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It was the most dreaded day of the year.

Maybe I should just skip church and stay home under my covers. Pretend it's an ordinary day, I thought. Instead, my husband and I headed for church. Once seated in the back, rather than in my regular pew, I looked around at the other women who seemed to glow this morning. They wore corsages. I buttoned my raincoat, grateful for the morning drizzle that gave me an excuse to hide my uncorsaged dress.

As long as nobody says anything, I thought, I'll be okay.

The music started with Bach. I studied my bulletin and almost believed I'd make it through the service until the pastor got to the microphone … "Happy Mother's Day!" he said to the congregation of proud moms. Happy Mother's Day.

For seven years I'd wanted children, prayed for children—but my womb wouldn't hold a child. Mother's Day underscored what felt like my failure to become a mom. My husband tried to help by giving me a corsage or volunteering to stay home with me.

In church, when all the mothers were asked to stand so we could pray for them, my pain came to a head. I knew women were standing who'd never wanted to become mothers. I'd heard other women complain regularly about the burdens of motherhood. Yet there they stood, and there I sat. Mother's Day hurt.

It was a week after a particularly grueling Mother's Day. I'd been attending an inner-city church in Chicago, where I taught a small Sunday school class of junior high students. One girl, Tanya, belonged to a gang and brought me to wit's end dozens of times during the year. That Sunday, I'd spent half our class time trying to get Tanya to stop punching the other girls.

Tanya didn't stay for church. But as she slipped out the back door, she called to me over her shoulder, "See you around, Mom!" She laughed and made her exit. But before she turned away, I caught her eye. She meant what she said. In some way, I was like a mother to that strong-willed girl who liked to act so tough.

That Sunday, God gave me a glimpse of an extraordinary calling: I could be a surrogate mother to people who need the love I have to give! He could give me spiritual children.

I started actively praying for children who needed someone to act like a mother to them. As soon as I opened my heart, my mind began filling with possibilities.

There was one seventh-grade boy in my class who needed someone to talk to. He thought he should be able to date, but his parents said no. I didn't tell him anything his parents hadn't already said—but it helped him to hear it from someone else.

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