There’s a journal sitting on the table next to my bed. There’s also one sitting on the table next to the rocking chair in Edison’s room. I have one to write my thoughts and feelings through my pregnancy and the other to journal through the first few months and years of Edison’s life.

Would you be surprised if I told you they were both empty?

Maybe someday I’ll regret not writing more during my pregnancy and this time as a new mom, but right now all the inspiring thoughts I can get out of my pen go in Edison’s baby book . . . and most of the rest of my thoughts, before he was born, weren’t that inspiring.

For some reason I just can’t write about how awful I felt trying to sleep every night in my bed with my every craving available in my refrigerator downstairs, or at the very least, at the neighborhood grocery store. I seriously don’t even want to try to remember the number of nights I tried to sleep in a sitting-up position in a soft comfy chair because my nose was so stuffed up I couldn’t breathe — and I didn’t even have a cold. As much as I want to complain, and probably did at the time, I know I really had it easy.

And the stuff I want to remember . . . like how cool it was to feel him kicking around inside me and how it is just a little freaky and amazing that God can even do such a miracle in me . . . would be really hard to “get” from words on a page. Right now, I remember these things every time I look at my son’s face and see that he is growing right before my eyes.

So, who am I to regret not doing something so indulgent as writing all this stuff down when most of the new mothers around the world can’t even read, let alone write their own name? Many of these women wouldn’t even believe that their words counted or their thoughts mattered. And I wonder, is it possible to raise a child with self esteem if you don’t have it yourself?

And really, how am I so different from them anyway? Don’t all mothers everywhere want the same things for their children? I still remember the first time Edison smiled at me on purpose. Now I even get to hear him laugh. Can you imagine not hearing your child laugh?

Child Survival Program multiplies the amazing sound of laugher around the world. It is the sound of health, it is the sound of life, it is the sound of Love . . . the kind Jesus was known for.

I’ve discovered that the older I get, the more amazing my mother gets. For a few years, my mother raised me as a single mom. I was too young to remember that time, and she never talked about it much. Whenever I would ask her questions about those years, she would just shrug her shoulders. In her mind, she just did what she had to do. Eventually we moved in with my aunt, and later my mom remarried.

A few months ago, I was visiting with my aunt. We were reminiscing about my childhood when my aunt suddenly became very quiet. She turned to me, her eyes brimming with tears, and took my hands in hers.

“Your mother made so many sacrifices for you,” she said quietly. I nodded, but said nothing. I knew she wasn’t finished. “We knew things were hard for her, but we didn’t know how hard. Brandy — she would not eat so she could buy you food. She would do anything for you.”

I sat on my aunt’s porch, unable to speak. So many of my childhood memories involve food. Of my mother tearing up pieces of chicken on a bright pink plastic plate. Blowing on a bowl of steaming potatoes dotted with butter and pepper. Stirring a bubbling pot of spaghetti sauce on the stove.

I was too young to notice that sometimes her own plate was empty.

I know that my mother’s story is not an isolated experience. I know that too well. I’ve read dozens of stories and reports about families literally starving to death. Of mothers sacrificing for their children day after day. To the point of death.

I’m not a mother yet. I don’t know what it’s like to love a child that completely — that sacrificially. But I do know that my mother had family who stepped in when things were bad. Sadly, mothers in poverty-stricken communities often don’t have that same kind of support.

I will never be able to repay my mother for the sacrifices she made for me. But I can learn from her sacrifice. I can skip eating out and donate to a local food pantry. I can forgo my coffee shop visits and give to mothers desperate to feed their children.

I can give food to those who are hungry. Just like my mother did.

My name is Lisa Miles, and I have been a sponsor with Compassion for two years. My husband and I sponsor a 9-year-old boy in Ethiopia, and we have a correspondence child who is 17, also from Ethiopia.

I am not a Compassion exec or even a Compassion advocate (yet!), I was never a sponsored child myself nor am I a fabulous Christian recording artist. My perspective is simply that of a sponsor with a passion for Compassion — and someone who deeply loves her sponsored kids. I have to confess that the day of fasting and prayer on behalf of the global food crisis did not impact me. At all.

I fasted — I felt some minor discomfort — but speaking as a mother, one day without food is like a drop in the bucket of sacrifices I’ve made since my child was born. You mothers understand.

We have sacrificed our sleep, our free time, our career goals, our figures, our freedom to watch anything on television that isn’t animated. One day without food — not a problem. To be a mom is to sacrifice for others.

Now I’ll tell you what would impact me — and again I’ll speak as a mother.

Ask me to wake my child in the morning and tell her she will have nothing to eat today. Ask me to put her to bed at night crying because she is so hungry. When she looks at me with complete love and trust — knowing that she depends on me for everything — ask me to tell her there will be nothing to eat tomorrow either. Now ask me to repeat this daily until her ribs protrude, her tummy bloats, and she can hardly walk.

As a mom, I want to give my child everything — the best of everything. Now tell me that I can give her nothing — not even the food she needs to keep her alive.

In a heartbeat, what was once a token activity would take on an awful significance.

Sixteen thousand children die of hunger-related causes each day. Each day — 16,000!

Even as I write this, I feel the need to go back and double check that figure, because I think surely it must be wrong. It is not.

The majority of these deaths are not attributable to outright starvation, but to diseases that move in on children whose bodies have been weakened by hunger. (1) I weep for these children — but I weep doubly for their mothers. I cannot imagine their pain.

How easy it is for the rest of us. We don’t have to live that reality. We don’t even have to watch it happen. In fact, we can lead our daily lives pretending that it doesn’t happen. And I think that would be not just sad but heartlessly cruel. These mothers need our help, and if we can offer it, we should.

So I’m asking you moms today to dig deep and do what you can. Give generously and often to the Global Food Crisis Fund. In fact, give something now. Sponsor a child — or an additional child — in a country where poverty is real and deadly.

I have to add that I won’t feel bad if there aren’t a lot of comments on my post. I know firsthand that you mothers are incredibly busy laughing, cuddling and playing with your kids — and cleaning up a mess or two, or twenty, along the way. (I cleaned an entire can of blue Play-Doh off the cat today. That was a new one.) So all I’m asking is that you give me an “amen” or two — then donate what you can.

Thank you for everything you do — and will do — to help children and their mothers. I know they would do the same for you.

P.S. My husband said “ditto for the dads.”