Mothered by Mother
Thirty-three years ago I was a young wife and mother, struggling in my vocation. I loved my husband, my two-year-old daughter and six-month-old son, but the mundane and repetitive tasks of daily life, and the powerful messages of the culture, made my hidden and often thankless role as a mother seem insignificant and replaceable.
One day, my husband announced that we had been invited to speak at a large family conference in Germany. It would be a short trip with our nursing baby in tow, but it would give me a chance to express some of the gifts I had previously used in full-time youth ministry. Little did I know that this trip would not be about what I could do for God, but what He wanted to do for me.
From the moment our plane was airborne, everything seemed to go wrong. My son Michael cried for most of the flight, and I was exhausted with a horrible migraine. Our luggage was broken into, my jewelry stolen, and baby food jars smashed into my nice clothes. To top it all off, we arrived and the conference organizers announced that they only needed one of us to speak, and my husband Peter was chosen. Amidst my fatigue and disappointment I tearfully asked the Lord, “Why did I come? Wouldn’t it be easier to just have stayed home?”
On the last day of the conference as we made our way to the large auditorium to hear the keynote speaker, one of the helpers stopped us and said, “Excuse me, but I noticed you have your baby with you. Mother Teresa would like a few of the mothers with babies to sit on the stage with her as she speaks today.” Stunned, I made my way onto the stage with our baby.
I sat with ten other mothers and babies, just a few feet away from Mother. As she spoke about the dignity of the unborn child, you could have heard a pin drop. When the session ended, the same conference worker approached me and announced, “Mother Teresa would like to personally meet each mother and baby.”
Before long, I was standing in front of Mother Teresa. I bent low to greet her, and she pressed a Miraculous Medal in my hand and traced the sign of the cross on Michael’s forehead. As I turned to go, the most amazing thing happened. She pulled me closer and looked deeply into my eyes.
“Never forget,” she said, gesturing with her index crooked finger, “that your job as a mother is the most important job in the entire world.”
Her words instantly pierced my heart, and I knew without a doubt that God had brought me to Germany and to Mother Teresa to speak this profound truth into my life.
I went home and began to read everything I could about Mother Teresa. Over the years, her words and her example of love became the bedrock truth and inspiration for my vocation as a mother of four children, a grandmother, and a spiritual mother to many. Quite often I remember her words to me that day, and I know that Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta continues to guide and teach me what it means to be God’s love in a world that so desperately needs it.
