In this journey with the Holy Spirit, I find it interesting how when you are studying something, researching something, teaching on something, you discover how much you end up needing that something….

In a post that will post tomorrow on Southernbelleviewdaily.com, here is a recent event that reminds me once again why I am so grateful that I need the Holy Spirit.

I am a bonus mom. It is our families version of step-mom. Me and my youngest didn’t like step-mom so we discovered this much more enjoyable description. However, as with all things in mother-hood it too holds its share of heartache.

When I married Mr. Jones I had never had children of my own. A deep sorrow, that I didn’t realize until the final pages of my novel, “The First Gardener” how much pain actually resided in me because of that childless journey. Yet, that novel ended up being a rich well in which to pour out the geyser of pain that had finally been given permission to be uncapped. At the age of 40 I became the bonus mom to five kiddos. Kiddos who I served as a reminder that I was not their “picture”. Granted, they weren’t mine either, but it is a lot easier for a forty year old to wrap her head around that than children.

The first few years of marriage I didn’t do much else but survive. The pain of my new reality was met with my newly alive heart and having been shut-down for many years inside of my first marriage, I was discovering that living so alive meant that pain could be felt to an even greater degree as well as the joy.

The dinner conversations could be the loneliest. “Remember when dad…” “Dad tell me what I was like again when I was little.” “Dad, remember when she always used to say in kindergarten, ‘Well that isn’t what Miss Langey says.'” I had no “remember when” moments. I also provided a rather large target for pain. Hurt people hurt people I say. And in the deep hurt that divorce can bring to little hearts that hurt can fling wildly in the confines of a home bouncing around like a really good round of pinball. That first year found me getting really familiar with my new closet. It was the only place I could find to cry where it wouldn’t reverberate through the house.

Then came my first Mother’s Day. Whew…that one cut in the deepest place. I was a mom. Albeit one that a marriage decree certified. But I wasn’t a mom in their hearts. They have a mom. However, I am one in mine. A mom who makes dinners. A mom who reads stories. A mom who attends sporting events and drives carpools. A mom who cries when her kids are hurting. Yet, in this crazy broken, and painfully beautiful world that is ours, a mom who goes days without seeing her kiddo’s, will most likely never be called mom and who isn’t with her kids on Mother’s Day.

I have said more than once, anyone who has been divorced knows why God hates it, especially if you have children. It is not His plan. Not His picture. Yet, He is present in the pain of the broken.  As Mother’s Day has just passed I find myself reminded that He is present in mine. I have now had my first “remember when” moment. I cried when it happen. I was so overcome by the words coming from the back seat of the car, “Hey Denise, remember when…” that I still don’t know what I was being asked to remember!

God also says, “I will work together all things for the good of them who love The Lord and are called according to His purpose.” I love Him. I believe I am called according to His purpose. And I am confident, that in all the brokenness that has been written on the pages of my story He is working things out for my good.

I do not know what the future mother’s days will look like. And I do not know if I will ever be called mom by a living breathing soul. But I do know that it doesn’t take any of those things to have the heart and love of a mother. When I shed tears over my children’s pain a mother I am. Just like my Heavenly Father has done for me over and over again.

So to those of you who hold children in your heart or children in your arms, I have learned that the Father gives good gifts to His children. Sometimes they come packaged as you plan, sometimes they come packaged in ways you never dreamed. But an alive heart, a truly alive heart is far more effective to enjoying and feeling than a shut-down heart would ever afford. And I’d rather have to endure the painful moments with all the pain they afford, than to miss one powerful influx of joy in a “remember when” moment.

What events in your life lately have you found yourself needing the presence of the Holy Spirit?

How has He shown Himself to you?