God’s plan for Eve was to be the mother of all mankind. God told Adam and Eve to multiply by having children. His design was for the earth to be filled with many children. Genesis 1:27,28. In early Biblical times children were considered to be a great blessing, and the more you had the more you were blessed. Psalm 127:5. The closer we live to God the more we understand His great plan for mothers.
Globally there are 34.5 million children who are in need of a mother. In the foster system in the United States there are 111,280 children without a mother waiting to be adopted. Mothers aren’t always the person who births a child. A mother is the one who raises and loves a child. Children need a mother!
I am very thankful for my Mom. She gave me life, love, and opportunities. My mother was caring and loving, though she was not a Christian. She made sure I was always clean and fed. She took me places and even gave me perms so I would look like Shirley Temple. Though my mother was good to me, she did not enjoy having children. As a young woman I was able to lead her to Jesus, and she too became a Christian. Thankfully, I was able to enjoy having my mom well into her 80’s.
When I married I really didn’t want to have any children, but as I walked closer with Jesus a transformation took place within my heart. Two years after Ralph and I were married we had our first child and kept on going. My mother felt like we would never get stopped when we had four, 3 girls and 1 boy. My heart was full of love for our kids, and I thoroughly enjoyed raising them, and still enjoy three of them as adults, our son is in Heaven.
I love the way Jesus prepares us for new doors. I was spending a lot of time in prayer and reading when our 4 biological children were grown. Our youngest daughter was ready to leave the nest when God gave me the vision of a little girl in China. After telling me information of her location and other facts He told me, “Go get her!” Those words threw a log into the wheel of our empty nester plans. The vision was so vivid, and Jesus’ words to me about her grabbed my heart, and held it. After praying about it, and talking it over with my husband, I said yes to God. It was at that point a transformation began that I could have never imagined would happen in my heart.
After the vision I traveled to China to look for our daughter Faith. God miraculously opened many doors for me to go into orphanages. He connected me with the house churches and they needed pastors to teach them. I am a pastor so they would take me into the orphanages to look for Faith, and I taught them the Bible in the evenings.
Through all the travels and interaction with the orphan children my heart changed. The vision of Faith was the door that led me to China and to broken children. It is one thing to pray for children who are broken, and it is another be the hands of Jesus to touch them, hold them, and feel their pain. Psalms 34:18.
One time I went into a village orphanage that was horrific. It was small and the children were dying. The conditions were sickening. I picked up a little boy that was soaked in urine and covered with a skin disease. As I cradled him and sang to him he turned his head towards me and seemed to focus his eyes on me. Tears ran down my face, as my heart was broken for that little boy.
Leaving him was one of most difficult things I had to do, but the police had seen us in the orphanage and we had to leave fast. We all prayed and cried for those children as we traveled back to our quarters. I found out that little baby boy was actually over a year old yet he was the size of a 3 month old baby.
On another trip to China 2 years later I was able to go into another orphanage where the children from the horrific orphanage had been moved. I stepped into a room and saw the boy I held 2 years before. He was now the size of a 3-year-old child! I said, “How are you, sweet boy?” He smiled a huge smile.
God used that tragic situation to break my heart, but more so to help those precious children. Most of them were moved to a better orphanage, some were adopted, and they all had better care. It was a step to equip me to mother and understand our adopted children who experienced poor conditions and situations, and others who would come for respite care.
My friend from New Zealand, Sandra King, went through a tragic divorce when her 4 children were grown. While alone and broken God spoke to her heart to go to China. She moved there and waited on Jesus for direction. It wasn’t long before He began bringing babies to her doorstep. She took them in and cared for them as their mother. Her heart was filled with the heart of Jesus Christ for those children. Some passed from her arms on into eternity, but always more came. Her heart has been enlarged over the 25 years she has been a mother in China. Through a difficult and prolonged process she was able to adopt one daughter whom she raised, and who now serves with her. Hundreds of others she was able to help get adopted out of the country. As we visited last year she shared how her heart is still broken with so many going to Heaven. The blessing is that each one has a mother who loves them before they leave earth.
Another woman, Lydia Prince, who lived in Germany, was single when God called her to go to Jerusalem at the time when they were at war. After leaving all she settled into her quarters, and Jesus brought her children to mother. She ended up caring for many and adopted 13.
As a mother you have a great-God given opportunity to help your children be all that God has designed for them to be. There is a poem written by William Ross Wallace that declares the importance of motherhood. “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle Is the Hand That Rules the World”. To mother a child is to be blessed. Psalms 127:3.
It certainly was not in my plans to become mom to 21 children, but it was God’s plan of blessing for me to be their mother. He transformed my heart and placed His love within for each and every one. A pastor saw me with a dozen or so of our children at a conference. He said, “Better you than me!” My immediate response was, “Yes, better me than you!” Some people have said to me, “God bless you.” I say, “He has!”