Edie Wadsworth

My oldest mother gave birth to me eons ago.  She lived in a luscious garden by day and surely twirled under leafy moonlit palms by night.

She was the most beautiful creature in all the world, the consummate woman—made for glorious communion, devoted and adored.

She gave herself freely in love and affection.  Her name was Eve, the mother of all the living.

But like us all, her story bleeds.  She was wrecked by heartache.   Her paradise was laid waste.  So she hid and felt ashamed, she doubted His love and provision.

Her story is the story of us all—the fall that wrecked us and shut us out of Eden.

I see myself in her.  I am my mother’s daughter.   We both cling to the world’s only hope and her story sustains me.

She mothers on.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

My flesh and blood mother gave birth to me in the January cold and bundled me up on a  Friday night for my first homecoming.

The handsome man in the fedora was no where to be found.  That is, until he brought the honky tonk band home from the bar to finish out their set in the kitchen at 3am.  Because surely homecomings need music.

(I’ll tell you the whole story someday but it may well be the best birth story in all the land.)

(Think Doyle Hargrave’s band in Slingblade)

This woman carried me through hell and back. She gave me the gift of life.  She worked all the jobs.  She sacrificed everything a woman can.   She NEVER complained.  She loved me,  she believed in me, she never, ever stopped giving, she worked harder than anyone I’ve ever known.  She laid her life down with quiet courage so that I might someday stand tall and find my voice.  This is how I learned to be a woman.  This is how I learned what it means to empty yourself.  She was first light for me.   She has made my every homecoming possible.

She is my momma.  And her love plays a melody in my heart.

She mothers on.

 * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

My spirit and blood mother  gave birth to me on a Sunday morning, in the clear cool waters of Baptism.  Her name is called Church— the arc of safety, where Christ our Father has placed us and befits us with everything we need.

He left her with His manifesto and she faithfully labors on to give birth to God’s children;  to teach of His love and to serve His blessed body and blood for  life and forgiveness.  She is weary from the war, bruised and battle-worn.  But, she knows what’s at stake so she soldiers on, bending and stooping to hold on to us at all cost.

Mother Church will bear us to heaven, where we will finally know what price Love has paid to get us home.

Until then, she mothers on.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

We labor and love and sacrifice—as our mothers have so faithfully done before us—for the sake of seeing the miracle of grace born and nurtured in another human heart.

Mother on, dear sisters.

You are the beautiful life-givers, body and soul.