Mother's Day is the one Sunday a year that I don't like to go to church. It won't bother me that tomorrow I'll be hanging out in the preschool area all day.
Most mother's day messages are the same. "Hooray, you're doing a great job, celebrate motherhood and if the pastor is sensitive, they'll mention sisterhood and womanhood in general knowing that some sitting in the congregation aren't mothers". There's hardly ever a challenge, it's just a pat on the back sermon and I'm really not into pat on the back sermons. Where's the challenge? Where's the stand up and fight for your family? Be a warrior for Christ and be the godliest mother and wife possible. You usually won't hear that on Mother's Day. Father's Day, yes, the charge comes to the men, but Mother's Day just doesn't sit well with me.
My thoughts are probably deep rooted in memories of many mother's days where I longed for a child and just couldn't understand why in the world God wasn't giving us one. I would sit through those sermons and just be ready to burst into tears at any moment. Here we were celebrating "mothers" and I just felt like my world was falling apart and no one around me even knew. The pain ran deep. I still sit in those services and my heart breaks for those infertile women sitting around me. My heart breaks for those single women who so desperately just want a husband and a family, but God hasn't answered their heart cry. My heart breaks for those women who didn't have a mother or didn't have a great one. My heart breaks for those women who sit there while moms talk about birthing stories and nursing stories and some women just don't have anything to share. This day for whatever reason holds many raw emotions for me.
I am thankful for all the wonderful women in my life--my mom, my mother-in-law, my sweet friends and all those special women in my life. I'm thankful that God did answer and give us three very special kids. But on Mother's Day, I don't plan to celebrate motherhood. I live motherhood every day, I don't need one day to remind me that I'm a mom. I just plan to celebrate that God hears our cries, He answers them (not always how we want) and He gives us hope even when it seems our world is falling apart. He is faithful and He is good, even if life is hard!
Psalm 52:9
I will praise you forever for what you have done;
in your name I will hope, for your name is good.
I will praise you in the presence of your saints.
Saturday, May 9, 2009
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5 comments:
All I can say is preach it sister, and AMEN!!
Very well said!
AMEN! I can not relate in a lot of ways but I say it would be awesome to have a sermon that challenges me! THANKS!
Go get Leann's CD... she did a great job... and it was not about Motherhood at all. It was all about the warrior David.
I love this post. You really said what I felt and couldn't put into words this year. Thank you that I will not be LEGALISTIC; if I don't want to sit through a mother's day sermon (because my BF is dying to be a mommy and still isn't) then I won't. Amen. And Amen.
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