Purple Milk

Purple milk is what sustains. It is a sacrificial mother’s milk which every child must drink to live and every decent mother pours from within herself. It is a God-designed benevolent nourishment of nurture, when a crushing-like fortuity has occurred in the midst of devoted care. In the plainest sense it means that mothers give up their own selves in some ways for the good of their child. It is buying the children’s shoes instead of the new dress when money is tight. It is holding the hair back of a sick child. It is appointments, auditions, play dates and hangouts. It is feeding, changing, bathing, clothing, holding, rocking, hugging, bandaging, and cleaning. It is many sleepless nights. It is involvement in their education. It is walking side by side as they near adulthood and plan for the future. It is the giving of a mother who will continue intense care indefinitely to a child with special needs. It was (as one incomparable example) Mary, birthing and raising a perfect son and feeling as if pierced by a sword at the sight of her beloved child giving Himself on the brutal cross in indescribable agony for the world (yet also her Savior). It is the brave face a mother puts on when her son goes off to basic training, the prayers she prays over him. It’s the mom in the stands cheering on her little athlete or providing the best literature for her book worm. It’s being there, sweating the small stuff, and giving…til it hurts, sometimes til it nearly breaks us. It comes from our breasts, our hands, a well prepared bottle, a sippy cup, a mug, a sports bottle, a water bottle, and our tears. It is the art of loving with all we have – and then some. That…is purple milk.