getting over a relationship breakup called, When Love Ends and the Ice Cream Carton Is Empty (Moody Publishers). She’s in that transition time of moving from infant to toddler. I pray for her as she grows. She has so much potential to transform lives!

And, I’m due October 1 with my third. Yep, it’s another book on prayer but this time on hope for hard times. Everyone has challenges and difficulties in life, and there are stories to tell, and prayers to be written. Pray that all goes well in the gestation and delivery.

I think of the hope and hardships of my close friends who’ve delivered babies, and known the sorrow of babies that never came to full term. My friend Nicole had a pre-mature baby last fall, born at 1 lb, 2 oz. So tiny! And today she is nearing 10 lbs. She is still on oxygen but we’re hopeful that will soon cease. The other baby, a twin, did not make it. She was named, buried and remembered.

Being a mother is not without heartache.

My friend Laura, now a mother of eight-year-old twins suffered the loss of her baby in the womb at eight months, almost to delivery.

Tammy was told she had a very slim chance of ever getting pregnant and today she has the cutest three-year old ever (I can say that since she in my godchild) Now she is pregnant again—and adopting internationally.

Everyone has a story…yours may or may not include motherhood with actual children. Maybe you are a “mother” in other ways. Maybe you have other callings.

Either way, God sees. He knows. And He cares about your place in life.

You still belong.

And you are still well loved.

On that, you can rely.