Beloveds,
Mother’s Day can evoke a variety of experiences and emotions. Whether Mother’s Day is your greatest joy, deepest heartache, or barely a passing thought, you will be welcome at the Gathering tomorrow. To best create a space of belonging for all, we will not center our Gathering on a Mother’s Day theme. To anyone who might wish to read a Mother’s Day blessing, I offer you one written by another young clergy woman which I find particularly meaningful.
Deep peace be with you,
Pastor Sarah
I want you to know I'm praying for you if you are like Tamar, struggling with infertility, or a miscarriage.
I want you to know that I'm praying for you if you are like Rachel, counting the women among your family and friends who year by year and month by month get pregnant, while you wait.
I want you to know I'm praying for you if you are like Naomi and have known the bitter sting of a child's death.
I want you to know I am praying for you if you are like Joseph and Benjamin, and your Mom has died.
I want you to know that I am praying for you if your relationship with your Mom was marked by trauma, abuse, or abandonment, or she just couldn't parent you the way you needed.
I want you to know I am praying for you if you've been like Moses' mother and put a child up for adoption, trusting another family to love the child you birthed into adulthood.
I want you to know I am praying for you if you've been like Pharaoh's daughter, called to love children who are not yours by birth (and thus the mother who brought that child into your life, even if it is complicated).
I want you to know I am praying for you if you, like many, are watching (or have watched) your mother age and disappear into the long goodbye of dementia.
I want you to know that I am praying for you if you, like Mary, are pregnant for the very first time and waiting breathlessly for the miracle of your first child.
I want you to know that I am praying for you if you, also like Mary, have watched your beautiful, black or brown-skinned baby murdered by the empire. And even still all you can do is weep and rage.
I want you to know that I am praying for you if you are a queer mama, or a trans mama doing the work of mothering your babies in a radical way that was not modeled for you.
I want you to know that I am praying for you if your children have turned away from you, painfully closing the door on relationship, leaving you holding your broken heart in your hands. And like Hagar, now you are mothering alone.
I want you to know that I am praying for you if motherhood is your greatest joy and toughest struggle all rolled into one.
I want you to know that I am praying for you if you are watching your child battle substance abuse, a public legal situation, mental illness, or another situation which you can merely watch unfold.
I want you to know that I am praying for you if you like so many women before you do not wish to be a mother, are not married, or in so many other ways do not fit into societal expectations.
I want you to know that I am praying for you if you carry the beautiful, exhausting, maddening, heart breaking, wonderful labor of mothering even though you do not have children of your own.
I want you to know that I am praying for you if you see yourself reflected in all, or none of these stories.
This Mother’s Day, wherever and whoever you are, we walk with you. You are loved. You are seen. You are worthy.
And may you know the deep love without end of our big, wild, beautiful God who is the very best example of a parent that we know.
Amen.
- A prayer for Mother's Day by Heidi Carrington Heath (based on a version originally by Amy Young)