for you, searcher.....

In loving memory of John and Melissa...
In honor of mothers everywhere...

A Mother's Heart
JoAnne Rademacher

I was at the funeral of my son's fifteen-year-old friend. The mourners all sat in a state of stunned disbelief, for his death was sudden and shocking. As the service ended, my son and his classmates filed out of their pews and formed an honor guard in the center aisle for the casket, clergy and family to pass through. I was sitting directly across the aisle from my son, and as I watched him step into the aisle, I felt a rending in my heart and a sob caught in my throat. For that fraction of a second time stood still, and I imagined the casket held one of my own. As quickly as it had vanished reality was restored, and with it a sense of relief and a prayer of thanks for my good fortune. My son stood tall and healthy before me.

At the same time, though, my heart was torn. Another mother's heart was breaking, and I felt somehow that the tear in my own, rent in that moment of surreal grief, remained, an almost tangible reminder of an imagined loss.
In the months that followed that wound in my heart did not go away. I still felt that I knew, at least to a minute degree, what devastation had been left in the heart of a friend.

I tried to reason it away. After all, I did not lose my child. How could this feel so real to me? The words "a mother's heart...a mother's heart" passed through my mind repeatedly. It was as if there was a message in those words-something I was supposed to understand, but couldn't. I only knew that another mother's heart and my own were inexplicably connected. The why and how of it escaped me still.

Now, years after that small breach was left on my "mother's heart," I know all too well the total devastation which was only hinted at as I stood at that funeral of a young friend. Because less than a year later my daughter died in a car accident.

One of the first people I saw at the hospital that night was our young friend's mother. As we stood in each other's arms, I finally knew the full reality of a truly broken heart. And as time passes ever so slowly, those same words "a mother's heart...a mother's heart" still echo through my consciousness.

A mother's heart: so fragile yet so strong. The loss of my child has wounded me so deeply I hesitate to give words to the pain. At the worst of times it is as though the splintered pieces of my shattered heart are millions of tiny shrapnel, bursting outward, shredding my body and soul. At the best of times there is a dull, constant ache reminding me of what I have lost.

Amazing to me, though, is the strength I have found in my heart. I am still here. I can give comfort in spite of my pain. I can love, laugh, and enjoy simple pleasures. There must be a portion of my heart where the splinters are being held together by the Lord Himself, for there is no other power which could protect even a tiny scrap of my brokenness.

Now I know the message of those words and why they continue to come back to me. I am reminded that it is a joy and a privilege to have been gifted with my precious children for whatever time I am blessed with their presence, however short it may be.

A mother's heart...designed by God to withstand the ravages of humanity and blessed with His love in the joy of bearing His children. Even as I taste the bitter salt of my tears, I offer praise and thanksgiving for this, my "mother's heart," for the joy in it is mine forever. The grief and pain of today will be forgotten when on that day of God's choosing, I join the daughter I share with Him in the embrace of my Savior's loving arms.