An Open Letter to Mamas From a Grateful Barren Woman

This week marks Infertility Awareness Week, and in honor of this week and it's role in my life I thought I would share something I wrote a couple weeks ago. Check again next week for another infertility post, The Blessings of Infertility.

Dear Mamas Everywhere,

I wanted to take a moment and show my appreciation to you. I want you to know how thankful I am for you. We may rarely talk and you may not even know me. But all that aside I want you to know you have blessed my life because you have given me children.

Thank you for putting you children in the nursery at church. Holding those little bundles smelling of sweetness and gurggling the most endearing coos ties a band from my heart to yours, because this may be the closest the Lord allows me to cuddling newborns. Thank you for letting me be the nursery worker on the floor, giving horsey rides and swaddling baby dolls for your little ones. I'm getting to live part of what I've dreamed of my whole life.

To you Mamas who have put your elementary-age children into my care, thank you. I know they can get under your skin, and drive you up a wall with all their energy. But that same energy breathes life into my soul when I have them in my class. Their laughter is some of the sweetest music to my ears. And the way their brains soak up information! I wish I could just teach and help them explore new things all day! I hope you look at them a little different today, relish their curiosity. All those nagging questions, a hundrend times a day, that they ask...many ladies like me wish for, to fill our silent days. Thank you for letting your children ask me questions, tell me their stories, and give me their little arm hugs.

Middleschooler mama's, your children may not be quite so anxious to learn, but what a joy to teach them. Thank you for the challenge of making knowledge and new concepts something they want to learn. Thank you for letting me give them jobs to do when they go home from church, give them homework for the next class, to encourage them to memorize the Bible verse for the week. This barren woman wants you to know that those days have never come for her but they will come to an end for you. Love this stage of Life God has put you in.

To the Mom of teenagers, thank you for entrusting your teens into my care. I want you to know I LOVE learning the intricate parts of their life. What makes them tick, what has their heart, what makes them the happiest. It's like a secret goal to analyze and learn your teenagers, so I can know how to push them towards following the Lord. I know you joke of sending them home with me, saying I'll bring them right back, but what you don't realize is that I might never return them.

Mamas who undertake the difficult, time-consuming task of Homeschooling. I am so thankful that you bring your children to homeschoolers groups and that I get to spend time with them. In reality, it's what I trained to do for my own family one day, but God hasn't moved that way. Instead, He has brought your family to me. Your children into my care. Into my heart. Thank you for letting me be in charge of your children in my class, for correcting them when they get a little rambunctious. I want to pour my love for learning into your children and hopefully create a hunger for learning in them.

Overall, Mama's thank you for bearing children when some of us can't, because we love children. We love YOUR children because they have become like our own. I want you to know how much you have affected my life through your children. Keep asking God for strength dear Mama, and I'll be here to lift your arms just like Aaron and Hur did for Moses. I'll be here to relish all that time with your children at church while you have a break to hear the Word of God and let it soak into your bones and feed your soul. Thank you for letting me pour my heart and soul into your children and pretend for a little while that they are mine.

On Behalf of Barren Women Everywhere,

Anna