The Many Feelings of Mother's Day

Mother’s Day brings with it many, many feelings for many, many people who walk this planet.

Joy. Gratitude. Grief. Longing. Tenderness. Ache.

Not every country even celebrates Mother’s Day, I suppose. And maybe, in some ways, every day holds some kind of quiet awareness of the one who mothered us...whether that awareness feels sweet, complicated, painful, or unfinished.

Every person on earth has a “mom” story.

Every last one.

Just as death will one day come to us all, so we were all brought into this world through a woman. And from that very beginning, our stories begin to take shape.

Some mom stories are full of wonder. Full of joy. Full of tender memories, handwritten notes, warm kitchens, bedtime prayers, and the feeling of being deeply safe.

And some mom stories are full of brokenness. Misunderstanding. Absence. Trauma. Disappointment. Hurt.

Some of us approach Mother’s Day with flowers in our hands. Some of us approach it with a lump in our throat.

And then, layered on top of whatever relationship you have or had with your own mother, is another tender place entirely: the desire to be one.

For some women, Mother’s Day is a celebration of the children in their arms. For others, it is a reminder of the children they long for, the babies they never got to hold, the prayers that have not yet been answered, the adoption papers still waiting, the empty room, the quiet ache, the monthly grief, the dream that feels both holy and heavy.

And dear woman, if that is where Mother’s Day finds you, I want to say this gently: You are seen. Not in a vague, sentimental way. You are seen by the God who formed you, who knows the tenderest places in you, who hears the prayers you can barely speak, and who catches the tears no one else knows you cried.

And still, even here, I believe there is something deeply sacred about the way God made women. There is a kind of mothering that is bigger than biology. Yes, I mean that...

There is a mothering that happens when a teenage girl climbs down on the floor to play trains with her baby cousin.

There is a mothering that happens when a recent college graduate mentors a younger, hurting woman at church.

There is a mothering that happens when a woman in the workplace notices the shaky, green new hire and offers her encouragement instead of judgment.

There is a mothering that happens when a coach looks a teenage girl in the eyes and says, “I believe in you,” when that girl cannot yet believe it for herself.

There is a mothering that happens when a woman goes into labor this weekend, bringing life from her womb into this cold and beautiful world.

There is a mothering that happens when a woman travels across the world to bring home the child who was born not from her body, but from her heart.

There is a mothering that happens when a foster mother wakes in the middle of the night to warm a bottle for a newborn, after staying up late helping a fifteen-year-old with algebra she barely remembers herself...because love shows up tired, unsure, and still willing.

There is a mothering that happens when a post-menopausal woman offers respite to the exhausted mother of a special-needs child in her small group.

There is a mothering that happens when an elderly woman, who remained single and childless her whole life, picks up the lunch tab for a struggling friend simply because she has the means and the love to do it.

There is a mothering that happens in nurseries and hospital rooms, in offices and classrooms, in church pews and coffee shops, in whispered prayers and quiet acts of service no one ever sees.

Don’t you see?

A woman’s love has the capacity to nurture life wherever God places her.

Not always in the same way.

Not always through the same story.

Not always with the same title.

But truly, deeply, beautifully.

Spiritually and emotionally, we are invited to invest in one another through nurture, love, intention, and grace-giving. We are invited to love the younger, the weaker, the weary, the lonely, and the ones still becoming. With lioness ferocity and dove-like purity. That is part of what a woman’s love brings to the world.

So I don’t know where Mother’s Day finds you this year.

Maybe with your mom.

Maybe without her.

Maybe missing her.

Maybe forgiving her.

Maybe still trying to understand her.

Maybe aching to become a mother yourself.

Maybe grieving the child you lost.

Maybe wondering where you fit on a day like this.

Maybe just trying to make it through the day without falling apart.

But know this, dear woman:

Your story matters.

Your ache matters.

Your love matters.

And the nurturing heart God placed inside of you is not wasted.

The world needs the kind of love He has given you to give.

And more than anything, you are held by the God who comforts His children with a love even deeper than a mother’s love:

“As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you.” Isaiah 66:13