Happy Mother’s and Other’s Day!
You may want to scroll right over this post, especially if you are celebrating Mother’s Day being carried on the shoulders of adoring children, while your emotionally communicative husband showers you with verbal praise and rose petals… while your own, living Mother and Mother-In Love are in your home preparing your breakfast and cleaning your house, because they know how hard you work.
If that’s you, Fantastic! Glory in it, Honey! But skip this- because it will make no sense.
If your Mother’s Day is something other than Precious is having… You might take a minute.
First, Happy Mother’s Day!
Second, I think the Holy Spirit grieves today.
Can you even imagine how much worship God will be robbed of today?
In churches especially, how many rows will be filled with silent women—women longing, women wishing, women exhausted, frustrated and worn out by the children they do have. There will be women grieving, women melting, women trying so hard to be brave today that every ounce of energy is focused on keeping tears contained.
Many women missing, regretting, wanting precious seasons missed or precious seasons back, women feeling disconnected, free-floating untethered to the women who have gone on, women expectant, women disappointed, women resenting.
And the women who do have joy, trying to suppress it so it doesn’t seem thoughtless or boastful.
So many missed opportunities to worship God, who is still GOOD, still in control, still being faithful to complete HIS good works. Why do we give ourselves unwarranted permission to determine His goodness based on our circumstances or feelings on this one day?
I have both a mother and child and you know what it guarantees me? Nothing.
My heart is heavy today thinking about the challenges my precious mother has today and how I can’t help it, I’m filled with sadness and anxiety for my sweet Mimi The Great and how her life changed and the peace I wanted her to have in Christ. I’m sober about the challenges my kids face in this sinful world and if given enough time I would kick myself in the head over the thousand ways I should be a better woman, wife, and mother.
And I can’t conceal it with a smile, because it would seem insensitive and I can’t openly grieve it, because someone would remind me how grateful I should be today. I just can’t do it today. I don’t have the energy to be stoic or the time to be anxious. It can all wait until tomorrow.
Today, I need Jesus too badly.
There’s a reason this is not a Biblical holiday. Holy Feasts are never about men or women. Never about our victories or achievements—all things subject to perspective.
They are about God.
His faithfulness, His provision, His protection, and Goodness.
They are about God, alone—because He never disappoints. True, we may be “disappointed”, but it shouldn’t be with Him. He is matchless, perfect, purely just, purely loving, purely merciful, and purely holy.
We might be disappointed with our understanding of His will or His time. But scripturally we are in no position to think less of HIM.
This day is man-made and subsequently it is subject to the errors of man. Any day where the emphasis or focus is on A PERSON or A LIFE, the experiences, or circumstances that should be present—it will disappoint, at some point. Also based on that person, life, experience, or circumstance.
Sweet friends, if you are waiting for a title, role, person, or position to give you everything you want or be everything you need, you may be satisfied for a season. But ultimately you will starve.
The beaming new mother today, will be weary next year, then proud, then sad, then longing. Every emotion that goes with the cycle of life and hearts will take place and because it takes place on this specific Sunday, we give it power over us and decide our day—MY DAY—YOUR DAY was or will always be either bad or good based on current circumstances and the state of our heart.
This is not MY DAY. THIS IS THE LORD’S DAY.
The woman who began Mother’s Day to honor the work of her mother, boycotted it a few years later, disappointed that it had become something it was never intended to be. It lacked the sincerity and thoughtfulness she had initiated and had become a money-making, commercialized, emotion driven opportunity to capitalize on women.
Isn’t that so the Enemy? He takes things intended to be lovely, joyful, grateful, and blessed and ruins them. Sweet sister, whether Mother or Other today, don’t let him do that to you.
Don’t let the enemy make this a day to compare, a day to evaluate your worth, what is fair, what was deserved or undeserved.
Maybe the Lord intends to encourage you today, but it’s missed by eyes that never look up, by hearts closed to company.
Precious Daughters of the King are every one of us. This is His Day. Come into His presence. Come to be healed, encouraged, comforted, inspired, and loved. He never disappoints.
Happy Mother’s Day.
Redeem it or release it.
But don’t give it so willingly to your enemy.
Thank you
Oh my goodness, how this touched
my heart! So very powerful and true! Happy Mother’s Day, Sara, on the Lord’s Day!
Amen! I think the hardest thing is expectations. Mother daughter banquets when you don’t have daughters, children who live far away, daughters-in-law who want to be mothers and can’t and the disappointment when you admit that you are relieved because your son and she can’t raise themselves much less children. God IS wise.
Wish I had these words years ago! Thank you for them now.
I have had some of these thoughts, but you, once again, have Boldly put it all out there again! Truth
Thank you!
And may you be blessed each of your days, because you always give God His due and Glory!
Camille Piland