Dry Creek Crossing at 8:00a MDT

I woke up a little late this morning. It is snowing and sleeting in Denver today (while my own mother has sunny, 90-degree weather down in Tennessee), so the clouds kept my bedroom a little darker a little longer than usual. It was 7:30a when my eyes opened and I blindly reached toward my nightstand to grab my blinking smartphone. I had received an email overnight from a new friend in the Czech Republic, and I had to get up RIGHT THEN to answer her email RIGHT NOW. Her question reminded me of struggles my David and I’ve encountered in the last few years. If my answer could ease her pain, it needed to be sent halfway across the earth immediately!

Maybe an hour later I’d finished my reply. David had gotten up by then, and we were both settling into a restful, coffee-infused Sunday. He was watching golf, sneezing, and cursing this “ridiculous” weather; I was cataloging stuff from great-grand Aunt Bessie’s trunk; we both were avoiding church.

Mother’s Day isn’t a particularly happy Sunday for a couple who has had multiple miscarriages. In years past we’ve had church leaders who were sensitive to our feelings. Maybe they avoided mentioning Mother’s Day entirely, or maybe they made a point of including the parents of miscarried children as “mothers” worthy of honor on this day. We were thankful for their efforts, but no matter what anyone says or does, Mother’s Day is miserable for any woman who wants-but-doesn’t-have a particular child. If there’s a special children’s music program that day, it hurts. If the existence of the holiday is ignored entirely, it hurts worse (because Mother’s Day is the elephant in the room and you know you’re the reason why it isn’t being acknowledged).

So this Sunday, we stayed home. It was easy to do: the weather is indeed “ridiculous,” and we haven’t officially joined a church out West yet. No one would notice our absence.

From our balcony

A few hours later David went to bed with a painful sinus headache, and I stayed up working on the trunk stuff. In the quiet I heard a ding-dong from my smartphone: the mama of my soon-to-be goddaughter posted a picture of the mobile I had commissioned for her baby, and she thanked me for it. I remembered the words I’d typed to my new European friend just this morning: “But [are fertility treatments] right for you and your husband? That is for the Holy Spirit to tell you. After 7 years of … procedures and 5 miscarriages, David and I are confident that God doesn’t intend for us to raise children of our own. We believe He has other plans for us, such as being very involved in the lives of our godchildren and our future nieces and nephews.”

Yes, I stand by those words. God has shown to me that He wants to use me in nontraditional ways. As Paul said to the Corinthians,

My primary desire is for you to be free from the worries that plague humanity. A single man can focus on the things of the Lord and how to please the Lord, but a married man has to worry about the details of the here and now and how to please his wife. A married man will always have divided loyalties. The same idea is true for a young unmarried woman. She concerns herself only with the work of the Lord and how to dedicate herself entirely, body and spirit, to her Lord. On the other hand, a married woman has vast responsibilities for her family and a desire to please her husband. I am not trying to give you more rules and regulations. I only want to give you advice that is fitting and helpful. I want to help you live lives of faithful devotion to the Lord without any distraction (1 Cor. 7: 32–35, The Voice).

I am a married woman, but I can extrapolate Paul’s intention to apply to my situation. I am a woman who “desire(s) to please her husband,” but because my David and I don’t need to divide our loyalties between children and Him, we can together “live lives of faithful devotion to the Lord without any distraction.” Is that not exactly what a godparent is commissioned to do? To guide his or her godchild to “live lives of faithful devotion to the Lord without any distraction”?