On Motherhood

From everlasting to everlasting the LORD’s love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children’s children.

—Psalm 103:17

I have seven dear friends from high school. We see each other every year or so for an official gathering, and more often when life allows. In recent years, motherhood has descended upon several of us, with all the hope and love and beauty our hearts can contain, and all the pain and fear our souls can bear.

I’m surprised that the topic of pregnancy and birth and mothering, for every single one of us, has been touched with pain or just a shade of heartache. The odds of that surprise me. Eight women, and eight stories of waiting or yearning, of brokenness mixed in with deep delight.

Our hearts are full, but also a little tender, bruised, tired. Motherhood, and the journey toward it, has battered us a little bit, each in our own ways. From ambivalence to longing to loss, from the anger that our bodies won’t do what we want them to, to the consuming, crushing love for a baby that is just hanging on. From the emptiness every month, over and over, to the physical brokenness of our bodies, to the deep questions—When? When? When? Why? Why not?