“Sorrow and love flow mingled down.”
Isaac Watts knew how to turn a phrase. This one comes from his hymn about Jesus on the cross, just after the line: “See from His head, His hands, His feet.” Watts doesn’t mention the blood, but we all know it’s there, flowing down with all that love and sadness.
I know this song is about Jesus, but the phrase itself strikes me as something that most mothers experience too. Having children is an exercise in sorrow and love, isn’t it?
The love part seems easy enough, at least at first, when you can’t believe there’s anything as beautiful as your baby. There he is, lying on your stomach, tiny and warm, trusting you to be his bed. His foundation, even. His place of safety.
He doesn’t know any better.
The sorrow comes later, when you realize that you can’t protect your baby from everything that might damage her. Wounds will come, sometimes even through you.
It hurts to have your soul pierced. Having children opens you up to this pain.
You aren’t God. You won’t always say or do the right thing. You won’t always be there for her. And even when you are there, you may not see what she really needs.
How hard is this?
It’s hard enough that even when you’re as old as I am, you can be gripped in the middle of the night by a fear, an unsettling dream, a whisper that won’t leave you alone. “Why did I react that way?” or “If I had just trusted my instincts,” or, the worst, “How could I have missed that?”
Not all mothers go through this, but many do. They listen to Simeon talking to Mary in the temple and shudder. He held her baby in his ancient arms and said, “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel . . . so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.”
It hurts to have your soul pierced. Having children opens you up to this pain. I’m not Mary and neither are you, but we can still imagine something of the love and sorrow she experienced, carrying the Messiah. She gave birth to the Son of God and watched over him, loved him, and enjoyed his beauty. How could she not?
She must have made mistakes as his mom. And she knew deep sorrow.
On one of those nights when I woke up at 3 am, knowing it would be a while before I could silence the voices in my head and get back to sleep, I stumbled out to the living room, crashed on the couch, and put on headphones to listen to a devotional app. The music in my ears was lovely, choral, in a different language, but so moving I didn’t need to understand the words.
A quiet voice identified the tune. I misheard the title as “My Heart Is Tuned to Sorrow” 1 and thought, well, yes, it is. That’s a good description of my heart. I closed my eyes and went with the voices to the foot of the cross and stood there with Mary, looking up at Jesus. And I couldn’t stop weeping. Oh, Mary, I thought. Oh, Jesus. All this sadness.
I wept and wept, standing at the cross with Jesus’ mother. So many mothers weeping, such a sharp sword piercing our souls. But in the middle of this grieving, I felt a strange sense of peace. I thought, maybe my heart is tuned to sorrow. Maybe that’s okay.
Sorrow and love do flow together from a mother’s heart. A sword does pierce our soul, repeatedly. We can’t avoid it. To all the mothers reading this: wounds will come, sometimes through you. That’s a hard truth, and you’re allowed to cry about it. But Jesus knows sorrow, and he loves you—and your child.
1 Versa Est In Luctum, by Alonso Lobo.
