For my mothers

Psalm 139:13
You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother's womb. (NLT) 

For mother's day I wanted to go back a few decades.

It's the early part of 1977.  Jimmy Carter has just been sworn in as President.  Unemployment is high, inflation is high, and the mood in the country is low.   That previous summer the first Apple personal computer had gone on on sale, and in the summer to come, the Son of Sam will terrorize New York City.

In the small town of Mineral Ridge, OH, thirty-somethings Ken and Connie Mowery live with their family of five children...a daughter aged 16, and sons aged 13, 10, 8, and 6.   A family of seven, not unlike many families in small town America.  Except their daughter is pregnant.

Imagine being barely sixteen and pregnant.  There is no father in the picture.  Your parents have a house full of young children already.  Roe vs. Wade made abortion legal a few years earlier.    The options were limited, and none of them good.   Having to tell your mom and dad?  Having to face your friends at school?  The questions from your four little brothers?   The pain and discomfort 9 months of pregnancy would inflict on a sixteen year old body?   Carrying the child to term, to me, seems like the least sensible option.  Abortion would have been very understandable under such circumstances.  Deal with the problem quietly and go on with your life.  Nobody ever needed to know.

Now imagine you're the 37 year old father or the 33 year old mother of five, and your 16 year old daughter comes to you with such news.   I can't even imagine how that must have shaken their world.  

I don't know too many details about the options that were considered.  I don't know how that first conversation with mom and dad went for that young girl.  All I know is how the story turned out.  She chose life, and that summer went into labor on her 17th birthday.   After many, many hours of tough labor, at 1:59pm the next day, August 5, 1977, a 9lb 5oz boy came into the world.  Yes, that boy was me.

That was, of course, just the beginning of the story for me.  A lot has happened in the lives of us all since then.  When I was eight years old I went to live with my grandparents, and they raised me and my little sister from then on.

It would be easy for people on the outside looking in to say I had it tough growing up.  I would say just the opposite has been true.  I had a mother who, despite very difficult circumstances, chose life for me.   Every day in this country thousands of mothers don't make that choice.  I had grandparents who, after raising their own children, took on two more and gave us their very best.   I consider myself incredibly blessed.   So on this mother's day, I honor the mother who gave me life, and the mother who gave me a great life.   I am forever grateful to them both.  Happy mother's day!

Christmas 1979