They sat around the living room in various stages of brokenness and healing. Two women had arrived that week, and another one came that morning before I arrived. Some have stayed through low times, angry times, and desperate times. Some are barely recognizable when I think back to their first days at the women’s shelter. Chapel started, and I asked the group, “Why is Mother’s Day so hard?” Murmurs poured across the room with words like, “passed away, shame, failure, abortion, infertility, abandonment, disowned.” You won’t find these themes on Hallmark cards, but it’s the very real experience of many women.
No wonder a lot of women are tempted to throw out Mother’s Day.
There has to be a way for the wounded to take Mother’s Day back. Maybe we’ve had too small a view of what Mother’s Day can be. Instead of standard requirements defaulting to biology, names like “mom” or “mamaw,” and raising infants to independence, maybe a biblical view can help us heal and join in the celebration of mothering.
Women have a divinely designed deep well of nurturing to draw from. “Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women …” (Titus 2:3-4). Women are called to “mother” others. This isn’t to say we’re to nag or enable, but we’re to nurture and teach, care and guide.
In a world of wounded people, there’s a desperate need for women to nurture.
They spent moments in silent reflection, writing names and memories of women who nurtured them when they needed it most. When pens stopped scribbling, we went around the room, reading the names and sharing testimonies. One spoke with resolve of the grandmother who influenced her, since her mom abandoned her. Another broke with tears over the mom who passed away too soon. An elderly lady shared with weeping, as she spoke the name of the mother who cared for her. Another spoke with fresh gratitude about the woman who took her in and mentored her when her own family put her out. Regardless of her age, race, or experience, not a single wounded woman forgot the mothering of another woman.
Women have the divine design to do what the world needs: mother. As we minister love to others, people experience God’s provision of love. “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” (from 1 John 4:7-12) When a woman extends love to the need of another, she extends the heart of God.
Mother’s Day is a wonderful day to honor the sacrifice and love of many women who raise children, but it’s so much more than that. It’s a freshening of God’s call for all women to embrace our tenderly designed hearts. Mother’s Day is a day to remember the divine appointment to mother others.
In a little over a week, we celebrate Mother’s Day. Let’s open wide our womanly embrace and make it something bigger and grander and world changing than the greeting card version! Let’s celebrate knowing and being women of influence in a world of need!
Women you might include in your Mother’s Day
- Teachers
- Elderly widows
- Single moms
- Childcare workers
- Neighbors
- Mentors
- Good examples
- Coaches
- Doctors & nurses
- Women with a heart to “mother others”
Read more about what it looks like to Mother Another here.
Julie is the author of Expectant: 40 devotions for new & expectant moms. Expectant helps moms-to-be and moms in the early days of motherhood to grow their own life while growing a family.
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