Once upon a time a beautiful male co-worker of mine told me that women, in general, are AMAZING. I wasn’t feeling amazing most of the time and when he said it, I thought ”What? Maybe the women YOU know but I’m not so amazing…you could ask a lot of people around me who know me or at least who spend a lot of time with me and they would give you the same puzzling response. Maybe SOME women…but not this one, not Marisa…she’s ok. But not AMAZING.”
Then I discovered Lectio Divina. And it has blown my mind and my spirit out of the physical confines of this mortal body. I see things, I see MYSELF in a wholly, holy and beautiful new light. It’s AMAZING.
When I wrote this, I was looking at my five year old son on a night he went to sleep as a 4 year old but woke up as a 5 year old. And I thought-in at least ONE sense–I AM, in fact, absolutely AMAZING.
We women can grow a human life inside of us and then have them surgically removed or expulsed from our bodies in THE MOST UNNATURAL WAY… a way that, quite frankly, is SOOO unnatural that our bodies writhe and convulse in confusion of fighting to hold on to that life or let it out into the light. Some women even die during the experience thus moving them from the realm of amazing into glory…I guess.
As if that’s not enough-once that human life is removed and separated from our bodies, though they adapt immediately to the atmosphere, they STILL cannot survive without us. So, we grow food and you would think one human being sucking food out of another would also diminish the capacity of the host…but nope-whenever they want, they just make a sound and instead of having the life sucked out of us, it’s more like THEY breathe life into US.
Then we teach them month after month how other human beings on this planet do things; live, become self-sustaining, communicate, have cognitive and spiritual processes. And before you know it, they are 5 times their original size and interacting on this planet just like all the other human beings.
And we act like nothing ever happened!! Like the little life we grew inside of us just magically appeared out of nowhere and we took care of it because we are “just nice people.”
Now, that is TRULY AMAZING. It’s beyond amazing…it is MUNIFICENT (adj. larger or more generous than is usual or necessary. Synonyms: bountiful, philanthropic, lavish, big hearted, charitable.)
Brag. Please! What is some munificent thing you (or someone you know) has done for a child? I know this post is about motherhood but dads, aunt, uncles, guardians, grandparents, teachers (who have I left out? ) please tell us below about something you look back with some inkling of your greatness.
