"I knew..."

"I knew
I loved you
before I met you;

I had been waiting
all my life..."

The first time I heard Savage Garden's,  "I Knew I Loved You,"  it touched me in a place that was all about motherhood, and being a girl who loved horses.

Today, our daughters turn 29, 21, and 21. April 25th is a day that takes me apart - and puts me back together in new ways - every year.

As a girl, I wanted to be a mother -- even more than I wanted to be a lawyer. And I wanted that a lot. I didn't imagine my children, I felt them. I couldn't accept that they would never find their way into my arms. Years of infertility and fore-shortened pregnancies left me confused, angry, empty. Why would God put this love in my heart from early childhood, and not give me a way to live it out in my daily experience?

There are dozens of posts on this blog about my journey from empty womb to full arms, but this post, is about knowing, really knowing the presence of something, when everything else is telling you that you are delusional.

It's about refusing to give up, even when all the cards are stacked against you and your bank account screams, "are you insane?" But I knew. I knew that the love I felt in my heart, was not something I could create -- and therefore it was not something I could destroy. And believe me, I tried. There were moments in a lonely bathroom - once a month - when I just wanted the heartbreak of not being pregnant - again, to go away. Moments when I watch another hopeful trimester end in pain and heartache.

But I knew. I knew my God, because I knew this fierce love for these girls.  They were inextricably linked.  When I wasn't sure if there was a God, I was sure that I loved my daughters -- even before I met them. When I wasn't sure there would be daughters, I knew that God was Love and that this all-powerful, ever-present, all-knowing Love would not put that love in my heart without a plan for its fulfillment.

Someone recently asked me if I didn't think that perhaps I was too in love with my daughters. Well, if you ask it that way... No. There is no "perhaps" about it. I love them completely, utterly, unflinchingly.  This love has given me a sense of God's presence that cannot be shaken. A mother loving her children too much? If it were possible to even fathom that concept, then I could conceive of God loving us too much. And if there is "too much," then there would have to be some measure considered "enough."

In her primary work, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy gives this definition of enough:

"The depth, breadth, height,
might, majesty, and glory
of infinite Love fill all space.
That is enough."

That's my only definition of enough. When I have loved them with as much devotion, clarity,  joy, and delight as I know God loves all of us, well, then -- perhaps -- it will be enough. But too much? Never.

Loving these girls has been the thing that has given me the best of myself.  Loving them has been a profound gift of purpose, reason, focus, and joy.  Oh, such joy. Unfathomable joy.

Before I actually met each of them, I held them like the feather of a small bluebird in my heart. And I held that hope tenderly and fiercely - knowing that I would someday hear them sing -- and fly. When it was suggested that I might just want to be content with being an aunt, I refused to accept that being an aunt was a compromise.  I knew that I could be a loving, devoted aunt and a good mom. Because you see, I didn't just want to be a mom, I needed to be a mom. I needed to know that the hope within me wasn't separated from its Source -- divine Life and Love.

Three passages from Mary Baker Eddy's writings were my constant companions:

"Do human hopes deceive?
is joy a trembler?
Then, weary pilgrim,
unloose the latchet of thy sandals;
for the place whereon thou standest
is holy ground."

"God grant that the trembling chords
of human hope shall again be swept
by the divine Talitha cumi,
“Damsel, I say unto thee, arise.”

"When the real is attained,
which is announced by Science,
joy is no longer a trembler,
nor is hope a cheat."

Over and over again I would arise from the bed of pain, of  another disappointment, of the death of my dreams. I would find the fragile pulse of that hope, and breathe fresh purpose into its frail presence. It was not about "getting a baby," it was about trusting God to be the only Source of my hopes, my dreams, my desire to live less selfishly.

When I look at this date on the calendar - April 25th, the day that I finally met all three of our daughters - albeit eight years apart -- I can actually feel the way hope whispers in the heart. I remember looking down into each of their little faces and having my breath taken away, my knees buckle, my inner mother-tiger roar. I could feel the pulse of divine Life. I knew them before I met them -- and I know God.



offered with Love,

Kate