mother's day

These are the words I spoke at our church last year, 2010, on Mother's Day:

For many years now, I’ve had a love-hate relationship with Mother’s Day.
I love it because I have an amazing mother who has always loved me unconditionally and who is a great model for me of a Woman of God so it’s wonderful for me to celebrate my own mother and the amazing influence she has had.

It’s wonderful for me, But I know that’s not true for everyone.

I love Mother’s Day because I have 2 beautiful kids and it’s wonderful for me to celebrate the great gift that motherhood is.

It’s wonderful for me, But I know that’s not true for everyone.

6 ½ years ago I was sitting in a sanctuary very similar to this one during a different holiday season. It was the second week of Advent and the worship focus for that day was Hope. Now Hope sounds like a strong, life-affirming, positive word. It’s a word to hold onto in good times and in bad. But it can also be a very difficult word, and on that day in that sanctuary, I really, really wanted to let go of hope. It seemed almost cruel.

A few months before I had been told it would be difficult if not impossible for us to have biological children. I had started taking medicine to help, but it was only the first step in a multi-step medical process, and on top of that, the medicine wasn’t working. And I knew if that medicine didn’t work then I would never be pregnant. And I was devastated. And here we were talking about hope. I hoped and hoped and hoped, but really I just wanted to know – would it work or not, because it was too painful to hope. I remember nothing about that worship service except that I sat in that sanctuary and cried.

A week later the theme for the worship service was joy, which felt kind of like a slap in the face even though I knew that joy is something deeper than circumstantial, and ultimately a beautiful promise from God. But at that moment in time, I was exhausted and joy was hard for me to see.... Until that Saturday, when I found out, miraculously, against-all-odds, I was pregnant. And in that moment, I knew pure, amazing, wonderful joy. And I cried a different kind of tears. And I am grateful every day for that beautiful gift.

But, of course, that perfect, unadulterated joy didn’t last. Almost as soon as I found out I was pregnant, new worries started. This might be my only pregnancy, would I be able to keep the baby or would I miscarry? Would I eat the right things, exercise the right way, be the right mother? Was I possibly up to the task of birthing new life? And, of course, I wasn’t. Not really.

My beautiful baby girl was perfect, but she also had medical problems and spent the first year of her life in a cast or brace. Then there were developmental issues and therapists. And I was overwhelmed and I worried. But I also laughed and I celebrated with each new step. And so I struggled with motherhood - this great gift and this great responsibility. Still do. Every day. I love being a mother, but it’s not a Hallmark, flowers and candy kind of love.

So what do I do with Mother’s Day? Because I also know that while I got my miracle, 2 of them, many others don’t get that same miracle. And others choose not be mothers, and others have difficult relationships with their own mothers. And for those women and men, Mother’s Day can be a trial. I remember what it was to hate coming to church on Mother’s Day. And so what do we do with Mother’s Day?

Well, motherhood in Scripture isn’t a Hallmark, flowers and candy kind of thing either. So many of the stories of mothers in the Bible are as much about struggle as they are about joy. Beginning with Eve, all the way through Mary, the stories of mothers are often heart-breaking. Mothers who struggled with infertility, mothers who died giving birth, mothers whose children did horrible things, mothers whose children died in horrible ways.

But motherhood in Scripture is also an amazing honor. What a great gift God has given us to give birth to new life. It’s the gift to follow in God’s footsteps, our first Mother, who gave birth to us all. It’s the gift to mold and shape new life. We do it imperfectly, for sure, but we do it with both love and trial, joy and pain. And then we let that new life go, just as God let us go, not abandoning us, but setting us free with love and support and hope.

Since becoming a mother, I often think, well, this isn’t quite what I expected. It makes me wonder how often God thinks that about us. Well, Susan, that’s not the choice I would’ve made for you. Well, Susan, you’re quite a lot of trouble sometimes. But Susan, you are beautiful and worth every bit of trouble. Because birthing new life is beautiful. We see that beauty is these gorgeous babies and children before us. But we also see that beauty in the birth of new ideas, new love, new work, new relationships, new community, new challenges, new life all around us. Whether we are biological mothers or not, we can all be involved in bearing new life and love for our world. Jesus, after all, was never a parent. And yet he brought amazing life to us all. A life of love, generosity, beauty, and joy. And a life of struggle. He, above all, showed us that God’s abundant life is worth the struggle and the pain.

And so today, on Mother’s Day, I want to honor all of you who birth new life, in many and varied ways. I thank all of you who bear the pain and the determination and the discipline of delivering abundant life to our world. And I celebrate with all of you the beauty of new life. Happy Mother’s Day.