Motherhood is a ruler. It’s a test. It’s a way of bringing to the surface fierceness that you did not know you possessed. It’s knowing that although your world was toppled by the news that your newborn has Down syndrome, you will rise above the sadness, doubt and fear into a confident, determined and even joyful mother. It is knowing that you will do everything for that child that he needs to grow into all he is meant to be. Motherhood lets you see all that child ‘can do’, not what he ‘can’t do’.

Motherhood lets you embrace the challenge of being charged with a child who will need more of you than you even knew existed at the age of 22. It is what gives credence to the voice that extolls the virtues of a child who is deemed less-than-perfect by the world – but created perfectly by God.

Motherhood is a whisper, a tiny voice that tells you that another baby is what you need. It is what prompts you to conceive a life within you, knowing that aches and pains, and all other manner of physical adversity will lead you to a flannel blanket-wrapped prize at the end.

Motherhood is what allows you to take a child, born to another woman, and make him your own. Motherhood doesn’t see skin color, or fear ‘birth history’, or medical issues. It allows a child that did not grow in your body, to grow in your heart. Motherhood is what makes it possible to choose your family.

Motherhood is what lets you see the ‘good’ when it’s hard and helps you find the silver lining. It is superhuman strength that laughs in the face of sleep deprivation and insists that a walk to the park is the cure for all that ails you.

Motherhood is what causes you to question the food you put on your table, what products you clean your house with, and how much life insurance really is enough.  

It’s a journey. It’s a mission. It is a gift from our creator.

I will leave four men behind on this planet, someday. They will have been raised by my hand and my heart. What I teach them and give them will live on. They, in turn, will do the same.

Motherhood is eternal.