“Although I am in the midst of such a torrent of things to do, I am never without the union with my God.” Blessed Anna Rosa Gattorno
As I reflect on Mother’s Day coming up, I am reminded that nothing prepared me for the intensity of emotions that being a mother would bring to my life. It was the first time I did not doubt that I would give my life, literally, for another human being. The primal instinct to protect was far stronger than anything I had ever felt before. Every time I held one of my children in my arms for the first time I vowed to love them unconditionally. And while I know my love for them is flawed and imperfect, it is ever-present. Each of them, to me, was and continues to be perfect. They are who God intended them to be, and the honor of being their mother comes with an awesome responsibility. Each grows in me the desire to change the world, to make the world a better place for them to exist.
The burning desire to love and protect and cherish and nurture grows exponentially when you have a child with special needs.
It is hard for me to write this! I have six amazing and unique children. Each has their gifts and challenges – some harder than others. They have things they excel at, and things with which they struggle. It is my personal belief that every child has special needs – needs that they require their mother to meet. However, having a child classified as “disabled” (or in a more PC term, “differently abled”) it becomes about so much more than their gifts and challenges.
Peter changed my perspective on motherhood.
Peter is number 5 of my six kiddos. We had a prenatal diagnosis, so a lot of the adjusting and preparing came long before the day he rushed into the world early. My pregnancy with him was different. He is the only one with whom I got so swollen that even my toes didn’t fit together anymore – all pointing in different directions as I squeezed on flip flops. Awkward! He is also the pregnancy that was met with mostly “I’m so sorry,” instead of “How exciting!”. His birth was met with mostly silence, not with “Congratulations, he is so beautiful!”.
This was the start of realizing just how unwelcoming the world is to someone with disabilities. So the motherly desire to not change my child for the world but to change the world for my child was no longer in balance. My desire to change the world was magnified. A world that didn’t welcome my child was matched by a reaction that the world wasn’t good enough for him. And that continued to fuel my burning desire to make this world a better place for children of all abilities.
For Mama’s with children with special needs, the passion for changing the world is often pushed to the back burner by the simple need to keep our children alive!
While we have all made a flippant statement about keeping healthy children live, the reality is far different for a child with complex medical needs. Each of these children’s needs is unique and leads to day after day of discovery, learning, advocating, exhaustion, and often isolation. That desire to change the world is drowned out by the will to get through one more day.
While the challenges are much more significant, they are so often exceeded by the joys. Having a child that takes much longer to achieve essential milestones (if at all) is not only a testament to the miracle of the human body and development but a reminder of just how amazing these milestones are that we take for granted. Until Peter, I never questioned that my children would all too quickly sit, crawl, talk, walk, etc. With Peter, I doubted if we would make it to his first birthday, then his fifth, and then I hid in the shower and bawled happy tears when he made it to his tenth. I don’t take any day that he is alive for granted given the number of times we came so close to losing him. A fear that never goes away.
Inspired by Anna Rosa Gattorno.
As I did my morning prayers this week, I read about Blessed Anna Rosa Gattorno in my “Give Us This Day” app. Anna Rosa was born in Italy, widowed at a young age, left to raise her children including one that was deaf and mute. She stated that she went through a “conversion” to a greater love of God and her neighbors. That is a way to make the world a better place!
A strong and faithful woman, Anna Rosa was encouraged to establish a religious congregation. She worried about what such an endeavor would do to her children. She was further strengthened by Pope Pius IX. At age 35 she founded the Daughters of St. Anne with the mission to serve the poor, abandoned, orphaned, sick, and elderly. She had a special calling to care for deaf children. When she passed at the age of 68, her congregation had grown to 3,500 sisters working in over 300 houses around Europe and Latin America.
She had to be a Mama Bear – she heard the call to “Fear not, go bravely“!
I love how she said, “Although I am in the midst of such a torrent of things to do, I am never without the union with my God.” Don’t all of us, regardless of the needs of our children, often feel like we have “such a torrent of things to do”? I do! All the time!! A torrent of things that swirl in our hearts and clutter our minds. A torrent of “noise” that can drown out the whispers of the Holy Spirit.
The will of our Father is that we participate in the Holy Spirit. Anna Rosa found the way to hear Him calling her, and we can too! For some of us, it is the care and nurture of our domestic churches. For others, like Anna Rosa, it may also be out in the world caring for the neglected and rejected. And for others, something completely different.
As we prepare to celebrate Mother’s Day, I invite us all to find a quiet space to reflect not only on our torrent of things to do but on our union with our God. To silently listen for the way He is inviting every one of us to change the world, to make the world a better place for all children. It takes the heart of a mother to drive the change. We may not all be called to establish a religious order, but we are called.
Dear Mama Bears, in the torrent of things to do, let us grip even tighter to our God that will guide and inspire and refresh and nurture our hearts – the hearts that meet the unique needs of all our children!
Holy Spirit, guide us!
xoxo
Catherine
ps. Check out “Called to Be The Rich Soil” post for ideas on blooming in our relationship with the Holy Spirit while respecting our season in life.