Chapter: Of the Mothers Who Loved in Chains

  Chapter: Of the Mothers Who Loved in Chains

1 And in those days there were mothers

whose hearts were fierce as lions

yet whose hands were bound by the will of another.

2 They rose each morning with the quiet hope

that today the storm would pass them by,

that today the walls would not shake,

that today the children would not learn fear.

3 But the house was ruled by a man

who mistook power for righteousness,

and his shadow fell long across the floor.

4 And the mothers stood between the children and the blow,

not always with their bodies,

but always with their souls.

5 For the fist that struck the child

had struck the mother first,

and the voice that silenced her

silenced her warnings too.

6 Say not that she did not love them.

Say not that she turned away.

For her silence was not abandonment

but survival.

7 And the children, not yet grown in wisdom,

saw only that she did not stop the storm,

and they mistook her captivity for consent.

8 But the heavens bore witness

to the bruises hidden beneath her sleeves,

to the prayers whispered into her pillow,

to the courage that no one saw.

9 Blessed is the mother who loved

in the midst of fear,

who held her children in her heart

when she could not hold them in her arms.

10 For love is not measured by the battles won,

but by the battles endured

for the sake of the innocent.

11 And the Lord of Mercy declares:

The fault was not hers.

The chain was not of her making.

And the wound she carried

was not the measure of her love.

12 Let the children grown now in understanding

look back with softened eyes,

and see the truth that was hidden from them:

that she was fighting for them

even when she could not win.

13 And let this be written in the scrolls of remembrance:

that love and power are not the same thing,

and that a mother’s love may burn brightest

in the very place where her power was taken