Mourning with Those Who Mourn on Mother's Day
Like a lot of doting children, I loved Mother's Day growing up. The holiday usually involved eating out at a fancy restaurant (not the norm for our family), where we gave my mom carefully composed cards and handpicked gifts. Even into adulthood, Mother's Day never caused problems for me.
And then I miscarried. Last Mother's Day was the first one where I felt deep down that I was supposed to be celebrating that day, yet my arms were empty. I should have had a one month old, not a spare bedroom filled with books and supplies we never used. Like many women, I dreaded the day, wishing I could sleep through it and wake up on Monday. And here I am, one year later, arms still empty due to infertility, still trying to make sense of this holiday. As Wendy Horger Alsup so helpfully said at Her.meneutics last year, Mother's Day can be a painful holiday for many women.
Maybe you are facing the first Mother's Day without your own mom. Maybe you are longing for a child, but financially cannot afford an extra mouth to feed right now. Maybe you have a wayward child, and all you want is for him to call you this Mother's Day and say "Mom, I'm saved." Or maybe you are like me, and are facing another Mother's Day plagued by infertility. It's easy to be overwhelmed by the commercials for cards and flowers and myriad of morning-show segments all dedicated to the one thing you want most. And then you throw in the Sunday morning church service, with its peppy messages to "all the moms out there," and you are now one conversation away from a meltdown.
It's interesting that even some outside of the Christian community want to combat the endless commercialization of the day by highlighting other important aspects of motherhood, like the fact that many women in underdeveloped countries die in childbirth. Others, like writer Anne Lamott, refuse to even celebrate the day because of what it can do to all the non-mothers out there. What is the Christian's response to all of this? Surely the answer cannot be to completely throw the proverbial Mother's Day baby out with the muddy, consumer-driven bathwater. Instead, Paul's simple exhortation to the Romans is a helpful framework for thinking through our response.
"Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep" (Rom. 12:15).
How do you obey the biblical command to "rejoice with those who rejoice," when rejoicing feels like a knife stabbing you in the heart?
The truth is sometimes it is just plain hard. Good news does not always come at convenient times. In fact, sometimes the news of a friend's pregnancy comes right after you have spent the morning weeping over your own inability to conceive. Sometimes the mother/daughter tea at church comes right after a low day of missing your own mom. This life is messy and sorrowful, something Paul understood when he wrote these words. Sometimes rejoicing with someone else means expressing genuine joy over their good blessing, while you wait bereaved and barren. This never negates the reality of our suffering, but it does help us to give honor where honor is due, especially on a day like Mother's Day. Motherhood is a high and glorious calling. In a culture where motherhood is increasingly under attack, we should be the first to embrace and honor the gift of motherhood, even if it is a gift we have yet to receive.
Auditing America's Political Integrity
RSS
Twitter
Facebook
Pinterest
Comments
Displaying 1–10 of 31 comments
See all comments
Cindy
Sue's comment is so true:For the most part, the church sucks at supporting any one who falls outside of the norm. It's almost as if they have forgotten that God was particularly concerned about those left out of standard family life (the widow, the orphan, the abandoned). It's almost as if the church has become too focused on the family, rather than being the family of God.
Ingrid Hewitt
This mothers' day was the 25th one that occurred since my mom died and my husband and I began the journey of infertility. This past year my darling mother-in-law has disappeared into the void of senile dementia. I do not have a mother and am not a mother. This is an annual revisiting of grief for me. Over the years I have spoken to my pastors about how painful mothers' day is for many many people and on a few occassions lip service has been paid to the pain of those for whom the word "mother" brings only pain or sorrow. For the most part, the church sucks at supporting any one who falls outside of the norm.
Terri
Thank you to those who replied to me. Of course the guy only asked me one question: "Are you a mom?" That didn't seem intrusive. After that he just rattled on trying to make it all better. OK, so I didn't have to respond to that. We do tend to forget the 'mourn with those who mourn' part. I don't know if it's just our culture or what, but we tend to try to talk people out of their pain... we think our motivation is that we want them to feel better, but I think really down deep we are flat uncomfortable with those emotions and want them to go away. I say "we" because I have that tendency too. On the flip side, I hope that someday I can rejoice with those who rejoice even when they're getting something I wanted but can't have. I don't want to be one of those people who makes everyone tiptoe around them.
Kari
I'm sorry for your loss and the pain of infertility. Thank you for ministering to others in the midst of it. May God fill your heart and arms. I spent many a Mother's Day weeping over our four babies; two miscarried and two born too soon. What you say is true of other holidays too. Everyone around us is saying, "OK, it's time to make sure you're happy" and on the inside there is always someone dieing and for so many reasons. Maybe because of broken relationships, financial worries, illness, sin... Even on any "regular" Sunday, we are saying "praise God and we're so happy in God" but there will be people in the congregation who don't feel it because their pain is too deep at that moment. Let's take your well-written words from your heart of pain and remind ourselves to rejoice and mourn with each other always. Ask the mourner how you can help them, how you can acknowledge them. Include in the public prayers and the songs at church acknowledgement of sorrow and loss. Let's help each other figure out how we can find joy in the Lord even through our darkest hours.
