Mother
noun: a woman in relation to her child or children
verb: to bring up a child with care and affection
The history of the modern celebration of Mother’s Day can be traced back to an early Christian festival in the UK and Europe known as Mothering Sunday. On the 4th Sunday in Lent, Christians would return to the church near their family home – their ‘mother church’ – for a special service. Over time, this tradition became a more secular occasion of children giving flowers and gifts to their mother, and was re-popularised with the establishment of Mother’s Day as a national holiday in the USA in 1912.
Today, Mother’s Day is often inseparable from advertising. Pictures of a good-looking family surrounding a smiling mum sell us everything from Aldi Special Buys to lottery tickets (if my family is reading, there are some good deals on a Roomba…). But this idealised version of Mother’s Day doesn’t necessarily match what the day brings in reality. For many, Mother’s Day has a mixture of positive memories and feelings alongside more difficult ones. This is a normal and common experience on significant dates, and the concept which describes this is ambiguity, meaning ‘the quality of being open to more than one interpretation’.
Mother’s Day can bring ambiguity because ‘mother’ describes not just a person, but a relationship – and one which for us as humans is profoundly influential. Relationships are complex, because people are complicated! So it makes sense that Mother’s Day is open to more than one interpretation when we consider that for each of us, ‘mother’ will inevitably have many different layers of experience and meaning.
It is a tender mercy, then, that our God understands the dynamics of relationships and family from both his perfect perspective and our fallen one. Jesus witnessed the intensity of human motherhood as a son, born to a woman whose situation was very different from her culture’s ideal picture of motherhood- and who would eventually bury her firstborn son having watched his agonising death. God knows intimately that Mother’s Day is about so much more than bunches of carnations and breakfast in bed.
This is why I love the way in which Amy Young’s exhortation for Mother’s Day gives us permission to move beyond an idealised ‘happy’ Mother’s Day, inviting us to honour the continuum of mothers and mothering on a day which is open to more than one interpretation. Whatever Mother’s Day brings for you, I pray that you know with every fibre of your being that you are precious to our God, who sees our human mess and loves us in the midst of it all.
To those who gave birth this year to their first child—we celebrate with you.
To those who lost a child this year – we mourn with you.
To those who are in the trenches with little ones every day and wear the badge of food stains – we appreciate you.
To those who experienced loss through miscarriage, failed adoptions, or running away—we mourn with you.
To those who walk the hard path of infertility, fraught with pokes, prods, tears, and disappointment – we walk with you. Forgive us when we say foolish things. We don’t mean to make this harder than it is.
To those who are foster moms, mentor moms, and spiritual moms – we need you.
To those who have warm and close relationships with your children – we celebrate with you.
To those who have disappointment, heart ache, and distance with your children – we sit with you.
To those who lost their mothers this year – we grieve with you.
To those who experienced abuse at the hands of your own mother – we acknowledge your experience.
To those who lived through driving tests, medical tests, and the overall testing of motherhood – we are better for having you in our midst.
To those who are single and long to be married and mothering your own children – we mourn that life has not turned out the way you longed for it to be.
To those who step-parent – we walk with you on these complex paths.
To those who envisioned lavishing love on grandchildren -yet that dream is not to be, we grieve with you.
To those who will have emptier nests in the upcoming year – we grieve and rejoice with you.
To those who placed children up for adoption — we commend you for your selflessness and remember how you hold that child in your heart.
And to those who are pregnant with new life, both expected and surprising –we anticipate with you.
This Mother’s Day, we walk with you. Mothering is not for the faint of heart and we have real warriors in our midst. We remember you.
Amy Young, 2012
Nicole Jameson
5pm
