Women of grace, beauty and immense courage: When you desire to nurture and create life, you embody for us the power and creative love of the Trinity, the God whose very being emanates life. When you bring flesh and bone from your womb, you renew for us the holy truth that God, from the very beginning, births all that is good and beautiful in our world. When you show us what is true and pray over us with tear-drenched faith and point us toward the God who loves us, you articulate what God’s Spirit longs to speak into our heart. You, woman and mother, are a prophet of the Living God.
For those who ache for the children you’ve lost or the children you’ve yet to know,
For those who know wounds and loss from your own mother or children,
For those in the thick of the bone-wearying labor of loving children – and especially those who think you’ve been drained of every last ounce of energy,
For those with regret,
For those who, on behalf of your children or another’s children, wage war against some evil that would ravage them,
For those who are loving, mothering or blessing children not your own,
For those with new life in your belly,
For those who need to know the powerful ways your love, nurture, prayers, tears, fears, anger, weariness, hope, laundry, meals, midnight watches, exasperation and laughter have all participated in God’s mysterious act of creating beautiful life,
We bless you.
May the God who filled Mother Eve with life and who filled Prophetess Deborah with wisdom and power and who brought our Savior into the world through a women of remarkable courage, fill you with all mercy and joy today. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.