On a Desire for Motherhood

All day today I have felt such a strong feeling of motherhood, such a strong desire to be a mother. And as someone who has not yet determined what path God is calling me to take, my instinct is to immediately assume that God must be calling me to be a wife and mother, but in this season of singleness, in this season of falling more deeply in love with Jesus, in this season of learning how to hear His voice in the everyday, in this season of intentionally getting to know myself, I am not going to make assumptions. In this season, I am going to choose God instead of my emotions.

I think I have a tendency to idolize my emotions instead of actually listening to God and looking for His hand moving in my life (and I know I can’t be the only one). So instead of making assumptions, I look for what it is the Lord may be speaking to me through these feelings and desires.

As I write this, I am on a retreat as one of the leaders for the youth of my Church, and this afternoon we are having “Hermit time”, which is a time of silence. At the beginning of Hermit time, I was going to write all this down and begin reflecting on it, but instead I felt God calling me to act on these desires RIGHT NOW, so I cleaned up a bit, tidying, sweeping the floor, making sure everything was ready for the evening. As I was cleaning up the kitchen, I was struck by how much I felt the presence of God while I was working, as though He was with me there in the kitchen.

I feel like God was giving me this desire not to tell me with certainty that I WILL be a wife and mother one day but to teach me right now how to love, how to give of myself, how to receive others with love, how to serve, how to put God and others above myself. I think God is trying to show me how to be more of a woman. The beauty of women is that we are all made to be mothers, whether that be biological, adopted, or spiritual mothers, and to be a mother is to love. God does not want me to wait until He’s led me to my Vocation to live out this life of love. He calls me to love every moment of every day, and I’m beginning to see the beauty of this desire for motherhood, because it is really a desire to love. So I thank God for giving me such a desire.