Because She Loves: A Tribute to the Moms Who Inspire Me

I am thinking about Mother's Day coming to you mamas there in the States this weekend (and to my own -- Happy Mother's Day, Mom! I love you!) this morning as I sit in the quiet of having sent my crew on ahead of me to the site of our medical mission while I await the arrival of the team from the States tomorrow. This year, I think the crazy state of things this weekend will cure me once and for all of double-dipping on Mother's Day. I'll just have to wait until August and celebrate it with all the Costa Rican moms who only get to do so once a year.

But what I am thinking about most is the amazing company I stand in. Y'all, moms are out there doing some of the most incredible things. And you probably have no idea because they just do it. Like it's their job to make the world a better place and love ALL the people and get tired and then get inspired and then keep doing it.

On any given night, I can scroll my Facebook feed last night and find posts from moms performing the most incredible feats of love and grace:

Grandma Rose in Tanzania, 87 and still going strong, because she loves.

• Moms building a maternity clinic in Sierra Leone together, because they love.
• A mom holding her daughter tight through her battle with seizures and loving her in all the hard moments of a warrior life and changing diapers and still lacing her up in pretty Chucks and a flower in her hair for outings, because she loves. 
• Motherless moms who find this day so hard to celebrate yet accept the crayon cards and burnt toast breakfast through the tears of missing their own mamas, because they love.

My mother-the-law, the mom we'll all be missing this Mother's Day, because she loved.

• A mom packing up her family and finding a home for her cat as she makes the move back to SE Asia to set captives free from slavery, because she loves.
• A young mama to many pulling night shifts at the hospital and coming home to cuddle in front of cartoons with twin toddlers and a preschooler as she waves the rest of her crew of eight off to school, because she loves.
• Moms with bald heads wrapped in scarves and swollen faces and a mental countdown of days too short who get up and make breakfast and go to end-of-years school performances, because they love.
• Moms capturing stunning moments of motherhood with a lens like pros and making us all remember why we do this, because they love. 
• Older mamas still feathering their nests to welcome grandbabies and whole families born from their family into their lives, because they love.
• Moms who are midwives catching babies and loving mamas in Haiti in the middle of the night, because they love.
• Moms stretching budgets and still not making ends meet and humbly asking for help and accepting the judgement of others and the all the weight of the label of "poor" for a voucher for milk and peanut butter, because they love.
• A mama crying at the cemetery for the baby she didn't get to hold and waiting for travel dates to fly across the ocean to pick up the teen-aged boy she'll call her own soon, because she loves.

My brave, beautiful mama cutting my older brother's cake in the ICU waiting room the day before she let him fly home.

• Moms managing to get dinner on the table and kids to ballet/soccer with a husband deployed across the oceans, because she loves.
• Widows homeschooling kids and doing all the stuff every day, alone, broken-hearted, but so, so brave, because they love.
• Moms sitting beside sick babies in a hospital and smiling and singing and touching gently because they refuse to be helpless for their little ones, because they love.

I am in awe that I get the crazy wonderful unconditional love of these boys in return, because I love.

• Moms ironing caps and gowns and smiling wide enough that the tears slide away before their grown up babies notice them, because they love.
• Nigerian mamas crying out the names of their daughters and wondering why the world doesn't hear but standing strong, because they love.

A mother's blessing, because she loves.

• A mama lawyer writing and then lobbying through to law a bill that will protect the lives of thousands of unborn babies in her state, because she loves.
• Moms running orphanages and sponsoring medical clinics and writing books and empowering women and praying Nigerian school girls' names into the heavens, because they love.
• Moms I love in Africa and Costa Rica overcoming obstacles of poverty and lack of education to become warrior moms who love fierce and find a way no matter what, because they love.

Noemy dreaming dreams for Baby Sabrina, because she loves.

• And moms finding socks and telling bed time stories and teaching someone to tell time and to share and to blow kisses and holding the grief of empty arms and the doubt of insecurity and if they are enough in their hearts, but begging grace and mercy and clinging to One who has them to give away in abundance, because He loves.

This. This is the wonder and wild grace of motherhood. And these are the women making it beautiful every day in the quiet corners of their homes and the ends of the earth and the neighborhood parks and the hospital bed sides and the Senate floor and the mud huts of Africa and every single, corner of the globe. Lights that make the world's darkness bearable for humanity. These are the hearts of mothers. Broken and beautiful, all of them in their own way, because they love.

Esther and Lupina working to fill mouths day after day, because they love.