Friday, May 11

Prayer: Mothers

Mother’s Day is this Sunday. I know people for whom this is a giddy, joyful day of much love and fun – or of some grief over the death of a beloved mother. I have a friend who struggles to find a card to send his mother, with whom his relationship is severely strained, as Hallmark seems to assume relationships with mom are all happy and full of affection. Different people harbor widely divergent feelings about mom.

Anna Quindlen’s novel, One True Thing, tells the story of a daughter who leaves her life and career to care for her mother, who is dying of cancer. After she died, a therapist asked, “Did you love your mother?” Her reply: “The easy answer is yes. But it’s too easy just to say that when you’re talking about your mother. It’s so much more than love – it’s, it’s everything, isn’t it? When someone asks you where you come from, the answer is your mother. When you’re mother’s gone, you’ve lost your past. It’s so much more than love. Even when there’s no love, it’s so much more than anything else in your life. I did love my mother, but I didn’t know how much until she was gone.”

Months later, she increasingly realized that she “had so misunderstood her, this woman who had made us who we were while we barely noticed it… And being so wrong about her makes me wonder now how often I am utterly wrong about myself.” At some level, we know, but then don’t know Mother – her inner life, struggles and feelings even those closest to her have never glimpsed. Same goes for knowing ourselves. Here’s the mercy: God knows.

In the Scriptures, Hannah was taunted for her infertility. Jochebed had to relinquish her child Moses to be raised by another woman. Naomi grieved the death of not one but two sons. Sarah bore a child in old age. Mary was just a teenager. Jezebel was not a healthy role model, but Eunice and Lois taught Timothy well by words and example. Eve’s son killed her other son. Rebekah played favorites. Esther’s mom couldn’t raise her, and gave her up for adoption. Rachel died in childbirth.

Isn’t that intriguing? I love the way Scripture doesn’t just hold up the sweet, squeaky clean people for us to try to emulate – for they then would shame so many of us. The Bible wraps its arms around all of us, the wounded, the struggling, the peaceful and the misfits. We are all part of God’s family. There is grace for us all.

Think about unnamed mothers in our cities, and in our world. Every politician you’re annoyed with had a mother. Statistics on crime or poverty obscure the reality of mothers who agonize. Political tension in every place obscures the heartbreak of countless mothers. Imagine the prayers of such mothers: for safety, for healing of a broken relationship, for peace, or just the outpouring of sorrow.

God knows, and tenderly cares for all mothers. God invites us to think God’s thoughts, and to feel God’s feelings – and why? The Bible tells us so. Holiness is sharing God’s perspective, always, and certainly on Mother’s Day.

Remember the mothers. All of them.

+ Pastor Gil Gilbert

The CONNECTIONS Bible Study continues each week, Thursdays, 10:30 am