Celebrating Mother's Day {when mother's day is hard}
Three very short years ago, I was a basketcase on Mother's Day weekend. After several years of infertility, we had just lost our first child through an early miscarriage. Mother's Day that year seemed especially cruel and agonizing to me -- a childless mother.
Mother's Day (well, all holidays, really) can be hard for those without a mother, those who want to be mothers, and even for those who struggle as a mother. But, just as any other day presents opportunity, Mother's Day especially presents opportunity for us to offer thanks to God, offer petitions to and pour out our hearts to God, and pray for one another -- even if our culture's celebration of the day tends to remind us of what has been taken away rather than what we have been given.
After a particularly embarrassing Sunday one year where I was reduced to a sniveling mess in the middle of the pastor's Mother's Day sermon in 1 Samuel 1 about Hannah, I stopped going to church on Mother's Day Sunday.
However, on Mother's Day Sunday three years, I made a last minute decision to go to church with my husband. That Mother's Day Sunday, our pastor encouraged us that Mother's Day could be a day to offer thanks to God for the women in our lives who had been a Lois or a Eunice -- women who had taught us the scriptures, and who many of us can credit to our having known the scriptures from childhood, making us wise unto salvation through faith in Christ.
"For I am mindful of the sincere faith within you, which first dwelt in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am sure that it is in you as well....and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus." 2 Timothy 1:5 & 3:15.
Since that Sunday service, I have celebrated Mother's Day differently. It's a bit of a jumble of emotions, because I still remember how Mother's Day used to be so hard for me. My heart is pained afresh this year as my husband and I have had to say good-bye to another little one in miscarriage since last year's Mother's Day. I grieve with friends who have lost their mothers. I celebrate my mother and mother-in-law. And I offer up 1 Samuel 2 -- Hannah's Song -- to God in thanksgiving and praise for my babies of heaven and my son who is sleeping in the next room.
As a Christian, every day and every occasion is an opportunity to live for the glory of God, offering up to Him a life of trust and gratitude. So, this weekend, in your joy or in your grief, in your exhaustion or in your celebration, you can cry, rejoice, sing, and hope in Him, because God is sovereign, faithful, and gracious. As a member of the body of Christ, gather around those who are rejoicing this Mother's Day (and rejoice with them), and bear the burdens of those who are grieving (and weep with them).
"Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you," 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18.
{Focus on offering thanksgiving this weekend with me?} ..Thank you, God, for spiritual mothers. ..Thank you for the serving women in the church who mother and minister to the entire congregation. ..Thank you, God, for my own mother and the love and service that she offers to her family, and for my husband's mother and the kindness and love that she has poured out on me. ..Thank you, God, for making me a miracle mother. ..Thank you that I can trust you. ..Thank you, God, that Your ways are perfect (Psalm 18:30).
Happy Mother's Day. May God bless the mothers in your life, and to those of you who are moms, may God bless your service in motherhood.
<3, amanda