Mini-retreat for Mothers week One - What is motherhood? First week of Lent

So, it is the first week of Lent - or at least when I am writing this and have we thought about "What is motherhood?" 

Now many women think a "mother" is one who has a child and/or baby in her arms. However, a mother is also one who had a miscarriage, stillbirth or other loss - you are still a mother...
Our mission of motherhood is one of love...helping our children grow up and be strong and be children of God and Faith. As mothers we give up alot of our own desires for our children, husbands, etc. We are constantly giving our time and love to God. 

I love St. Therese the Little Flower, even though she was not a mother in the sense of being married, etc. She was a novice mistress. I am not sure how many know that she mothered her novices!! See our quote below from this wonderful saint. She has always been my inspiration for motherhood.

A Quote from St. Therese about helping her novices - but we could apply this to helping each child's soul that we bring up as mothers: 
"....I realized that, while for the most part all souls have the same battles, yet no two souls are exactly alike. It was easy then for me to understand what Father Pichon used to say: "There are as many shades of differences among souls as there are in human countenances." Each soul, therefore, should be dealt with in a different way.....Our own tastes, our personal ideas must be forgotten, and we must guide souls not by our own way but along that particular path which Jesus indicates....What would happen if an ill-instructed gardener did not properly graft his trees; if, without understanding the nature of each, he should try, for instance, to grow roses on a peach tree? The tree, which had been vigorous and, perhaps, gave promise of much fruit, would simply wither away.How important it is to be able to recognize God's claims on the individual soul, even form early childhood, so that instead of anticipating or hindering it we might, rather, second the action of divine grace in the lives of others...."

We are starting soon our new "Celestina" Support Groups for mothers. We are deciding on this new name as Hope is taken by a similar group and womb may remind a mother too much of her losses. So, we hope you like the new name. Email us if you are interested in free training to become a bereavement support leader! Email link. 

So, I am asking the reader if you have time, please email us a contributing story for our upcoming book "Little Way of Motherhood: A Catholic Pregnancy Journey" - I do hope to have some journaling room in it too. If you have time to tell us a birth story or any story of motherhood email it to us here.