Two very different Mother’s Days

On the same day, in the same family, two very different experiences; one joyous without a care, the other full of turmoil and grief.

Not that all mothers who ‘should’ be joyous are, for some experiences of Mother’s Day are hellish even when we have every reason to be grateful.

We feel a very close bond with mothers and fathers who have lost children, or who haven’t yet had children, or have struggled or do struggle to fall pregnant. Mother’s Day can be agonising for them. There is an emotional emptiness borne within them that makes their heart’s sick, and there is nothing we can do to help other than to validate the lonely, grievous experience and to sit there with them if they would allow us.

Like all “Day’s”, there are those that hate them for what they themselves are reduced to, for the pain they bear, alone and unacknowledged, and for the hopes that once again lay dashed on the rocks of a hard life.

Then there are those who feel guilty for the joy they should feel, because there is some sense of confusion for what should be felt, but isn’t. That’s a whole other story that can, at times, feel grossly unfair—“I shouldn’t be feeling like this! I don’t understand!” This is all too normal!

Others are on top of the world; a Mother’s Day of the Ages. But soon the day slips into the oblivion of experience and there is even morning that, like birthdays, these halcyon experiences just don’t last.

And, there are so many families where the highs and lows of heaven and hell are experienced on the same day, even under the same roof! All this within the ambit of human experience.

Whatever we feel on Mother’s Day, and especially if your experience is lonely and unacknowledged, my prayer is you feel the love of the Lord of your creation.

He loves you with a love that transcends all human love and all human experience.

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash