A Mother’s Heart

Do you know that overwhelming feeling you get when you hold your baby for the first time, when you see your toddler peacefully sleeping, when you tuck your kids into bed at night?  Of course you do.  It's that feeling of: “I love you so much my heart hurts.”

Scary love, I call it.

You also know that feeling you get when one of your children has a fever, or a bad case of the flu, or some weird sympton, and sometimes you mind flashes to the what if’s?  And your stomach drops and does a flip and you feel that racing in your brain?  Then you tell yourself to calm down…99% of the time…it’s just your mother's heart panicking.  Not your mind thinking. Sometimes we'll remember something we heard from the news…something we read in the paper…something that happened to someone else that scared us...please don't let it happen to me, we think.

Around the other side of the world, there are mothers, WHO HAVE HEARTS JUST LIKE US.  They hold their newborns, gaze at their sleeping toddlers, tuck their kids into bed too...their hearts ACHE with love for their children. 

Aren’t mother’s hearts all the same? 

We all go to that place once in awhile…that scary place of “What if?”

But some mothers do it more often.

Some do it every time they fill a little cup for their precious little baby to drink out of.

Every time their sticky little toddlers need a bath.

Every time their children beg to cool off from the hot sun.

And when their sweet-LOVED-TILL-THEIR-MOTHER’S-HEART-HURTS-child says, “Mommy my stomach hurts”, or they see diarrhea in their baby’s diaper, or when their child can’t eat…

they fall to their knees and say.

“PLEASE NOT ME!”

Because they know what it means.

4500 mothers bury their children EVERY DAY due to contaminated water.
The lack of access to clean water is the leading cause of death in underdeveloped nations.

And they know where it came from.

 They are forced to sustain their families with a diabolical liquid that contains both life and death.

And they know they had NO choice.

Because they were born someplace different from where we live. The lack of clean water is the leading cause of death in underdeveloped nations.

We might be different in ways,

BUT AS MOTHERS,

OUR HEARTS OUR THE SAME.

Do you think this Burnin’ Hunk of Love is loved any less by her mother….

than this Burnin' Hunk of Love?

Of the 42,000 deaths that occur every week from unsafe water and a lack of basic sanitation, 90% are children under 5 years old.

  Do you think this child's mother lovingly keeps him out of trouble…

more than this child's mother?

Unclean water and the lack of basic sanitation cause 80% of all sickness and disease and kill more people every year than all forms of violence, including war.

Do you think this child's mother has any less expectations for her daughter's life...

than this child's mother?

Many people in the developing world, usually women and children, walk more than three hours every day to fetch water that is likely to make them sick. Those hours are crucial, preventing many from working or attending school.

OUR MOTHER'S HEARTS ARE ALL THE SAME.

So here’s what I and other fellow bloggers are asking:
as we get ready to rush through stores and catalogs this season buying THINGS,
let's STOP AND THINK.

$10 will provide one person in Africa clean water for 10 years.

The program is called Water for Christmas.  100%  of your donation goes towards digging wells to supply safe water.

It’s super simple.

YES, I KNOW.

There are SO many charities asking for donations now.

BUT LISTEN:

WE ARE ASKING FOR $10…not for toys, clothing, or food. 

WATER!

$10 that will give for 10 years!

Your 10 little buckaroos can save babies, toddlers, children.  YOU can really save families for  generations to come!

BUT more than anything,
your donation can
save a mother’s heart from BREAKING.

a heart just like yours.

 Click here to go to an informative site where you can make your donation. 

Photos by Jody. (check out her blog to see more pics of her recent trip to Africa and to read about this incredible mother of six who embraces this program vigorously.)