Good morning friends. Today is a day full of the complexity of what it means to be human. All the joy for some. All the pain for others. And for many somewhere in between.
Joy can look like: you are proud of the relationships in your life that are nurturing and supportive. Maybe someone special will call you today or you them. Maybe you sent a card or flowers earlier in the week.
Pain can look like: the ache of someone who is no longer here or not able to be present in your life the way you hope. Maybe you've lost children or the hope of children and your life really has never been the same.
And the word we are talking about today is mom. A word that the dictionary offers us such a limited definition of: a female parent.
Author Anne Lamont in her annual Mother's Day post says this about the day:
"I hate the way the holiday makes all non-mothers, and the daughters of dead mothers, and the mothers of dead or lost children, feel the deepest kind of grief and failure. The non-mothers must sit in their churches, temples, mosques, recovery rooms and pretend to feel good about the day while they are excluded from a holiday that benefits no one but Hallmark. There is no refuge — not at the horse races, movies, malls, museums. Even the turn-off-your-cellphone announcer is going to open by saying, “Happy Mother’s Day!”
And I echo her sentiment. We so easily can sentimentalize the heck of out of day like this and forget the pain of others and how our words (even well-meaning) can be a source of others' pain.
But it doesn't mean joy isn't present too and if we feel joy we shouldn't lean into it.
Today, I'm celebrating all those who shaped me and modeled for me unconditional love. Today, I'm celebrating all the ways God has mothered me along with the way with beautiful nurturing people in my life.
So, what about you?
Wherever you are on your journey with the experience of the word mom, know that you are loved. You are seen. And if today is full of grief, the day will soon pass. Breathe in and out, rest in your belovedness, my dear readers. Don't feel the pressure by those around you to be or feel anything that isn't real today.
Most of all, let me tell you this: your Mother God loves you so.
XO
Elizabeth
