Mother’s Day is bittersweet. My relationship with my mom has had it’s ups and downs so honoring her doesn’t always come naturally. On top of that, my own identity as a mother is different than what I thought it would be at this point of my life. And to complicate matters even more, my mom had six miscarriages before my older brother was born but she doesn’t recognize that she has other children besides the two of us. In turn, she fails to recognize me as a mother, which is profoundly hurtful.
As practicing Catholics, Rex and I have always been open to children. Whenever asked the dreaded question: “When are you going to have kids?” My response was always, “Whenever God blesses us.” As time went on this exchange became harder and harder, especially since we had been married for two years before we had conceived our first child, Casey Francis.
Mother’s Day 2013 was the first Mother’s Day that I was a mother, but we were still grieving the loss of our first two children. The day was much harder than I expected. Since very few people knew about about our two blessed children it made celebrating Mother’s Day awkward and bittersweet. Definitely not my favorite day for various reasons.
Last year we had a unique opportunity spend Mother’s Day alone – no obligations to spend time with our moms. My mom was in Hawaii and Rex’s mom was in the Philippines.
We didn’t make any definite plans so it was truly the Holy Spirit that lead us.
The night before we decided to go to an early morning Mass (730am) and then go hiking, a ho
bby that we had just recently taken up. We had no idea where we wanted to go but after Mass I remembered hearing about Deception Pass, so we looked up the hike, stopped at Starbucks and hit the road.
Having not really planned our hike well, we only had limited snacks so after our 5 mile hike we were super hungry. We weren’t sure where we wanted to eat, so we used a restaurant finder app and settled on a chowder place in Anacortes.
At some point after eating the best meal of our life – the food was really good but may be exaggerated by our immense hunger, the Holy Spirit prompted me to see if there was a Catholic Church near by. I love visiting churches. I love seeing where my brothers and sisters worship together in communion with the universal Church.
I have relied on the very helpful app Mass Times to locate nearby churches and look up Mass times. So I ran a search and there was one only about a mile a way. The app listed a couple of Mass times in the morning but none that afternoon, so I figured the church would be closed but still wanted to visit anyway.
As we drove down the driveway leading into the parking lot, you could see these beautiful doors.
As expected, the doors to the church were locked but around the corner I saw a beautiful Marian garden. I walked toward it to see and pray. I was blown away by what I saw next.
Our Lady Queen of Peace, pray for us
It was one of those moments when I felt like God speaking to me so clearly and loudly. It could have only been Him in His divine providence that brought me there to that very spot in that moment of my life. At that point, we had lost our third precious baby just a few months prior.
I was in awe. I wept.
My dear sisters in Christ, who yearn for a child or who have lost their precious baby in the womb, I know this day is incredibly difficult for you. It is a bitter reminder that your arms are empty and your heart aches. You are a blessing to those in your life. You are not defined by your family structure but by who you are, a beautiful woman and more importantly, a daughter of the Almighty. Know that I love you, grieve with you and pray for you.
Praying for you,
Rachel