Mother's Day

Sunday is Mother’s Day and here is where my heart is going into the weekend. Let me know what you think. 

We all are given an opportunity to thank God for giving us mothers - default, biological, adopted, surrogate, symbolic, and spiritual. There will be greeting cards, kind gestures, and plenty of burnt toast. And while all the activities may even exhaust the extroverts, each is an expression of love and thanksgiving.

At the same time, this religious-now-become-Hallmark holiday has the ability to possibly make some people unintentionally feel shame, guilt, sadness, and grief. Afterall, it is the annual forced remembrance of a child who was never born. Sometimes the human body doesn’t work - even with human and medical assistance. Dreams can be lost or never come to fruition. And sometimes, it’s the prayers and dreams we hold onto for kids that scare us.

I’m glad that God does not define personhood by parenthood. While being a mom is part of who a person might become, I believe that only the grace and love of Jesus can give us honor, value, and worth - by faith. A mom is first and foremost a child of God, loved, forgiven, equipped, and empowered through Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Having personally experienced with Beth a hard and long journey through infertility, learning we couldn’t adopt the child who was placed with us, unexpectedly having biological kids, and now parenting kids of our own, Mother’s Day brings joy and heartache. Add my personal adoption journey and it’s a day filled with all of the feels. 

As I lean into all of this, I am learning that joy and heartache can coexist in the same moment and space. I can place both my joyful thanks and saddest grief into the hands of Jesus. Afterall, moms are gifts from God to help us better know the heart and love of Jesus. 

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