Kelly
I don't mean to downplay the pain from your mother, because I had a lot as well. I don't like to even talk about it anymore, and not because it brings up pain, but because I have forgiven her. I won't go on and on about what it was like, but my mother was a violent alcoholic, she never loved me (and my siblings agree, she only loved my older brother), and we even thought she might kill us during the night when we were sleeping. I held it all in until I was about 24, because back then there was nobody to turn to, and I thought it might reflect badly on me, etc. I celebrated Mother's Day by getting her cards, and stayed on the best terms that I could until she passed away. She had stopped drinking her last few years, however, she still loved just my older brother. God tells us to honor our fathers and mothers and I did the best I could. Being as this is a Christian blog, I am suggesting that you do your very best to forgive her, because hanging on to hurt and being bitter about it never hurts the person who hurt you, it only hurts yourself. I suggest praying to God to ask Him to help you forgive. If you're able to talk it out with someone, that helps bring some healing too, it hurts to have it bottled up inside. I realize that in my parents cases, it had been happening for at the very least, 3 generations, and I'm pretty sure it went farther back than that. But I know for a fact that I would have been the 4th generation if I had continued in their footsteps. Maybe realizing that they also may have had horrible childhoods can bring you some understanding as to why they were that way and help you on your way to forgiveness. I made up my mind when I was little that I was going to break the cycle. I have also been a believer for as long as I can remember, so I am sure that God helped me heal. It did take time for the healing to happen, but it has healed 100%, and it can for you too, with the help of Jesus.
Anonymous
thank you for this post! to add to the perspective, not everyone has a good mom and some are mourning for different reasons. my husband's mother completed suicide several years ago and needless to say, mother's day has been hard ever since. he avoids church and mother's day activities. it's a perspective most people don't think about since everyone assumes that all mothers are amazingly supportive people. and most are...but not all of them.
CaterpillarLegs
P.S. for Terri who said, "During the meet & greet, a man who's a bit older that me and is a passing acquaintance asked, "Are you a mom?" Which seemed thoughtful. But when I told him 'no,' he said, "Well, maybe you will be someday." Terri, one of the things I've learned as I've gotten older is that we are not obligated to answer every question put to us. If you find such questions insensitive or intrusive, you can either ignore the person/the questions (don't say anything at all), or straight up tell the guy, "That is none of your business." I have long gotten over the feeling that being a Christian woman means I have to tip toe around other people's feelings and treat them with kid gloves if they're in the process of dumping on mine.
CaterpillarLegs
Anonymous said, "And I say there is absolutely no reason for churches not to honor mothers. But since God Himself tells us to honor them, I see no need to hide it in a back room because someone else is going through pain." I don't care if I have kids or not, but your comments seem a little insensitive to people who find Mother's Day, and other holidays, painful. especially if they are incapable of having kids of their own, or ones who cannot adopt. As a middle-aged Christian woman who wanted marriage, but it never happened, it is extremely painful for me to attend a church service where the pastor spends the entire sermon going on about motherhood. Even the brief moment where the pastor asks all mothers in attendance to stand in acknowledgment, or to be given a flower, can be a like a dagger in the heart to some women. I'm very traditional, as in I believe one marries first, then has sex with the spouse, and then has a baby. So any talk of motherhood and babies, etc, is a reminder I've never married, and it is upsetting to me. Also, my mother died a few years ago. These pastors hardly ever mention people like me who are grieving the loss of a mom. Churches also ignore older, single, never married Christians. All the obsessive fixation on the nuclear family can make never married, older Christians with no kids feel like second-class citizens and forgotten. To Terri who wrote, "During the meet & greet, a man who's a bit older that me and is a passing acquaintance asked, "Are you a mom?"" I know what you mean, Terri, and I'm sorry you went through that and the guy hurt your feelings. I experience something similar when I attend new churches (I stopped going to church because of all the clueless Christians who say painful, offensive, or judgmental things). I'm a never-married, middle aged woman (never had kids), and I wanted to be married. Often when I go to a new church, the greeters ALWAYS ask me, "So how many kids do you have," or "How long since your divorce?," and their assumptions are painful and make me angry. By the way, I sometimes have a hard time on or around Valentine's Day, because some pastors choose to honor the married couples in attendance at church. The TV pastors and Christian television shows also bombard viewers with Valentine's Day shows, or sermons on marriage at that time of year. I wish more Christians would wise up and realize not every Christian is married, has been married, or has children (or they need to realize and mention that some Christians had children, but those children died).
Struggling
Courtney, I am SO GRATEFUL to find this post today. We are also struggling with infertility and I was almost sick to my stomach this morning because I dreaded going to church so much. Knowing that someone else is struggling with the same thing and who also feels the same way about Mother's Day makes me feel a little less neurotic! ;) I made sure to sit with a friend who lost her mother at a young age. We mourned the day together and I think it was exactly what we both needed on a difficult day.
Terri
Me again. I SWEAR I will stay home next Mother's Day, unless I'm in a much better place emotionally. During the meet & greet, a man who's a bit older that me and is a passing acquaintance asked, "Are you a mom?" Which seemed thoughtful. But when I told him 'no,' he said, "Well, maybe you will be someday." I said no, it's a bit late for that. (menopause) To which he replied, "Well, you could adopt!" (I did NOT reply that it didn't seem likely, as my husband is disabled.) I bawled through the next song. Thank God for my girlfriend who wrapped her arms around me.
*