She is just a few hours old. My youngest. January 1983

“The year and month and day you are born matters. The very moment you are born matters. To matter in the scheme of the cosmos: this is better theology than all our sociology. It is in fact all that God has promised to us: that we matter. That He cares. God knows the very moment we are born.” – Madeleine L’Engle

And isn’t that what we crave, that feeling that we matter?

That we matter to someone.

Mean something special. Because we are different, special, unique. Ourselves and not someone else.

We need to know that we matter.

From the moment of my birth, I mattered. To my mother.

I became her raison d’etre, and we went everywhere together. She was my north, my south, my east, my west. As I was hers.

For a year or so. And then I grew, became independent, fought against her often.

Teenage angst and a strong desire to leave home.

“But where, after we have made the great decision to leave the security of childhood and move on into the vastness of maturity, does anyone ever feel completely at home?” – Madeleine L’Engle

She was always there for me. At home, waiting for me, welcoming me home with arms stretched wide, no matter what. I mattered.

She always carried me: in her body, then in her arms, then in her heart.

I was one of the fortunate ones: a mother who cared, who loved almost unconditionally. Loved enough to discipline strongly.

Tough mother love.

She showed me God. Showed me that I matter to Him.

And though she is not here to be my home, my anchor, she has left me her legacy:

I am mother to my own children. Grandmother to their children.

And now I too love and care and am a home.

And need to show them God.

That they matter to Him and to me.

For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb.  14 I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;  Wonderful are Your works,  And my soul knows it very well.  15 My frame was not hidden from You,  When I was made in secret,  And skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth;  16 Your eyes have seen my unformed substance;  And in Your book were all written  The days that were ordained for me,  When as yet there was not one of them. Psalm 139

My younger sister, my mother & me. On Mummy's 90th birthday