A #Mother’s Day Prayer in an Imperfect World

I pretended that I didn’t see it, the white bag in my son’s backpack that said, “Mom”.  Based on years of experience, I knew it was a Mother’s Day “present” they made in school.  He would be heartbroken if he thought I saw it before I was supposed to: he loves surprising me; he sure does love his mom.  It is the last one, the last school-made gift I will get, this being his last year in elementary school. But as I carefully tucked in back into his bag, I couldn’t help but think of his classmate whose mother passed away last year after a long battle with cancer.  What was he feeling as his classmates were crafting these?

As a public school teacher, my joyous holiday thoughts are often interrupted, tainted by the scars of a fallen world.  For me, holidays were, well, perfect in many ways.  All of them were happy and filled with love. As I have grown older, I have realized just how truly blessed I was to have such a loving, God-fearing family, immediate and extended alike.  So as I think of my wonderful mother who taught me to love God, to reach my potential, to serve my family, to pick my battles, to clean a bathroom and much more, I pray for my students (former and present) whose mothers have passed away, are in prison, or who have chosen to abandon them whether it be physically or emotionally.  Of course, there are those my age whose relationships with their mothers are complicated or contentious,mother’s who have lost precious children, not to mention countless others who’ve wanted to be mothers and could not either because they are single or cannot conceive or carry a child.

While holidays tend to highlight the pain of the lonely and broken, the gospel gives comfort.  Psalm 68 reminds us the God is “A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling.  God sets the lonely in families. . . . “ (Psalm 86:5-6).  James 1 explains, “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this; to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world” (James 1:27).  In short, the church is meant to be a family in a world when so many don’t have one. 

So, today, as I thank God today for my selfless mother and my beautiful children, I pray I will be grateful for all I have been given.  I pray I will cling to Christ as I mother my children in an ever-changing world.  Amidst all of this, I pray I will daily speak a motherly word “gracious and seasoned with salt” (Colossi ans 4:6) to anyone who needs it as so many others have done for me.