The Tears Before I Travel

I recently returned from a 9-day trip to Korea. My trips to Korea are always my longest trips and the most difficult as a wife and mother of 3 young children. As I snuggle with each of them in their beds, hold their hands, and sing to them, I cry. The night before I leave is full of tears. They are tears of guilt for leaving them and tears of worry for them while I’m away, but there’s also something else in those tears. They are tears for myself, for the ache in my soul when I’m apart from my children. My children are part of me and when I’m away I feel like a piece of me is missing.

When a mother carries her child in her womb, a deep interweaving of body and soul occurs. During those 10 months they are one. Not just physically connected by umbilical cord in which the mother gives and sustains life, but spiritually too, all by God’s design. Science tells us that mothers and babies exchange cells while in utero. These cells have been found throughout the body for both mother and child and can be found decades later. My cells are in my children, and their cells are in me. We are tied together spiritually and physically, Mother and child.

“Embodying our God who is our Heavenly Mother as well as Heavenly Father, I am called to embrace all who are lost and have no one to receive them, with the heart of a parent.” - Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon, from Mother of Peace.

I’m sure all mothers can relate to the ache I'm describing. However, have any of us considered the ache of our Heavenly Mother? Heavenly Mother aches not just for a few of Her children, but for all of us. How could it be possible for such a being to hold space to ache for all 8 billion of us? It is incomprehensible, and yet it is there.

What could be done to ease the ache of our Heavenly Mother? I know when I finally return home, what I want most is to be hugged by my children and to be as close to them as possible. Is there an answer in this? Perhaps Heavenly Mother, too, just wishes to be close to us. Perhaps the most meaningful thing we can do to ease the ache of our Heavenly Mother is to let her embrace us, let her hold us, and let her love soak deep into our essence. 

It makes me wonder how the world might change if we let ourselves be embraced by our Heavenly Mother.